Carols and the Gospel (1 of 5)

After the previous post despising the American Christmas, I feel compelled to take action in the form of a five-part series of posts in the coming weeks. If we are to reinvent Christmas as a Christian holiday, it begins with throwing out tradition for tradition sake and emboldening Christ-centered tradition to take center stage. However, there are many Christ-centered traditions that are not as Christ glorifying as they can be, namely Christmas carols.

People with whom I have served in music ministry can describe the particular disdain I have for traditional carols. I would like to explain this in two brief ways. Firstly, songs sung too regularly and heard too often can numb the mind to the lyrics contained in the song. For example, if I asked you to sing the well-known carol, "O Come All Ye Faithful," it would most likely be no problem. But if I asked you what time of the day we sing that Jesus was born, it might be a little tougher for you. Surely singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" would be no problem for you. But if I asked you what "Gloria in excelsis Deo" meant, you might have a little trouble. Yet we sing them year after year, joyous in the tradition but oblivious to the meaning. Without meaning, you lose all Christ worship. Without Christ worship, why attend church? The answer: to worship the tradition. This leads me to my second reason. Christmas carols were not sung in churches and were not written to be sung in church until the mid-19th century. So almost ninety percent of the songs your church will be singing this December were not meant for Christian liturgy. That's a problem when churches continue to force them into their Sunday morning worship services.

So what can we do if we don't want to sit idly by while churches around the country will be singing songs with blatantly incorrect theology, archaic words whose understanding is missed by most of the congregation, and melody lines so familiar that our tongues can be on auto-pilot singing syllables and sounds instead of meaningful words and phrases? Let's begin with understanding the four most popular Christian Christmas carols within the Gospel with a Scriptural background. Maybe this will make you think before you sing this year. Maybe this will turn your next Christmas carol into a Christmas prayer. Hopefully, bringing the meaning out of these songs and sometimes putting meaning into the from Scripture can focus your heart and mind on Christ this Christmas season. Only this will bring glory to Christ and not waste our time gathered as a body to worship. Worshipping the Savior over the tradition starts here.

("Gloria in excelsis Deo = "Glory to God in the highest," from the angels song in Luke 2:14)

Coming soon...

"Joy to the World" (Carols and the Gospel 2 of 5)

"Silent Night" (Carols and the Gospel 3 of 5)

"O Holy Night" (Carols and the Gospel 4 of 5)

"Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (Carols and the Gospel 5 of 5)