I am a Christmas music nut. When the season rolls around, I overdose on the stuff on my car stereo and boom box. I am one of those “heretics” (liturgically speaking) who fills the Sunday morning worship time with Christmas carols from the first Sunday of Advent all the way through Epiphany.
I know, we’re not supposed to do that. We’re only supposed to do “Advent” hymns before Christmas Eve. Then we have Christmas Eve and the following two Sundays to sing our carols. That’s the liturgically appropriate thing to do: don’t jump the gun on the birth of Jesus.
Friends, I have an announcement to make: the birth of Jesus is long past! While re-living the event is a great way of re-telling the story of what God has done, we must avoid reducing the story to the level of Santa coming down the chimney every year. (Yes, it is we supposed “literalists” who object the strongest to the Santa mythology.) The fact that Jesus Christ IS born (centuries ago!) is why we can belt out a good, strong “Glory to the newborn King!” at the end of November — or any time of year.
I see it as a great tragedy when we limit explicitly Christmas songs to December 24 and the following two Sundays. My main point: We have such a huge treasure of faith contained in a collection of carols that won’t even fit into the seven services we will do from Thanksgiving through Epiphany (even at four songs per Sunday, plus extra on Christmas Eve). I get downright excited at the wealth of music and lyrics that God has inspired through the birth of Jesus, from “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child,” to “What Child Is This,” to “O Holy Night!”
Where else is the world going to hear this treasure? The shopping malls and airwaves are crammed full of “Jingle Bells,” “Santa Baby,” and “I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas.” And the world won’t hear religious carols in schools, except for rogue criminal districts that are hiding from the ACLU. How is the world going to hear more than the tiniest fraction of this treasure, if we limit it to two Sundays per year?
The other reason I advocate Christmas music during Advent? In the view of the surrounding culture, the Christmas season IS the period we call Advent. The average person walks into church on December 28 and is not expecting to hear Christmas carols, because in their view, the season has come and gone. It would be convenient if we could convince the world to celebrate Twelve Days of Christmas from December 25 until January 6. But that’s not a cultural battle that is at all worth fighting, in my estimation.
Let’s celebrate Jesus’ birth in song throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons. We’ve got too much treasure to squeeze it all into two Sundays.
TOM HOBSON of Belleville, Ill., a PC(USA) pastor for 27 years, has degrees from Gordon-Conwell (M.Div.) and Concordia (Ph.D.), and is currently seeking a call.
