The Christ-child of Christmas

Christmas remains one of my favorite seasons of the year, and I think it is the Christmas carols that speak to me the most. I couldn’t help but smile to myself this past Sunday: the service started out with some up-tempo, contemporary praise and worship music, prompting smiles of enjoyment to flicker between faces. At the conclusion of the service, we sang a few Christmas carols which failed to produce the same spark amidst the younger generation. To me, however, my heart sang beyond what any smile could ever convey. You see, I have been listening to Christmas carols since I was “itty-bitty” and “What Child is This?”—the carol we were singing—has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, its minor-based melody line and exquisite lyrics a combination obviously inspired in heaven.

I guess I am not like my generation. At home, I listen to some pretty heavy music to be sure (though to be fair, this represents only a portion of my musical interests: my tastes are eclectic and far ranging). But there is just something about the old traditional hymns of the church, and in particular the Christmas carols, that have a depth and beauty I fail to find in contemporary church music. I suppose this is because I have grown up listening to this music all my life, but yet it seems as though, “When I hear the bells on Christmas day, / Their old familiar carols play” I am overwhelmed by their beauty. This would definitely be in accord with Lewis’ talk of Sehnsucht, or the longing for joy. And then too, I suppose this is reflective of my taste in art: I like the stained glass and the steeples and the church pews and the pipe organs much more than I like the gymnasium sanctuaries (sanctinasiums as they are called) and the chairs and the modern architecture with the polyurethane pulpit. To me, the churches of old spoke of a reverence and awe and worship the new does not seem to convey: to me, I felt as if I were truly in a “sanctuary,” a safe place where I could clear my thoughts and meet God in the silence of the vast spaces. If we carry this personal preference out further, you would likely not be surprised to learn that I prefer the quiet and peaceful to the loud and energetic, particularly when I wish to rest in the adoration of my God and my All. I suppose sanctinasiums remind me of the real world—the rat race and the hustle and bustle—and the sanctuary reminds me of generations gone by where my imagination has had the chance to brush the halls with the same rosy color of gold that the artist used to paint the halos of the Saints.

As the melody of “What Child is This?” glided over my ears, the well-worn words “Haste, haste, to bring Him laud, / The Babe, the Son of Mary,” were carried home to my heart. Looking around me at my urbane peers, I had to wonder how many even knew what the word “laud” meant. It means, in essence, praise to the highest degree: adoration would be an even better exchange of words. As we sang, I nearly swooned from the sheer beauty enrapturing my senses, and, as selfish as this may sound, I could not have cared one whit less that my peers seemed not to appreciate this music. They can have their flash and pizzazz and toe-stompin’ skidaddle—it does have its place, I suppose—but I’ll take my beauty. Now you could chalk this up as a sort of nostalgia, and perhaps you would be correct in doing so. But for me, at least, for one brief moment in time, the whisper of eternity was once again wafting on the gentle breeze: the shutters of heaven flew open, and if only for one moment—one achingly beautiful moment—I was caught up into the inner chamber of paradise into the very throne-room of the Father, His glory descending down upon me like a veil. Maybe you could say it’s because I was so young when I first learned to love these songs; you could say that they symbolize something of lost innocence or the wonder of youth. And from whence, I query, cometh the whisper of eternity, if not from the land of perpetual innocence and youth where beauty is the language spoken not only among its citizens, but even by the mountains and hills that cry out in praise and the rivers and the trees of the field that clap their hands and sing such beautiful songs that nothing here on earth could e’re compare?

You know, Christmas may be many things to you. It may be a time of chaotic fuss, a time of loneliness and sorrow, a waste of time, just another day of the year. But it is my prayer that this Christmas you capture something of the childlike: something of the gleam that Christmas set in your heart as a child. I pray that the baby Christ-child might rest in your arms and your heart, a bundle of beauty and joy that stills the hollowness, hunger, and ache of your soul with its radiance. Around you might be the straw of the stables, the dung of the cattle, the smell of the barnyard rising to meet your nose: but all is exactly as it should be. This is rural simplicity where you won’t see signs and shopping carts and Santa Clauses and crowded streets and angry consumers and red nosed reindeer and toys that cost arms and legs and hands and feet: no, you will see nothing but Jesus, the cattle, the light of a lantern, and a manger filled with hay. And oh yes . . . you’ll see me.

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