One of the things I really enjoy about the Christmas season is hearing those wonderful Christmas Carols, the ones we not only sing in our church gatherings, but also hear playing in the background as we walk through the shops or stand in line at the bank, or stop for a coffee to warm ourselves on a crisp winter morning. In all of those places, as well as others, I have found myself being carried away in my mind by the familiar melodies, and then suddenly struck by how these songs, all of us have sung over and over again, contain within the biblically informed lyrics the greatest truths ever revealed to humanity.
It is amazing to think of how many consumer outlets that have so obviously missed the true meaning of Christmas are inadvertently sharing the good news of Christmas through their holiday setlists. Ironic! In a good way.
I remember one time, as a lost and confused teenager, being out shopping during the holiday season and finding myself humming along with the familiar melody to the song “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and then catching, maybe for the very first time, the lyrics, “Christ came to free us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray …” I do not remember much else about that moment, but it was a powerful revelation of the true meaning of Christmas.
Over the years, I have come to appreciate these beautiful hymns more and more. As a pastor, I would draw on many of them in my Christmas sermons, sometimes quoting a line or two and, on a few occasions, taking the entire hymn as my text. The lyrical content of Charles Wesley’s great Christmas hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is a theological treatise on the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the New Birth all in one poetic masterpiece.
Another one of my favorites, written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks, the Rector of Boston’s Trinity Episcopal Church, is “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” At first, it almost seems like a child’s song, a sweet melody with homey words about a little town. But before long, the song moves out into the deep waters of the gospel.
Here are the lyrics:
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
“For Christ is born of Mary;
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wond’ring love.
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King,
And Peace to men on earth.
. . .
“O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in;
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels,
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!”
Consider these lyrics from the first stanza and how they speak to us today:
“Yet in thy dark street shineth / The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight.”
Just as then, so now, the streets are dark, not merely because it is night, but because the world is evil. It seems that no matter where we turn, we are met with darkness. The darkness of war, murder, hatred, lust, greed, exploitation, oppression, etc. The darkness of innocent people being gunned down while celebrating a religious holiday in a place that we would never imagine such thick darkness dwelt. Christmas celebrations that have been observed for centuries in European cities are now disrupted by rioters offended by the attention given to the memory of the birth of Christ. There is more darkness than we could even begin to expose.
But let us not forget that just as then, so now, in the darkness shines the everlasting light. Despite the efforts of devils and men, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” And for those who have received Christ (the light of the world), we have an unshakable conviction that he will, in his time, answer all the hopes and fears of all mankind.
