Time for a Review

It’s Christmas—time for a review.  For at least the last month you have been learning a lot of theology—set to music.  In a recent post, I suggested parents who want to raise their children with a totally secular outlook must be careful at Christmas.  Oh, inflated Santas and snowmen in front yards won’t pose any hazard but those recalcitrants who insist on putting Nativity scenes in their yards or “Jesus is the Reason…” bumper stickers on their cars create a problem.  As do those stores and malls playing hour after hour of Christmas music:  “Jingle Bells” won’t cause a flutter, nor will “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (though I know a couple women who find this pseudo-Christmas classic offensive because it endorses bullying).  But when the likes of “Silent Night” or “Do You Hear What I Hear” are in the mix, your plans for a secular Christmas may go awry, especially if your child starts asking questions.  Then, too, in these circumstances, you’re not immune either.

Indeed, those of you who would never submit to listening to a sermon, much less a theology lecture, have hummed along with some pretty profound doctrinal statements as you've shopped for phones, toys, and ugly sweaters.

With that in mind, I offer this simple review.

First, you’ve heard affirmation after affirmation of a world beyond this one.  Carols from every age have spoken of angels and “realms of glory.” In short, dear listeners, you have been reminded we are not alone.  There is Another. 

There’s still plenty of mystery to go around but you’ve heard how Christmas recalls the Other coming down to be among us in the “little town of Bethlehem” and shepherds hearing the news: “God with man is now abiding.” Don’t allow familiarity to blind you to the fact the “Lord of all creation” invaded history at a particular time, in a particular place.  That’s what the invitation “veiled in flesh the Godhead see—hail the Incarnate Deity” is all about.  Just remember “Immanuel” and you’ll have the gist of it.

Then, second, if you’ve been listening, you have been reminded things are not the way they’re supposed to be.  You’ve heard descriptions—generalities, to be sure, but still undeniable—painting a bleak picture of a world suffering “with the woes of sin and strife.”  It is hard to look at what’s happening all around us and not agree ours is a “weary world;” a world where, as “far” as we look, evidence of “the curse is found.” Thanks to children’s stories like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Frozen” we tend to think of curses as something some malevolent entity has put on us; from the Biblical perspective “the curse” (with its attendant wars, murders, betrayals, and so on) is something we have brought upon ourselves.  Longfellow, in what must be one of the strangest carols, finds evidence of this curse in the fact “hate is strong” in the human heart, so very strong that brother will war against brother; but don’t forget that last stanza (look under "I Heard the Bells").

But those songs you’ve been hearing as you shop don’t stop with generalities.  Listen to how they describe you—ok, how they describe us.  We are “sinners” who have succumbed to “Satan’s power.”  You might prefer to think of this as “the hap-happiest season of all” but the songs remind us that without Christmas we would all live under “the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadow.”

That’s why you need to remember the third lesson:  There is reason for joy. 

America’s lovable agnostic Sheldon Cooper likes to point out that no one knows when Jesus was born and that December 25^th was chosen as his birthday to compete with the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, the pagan celebration of the winter solstice (you know, when the days begin to get longer). I suspect many Christians hear Sheldon’s rant and say, “Tell us something we didn’t know.”  Yes, there are some similarities in the way the Christmas is celebrated—gift giving, for example, though the Magi also have a claim to that tradition—but church leaders may have also wanted to say something important about Christ’s birth.  Remember standing in line to buy that stocking-stuffer and hearing Wesley’s buoyant carol calling us to “hail the Sun of Righteousness?”  The phrase is from Malachi (4:2).  In this imagery, the last book of the Old Testament predicts the coming of the Messiah who would bring “healing in his wings.”  So, in “the bleak midwinter,” just as there began to be more light in the natural world, church leaders thought it appropriate to celebrate the birth of the One who was the Light of the World. It was truly a time of “joy, joy, joy.”

Of course, even though this note of “joy to the world” runs through much you’ve been hearing, sometimes “good Christians” forget to “rejoice with heart and soul and voice.” They may even sound like skeptics like you.  As a reminder for all of us, I’ll focus on just one song you’ve probably heard.  It’s a relative newcomer but it’s packed with meaning (no reindeer running over grandmothers in this one). 

Written in 1991, “Mary, Did You Know?” has been sung by a variety of artists, ranging from Reba McEntire to Cee Lo Green.  Even a cappella groups like it; Pentatonix’s version was No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 2014 and I recently heard it sung at a Straight No Chaser concert.   

Of course, it reviews Jesus’s works on earth: “The blind will see, the deaf will hear….” But it also reminds us of his deeper work as the song asks Mary “Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? [Did you know] this child that you've delivered will soon deliver you?” 

But how can this Baby do that for Mary and for “our sons and daughters?”  The answer lies in remembering the identity of this Invader from the world that is beyond our world and yet part of our world.  For when Mary “kissed her little baby…[she] kissed the face of God;” when she cradled him in her arms she was “holding…the Great I Am.”

There’s your review.  Hope you do well on the test.
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