Advent 38: Underrated Christmas Carols

A favorite Christmas tradition growing up was going caroling all through town with my church. The best part was begging my dad (the pastor, and thus by default the proverbial caroling director) to sing Jingle Bells as often as possible, then fighting with my friend Dan over who got to shake the sleigh bells in time.

For some reason my Dad liked to throw "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" into the rotation, and it always caught the rest of us totally off guard. People knew the song all the way up to the word "clear" and then started very rapidly tapering off giving confused looks to one another while halfway humming or mouthing the word watermelon, but my Dad was determined and just kept belting out every single one of those obscure lyrics until the bitter end of the 4th stanza while the carolers just listened and the homeowner stood at the door totally puzzled and slightly concerned. My sister and I shrugged and giggled.

Ever since, it's been near the very bottom of my personal Greatest Hits of Christmas list. But I turned to the first devotional in this year's family advent guide, and goshdarnit there it was, starting things off with a bang, just like my determined Dad. If there's one way to make sure your kids don't want to do Advent Devotionals, I'd put my money on starting with a rousing rendition of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. (Better to start with Jingle Bells.)

Still, giving the benefit of the doubt, I read the words. And though they are dense and old-fashioned and a little tough to chew through on first pass, with the same amount of tenacity Dad always needed to carry the choir through, I stuck with it and found them in the end to be vividly poetic, robust, and right on time. Still not the song I would choose (sorry Dad), but with something valuable to say nonetheless. See what you think:

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

I don't have to tell you our world is a mess. Maybe it's Facebook, maybe it's Fake News. Maybe it's the President, maybe it's his opponents, or maybe it's just us getting older and being more aware of what's happening around us, worrying about our kids, worrying about the future. I don't know. You know what I'm talking about, though. Whether it's on a Global scale, or a National scale, or just in the individual everyday lives of my coworkers, my family, my friends, my neighbors...things look and things feel darker and heavier and more chaotic than ever.

I don't think things were much better back then, two millennia ago. Sure, the world was smaller and life was slower, which probably helped in a lot of ways, but life and its humans were every bit as dysfunctional. Always have been.

And because of it all, and despite it all, and into it all, God entered. He moved into the neighborhood, stared its darkness in the face.

It Came Across a Midnight Clear speaks of the bold proclamation of Peace that the Angels sang into a dark world that needed it desperately.

In the second stanza, it calls our modern world weary, which I would say is an appropriate descriptor for today. But that same song of Peace continues on, it asserts, even though it is being drown out by "Babel sounds" -- sounds of making a name for ourselves, sounds of arrogance and pride, division and selfishness, conflict and strife. (Gen 11)

In the third stanza, it speaks more personally to those of us who feel "low," who "toil" beneath "life's crushing load" with "painful and slow steps." It invites us, exhorts us, to "rest" and to "hear." To listen for the song again. To be reminded of the beautiful sound of the cosmic fulfillment of God's glorious promise that started at Christmas.

In the fourth stanza, it fixes our gaze where it should be, to our eternal hope in this present age of waiting, when the whole world will finally join the angels in the same song, at last acknowledging the Prince of Peace in a way that will right every wrong once and for all.

The song's not a bad way to start Advent 2018 after all.

I've been thinking of Advent as an act of rebellion against a season and culture that screams to distract us. This carol is begging you to do the same. Not just to rebel against the consumerist mania that reigns between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, but also against the endlessly troubling news cycle and the divisiveness and cynicism that so easily comes with it all year round, against life's crushing load.

If you are feeling the effects that load, if you are feeling that you toil through life with slow and painful steps...do not succumb to the insanity and its despair, but rather take time, make time, fight for time to listen and remember, to "rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing."

They are still singing: "Glory to God in the Highest! And on Earth, Peace among those with whom He is pleased!" (Luke 2:14)

He who has ears, let him hear!

We look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen! For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Cor 4:16-18)

At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-11)

In other words, Advent tells us there is still, despite it all, hope for Peace. That sounds foolishly simple and naive, but that is what the Christian tenaciously believes. It looks a lot like a man going all in on soloing four stanzas of an obscure Christmas carol while the rest of the world sings Jingle Bells. So be it. Hear the angels sing, then join in, sing on, don't stop.