I’ve got a few favorite Christmas carols. How about you? (And no, Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Here Comes Santa Claus does NOT count! haha!) One of my favorites is O Holy Night– I really love belting out the second verse:
“Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name.”
I also really like O Little Town of Bethlehem (this version by Kari Jobe) and Hark the Herald Angels Sing (especially by Charlie Brown and Friends). My second favorite carol, though, is Joy to the World especially the opening lines:
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.”
Here we are, the third week of Advent, remembering that Christ will come again someday to break our chains, and that all creation will sing sweet hymns of joy – even heaven and nature will sing with us! We don’t realize how potent, powerful and real are the lyrics we’re singing! All that is glorious and beautiful about Christmas will be fulfilled when Christ comes again – it’s what we work towards everyday. Merry Christmas indeed!
To use an agricultural metaphor, we might think of Christmas as a perennial kind of plant, the ones that come back year after year. But it seems to me that Christmas is more like an annual, a flower that has to be replanted every year in our hearts. We change so much from year to year – so much happens in those twelve months that at least for me, I need to replant the seeds of Christmas inside, again.
Jesus tells a parable in the gospel according to Mark about a farmer who went out into his field to sow seed. Some of the seed falls on the hard ground, where birds come and snatch it away; some of the seed falls in rocky ledges, where it grows but with shallow roots, such that it can’t withstand the heat of the sun.
Some (seeds of Christmas) fall in among thorny ground, and the worries of this life, deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke it out. But some of the seed falls on good soil, and it produces a bountiful crop of joy and peace for all.
For some of us we hear the Christmas songs and they go in one cynical ear and out the other. Some of us listen to the carols, but once the season is over, we forget about them until next year.
Others sing the songs with gusto, but then when suffering strikes, we sadly wonder – are the lyrics rooted in reality? But some hear the carols with a trusting heart, and then work to live them out in this world as it really is, all year round. Who are we this Christmas?
How to be joy to the world? Believe what you sing! Live what you sing! Hear Christ’s word to you in these Christmas hymns. Join in song and soul with others who hear these words of joy, accepting them as true, and become open to a heaven and nature that sings!
What’s a Christmas hymn that you could really pay attention to this season? One that you could let the gospel of Christmas get sown into your soul? What’s one carol that you could dwell in, inspiring you to work Christmas joy into your everyday life?
How to be joy to the world? Make room in your heart for joy- even if it’s space for a seed – for the poetic, lyrical, beautiful words of Christ Jesus the Lord, by which he teaches us to love one another.
“Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.”
