I've Been Thinking About Christmas Carols

I sat down a few days ago and spent several hours trying to come up with a rotation of Christmas carols to be used in our church services this year. As I knew would happen (because it always happens) I ended up in a discussion about whether or not we should even be singing Christmas carols during Advent. For those of you in churches that don't follow the liturgical year, Advent is the four weeks of preparation before Christmas Day, and some folks are very adamant that Christmas carols not be used during Advent. Something about the church giving in to the Christmas excesses that start so early now (I've seen artificial Christmas trees on the shelves in August!) Maybe there's something to be said for that. When one of our local radio stations announced that it was playing Christmas music "24/7" (before November was even over) I did sigh a bit - and within a couple of weeks I was getting increasingly tired of "Feliz Navidad." It's a wonderful song - the first 25 times you hear it within a couple of weeks. But, even if I might be accused of contributing to the Christmas excesses, I still use Christmas carols during Advent - not to buy into the secular Christmas excess, and not just because I like many of them, but because I think there's some very important theology contained in Christmas carols.

If I see a problem in many corners of the church these days it's that even Christians have a very poor understanding of the importance of the incarnation. The incarnation refers to the belief that in the life of Jesus, God became flesh and experienced human life, with all its joys and all its sorrows. To me, incarnation is central to Christianity. It is the ultimate sign of divine love - that the God who created the universe would love what he created so much that he would choose to become a part of it. That, to me, is love. Incarnation speaks of love. Incarnation is vital, as far as I'm concerned. But lots of people don't get it. And it seems to me that Christmas carols are a potential part of the solution.

Over the years I've learned that many people get their basic theological ideas from the songs that they sing or that they've heard. Songs tend to stick in our memories. They influence how we think or how we feel. Some songs can bring tears to people's eyes because they touch our emotions. Some songs can  make us think because they challenge us. Christmas carols it seems to me have the opportunity to do both. They remind us of happy times in the past and they help usher us into a season of good cheer, but they also confront us with the reality of incarnation.

Christmas carols are the only songs we have in the church that really speak passionately and overtly about the divine incarnation in Jesus. If, as a church, we choose to restrict their use to a 2 or 3 week period during the year then it seems to me that we should hardly be surprised when increasing numbers of Christians doubt the incarnation or at least doubt its importance. If the songs of incarnation aren't important enough for the church to sing outside the narrow window of December 24 to January 6, then what is the church saying about the importance of the message they contain? And, in any event, would God really disapprove of singing Christmas carols during Advent? I don't think so. Which is why I spent that time working out a rotation of carols for seevral services and not just a couple.