The Christmas season is upon us Bloggers!
Please forgive my absence. Alas, school work is bearing down and the days grow frighteningly short for the amount of work left. However, I felt the following deserved a brief comment.
There are countless examples these days of how a majority of people (Christians even?) while celebrating Christmas completely miss the significance of it. This hit me tonight as I was studying and listening to Jewel's Christmas album. one of the few Christmas CDs that my wife added to our immense collection (have I mentioned that I love Christmas music?) Unfortunately, in an otherwise fine album, she includes the song: "God is Watching Us From a Distance" (made famous by Bette Midler a few years ago). While it is certainly a nice sentiment, it does not belong on a Christmas album because the one truth of Christmas is that God came near! The incarnation is the story of the once distant God taking flesh to walk among us. And with the coming of the Spirit, the remaining truth of Christmas is that he never leaves! Even death does not separate him from us. Thus, to put "God is watching us from a distance" on a Christmas CD profoundly misses the point.
Might I suggest to Jewel "O Come O Come Emmanuel" instead. For as Matthew tells us, Emmanuel means "God with us." And, in my mind, nothing grasps the true meaning of Christmas better than those three words.
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5 comments:
Excellent point, Jackson. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts on this blog. When I pull down my Favorites and go to The Communion of Saints, I love to see a new one there!
I know that you have a really busy and challenging workload for the next 2 weeks .... you are in my thoughts and prayers...as you already well know. Great Thanksgiving with you! Love, MomK
I choose "Welcome to Our World" by Chris Rice...that is the perfect Christmas song, I do believe. :)
Thanks for the encouragement and prayers Mom and Dad. Happy to report that I have been getting a lot done over these past few days. It is difficult to be apart from Julie (she is in Georgia visiting Ashley Kelley), but it certainly allows me to fully concentrate on this work. I'm feeling pretty good about where I stand right now.
Julie - ah yes! "Welcome to Our World" is one of the finest Christmas carols. Second only, perhaps, to Silent Night. And you know how I feel about that song. :) Will certainly miss Christmas in Wilmore this year, with all of its wonderful festivities, the highlight being the Advent service.
After reading this blog again, one of my favorite Christmas songs came to mind and now is happily stuck there and on my lips - an old seldom-heard one - a beautiful choral version of "Emmanuel, God with us" - wonderful words and harmonies.
Merry musical Christmas!
MomK
The person responsible this year for a fresh re-enactment of the Christmas Pageant wanted to make use of "From a Distance" (she heard the new Christmas album arrangement on Bette's "Cool Yule" album). As we talked today I told her I had actually spent a sermon talking about why the theology in the song is not Christian, in the sense of exactly "God with us." I classified it as a lovely form of benificent Deism.
Anyway, she was willing to drop it and find some other nice song to fit the details of the pageant theme. But I told her we can make use of it, "so let's keep it." We can allow the musical portion of the pageant to speak the same message as the coming of Christ in regard to the contrast between Christ and Culture. The first song speaks of what many people on the earth think of God, being "distant" even if benevolent. The climactic song would be that the Son of God is incarnate, and thus "with us" and not distant at all (even though we might feel that way from time to time). The key would be a fulcrum in the pageant, obviously the birth of Jesus, or perhaps a messianic prophecy, where the music changed. It would have to have just as much "hum value", and so I thought immediately of the praise chorus "Emmanuel, Emmanuel, His name is called Emmanuel. God is with us, revealed in us, His name is called Emmanuel." Or perhaps the chorus "O come let us adore Him."
While the pageant director and I were talking I had initiated a Google search for theological responses to the song, but she had to go before I looked through the list, save one. But here I find "The Communion of Saints" having a timely discussion of the same, including a discussion of alternative songs.
So, I've made my addition to the discussion above, and I will be looking at the songs noted here to see if they might also be incorporated.
Thanks for the discussion.
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