I have a confession to make.
I hate Christmas Carols.
I can hear the gasps - a Christian Minister who hates carols?!?
Old, boring, funny words. Inaccurate depictions of what was most likely to have occurred. Some questionable theology. Many slow and dirgey - Silent Night just about puts me to sleep.
But the past few days I've been tuned in to 96.3 on the radio - Rheema, and I've heard a few carols that have been modernized, and found myself singing along. This morning I could actually be seen and heard singing It Came Upon The Midnight Clear - I knew the melody from years of tenor horn playing, but it had been put to a sing-along tune with a modern beat.
And as I’ve been flicking through the Christmas Praise, looking at songs for Christmas Day, and for our caroling in the streets, I’ve been reminded to look beyond the music style to the underlying message. In each case the song writer has written a tribute and a testimony to the God of the universe becoming a human being.
A baby.
Even humbler than that, a baby born in a hick town via a woman raised in a bogan province. And she gave birth to the little guy where cows do their business.
Not the easiest story to write a hit song about.
Except that despite the ordinariness of the detail shines the story of a big shot (God) deciding that the best way to touch hard hearts was to get down on their level. Christmas is the story of the extraordinariness of the love of God.
So this year, rather than hating Christmas carols:
I will tolerate them! J
