Christmas music seems to pop up even before the Thanksgiving turkey is finished. You step into a department store and hear it through the loudspeakers. Turn on the radio and you’d think Santa is coming down the chimney any moment now. What about Advent carols?
A part of me wants to object. “Wait, it’s not Christmas yet. It’s Advent. A season of expectation. Don’t celebrate the arrival of the Christ Child so soon.” Should we really be singing—or hearing—all these carols?
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But then, what do we do at church? A couple weeks before Christmas has arrived we sing a service of lessons and carols, nine Scriptural passages read aloud and linked with a favorite hymn or carol. By the end I’m ready for the holiday to start. At least it’s had a start in my heart.
By now I’ve come to welcome those Advent carols I hear while doing my shopping. If anything, they keep Christ in Christmas, front and center. Here are a few of my favorite lines. Sing along to these Advent carols!
“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed.”
Probably the first carol I ever learned, and what a profound lesson in that opening phrase. Our Savior had none of the blessings of childhood we often take for granted. Forget the highchair, Jesus didn’t even have a crib. God comes to us in the humblest of circumstances.
“It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old.”
The life-changing messages can awaken us when we least expect, at the most unlikely of times. Just when you thought you were nodding off to dreamland, God can speak to you. Christ is coming, an Advent carol and message for all times. Come to think of it, both of our boys were born just after midnight…and this proud father walked home on clouds.
“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!”
Christmas happens in a place, your home, my home, your church, a loved one’s church home. You’re probably getting it all ready, putting up the decorations, hanging the lights, setting up the tree. All of it a reminder of the place Jesus was born, the little town of Bethlehem.
“Deck the hall with boughs of holly.”
Nature provides some of the best decorations, those boughs of holly marked with the red and green of the season, the tree that brings its fragrant scent into your home, the “blazing yule” log burning in your fireplace. We deck the halls as we deck ourselves, getting ready for Christ’s coming.
“The first Nowell the angel did say.”
Maybe your kids or grandkids are getting ready for the pageant at your church. I can still picture our sons flapping their tinseled wings down the aisle to that baby in the manger. I appreciate how this Advent carol reminds us that the announcement to the shepherds came first from one angel, and they were “sore afraid,” then there was “a multitude of the heavenly host.” The good news can be scary at first, then worth celebrating. Happy Advent. Christ is coming soon.
