Every Christmas there are a few songs that I’d never noticed before, but suddenly I can’t escape. I usually discover (or finally pay attention to) at least a few unfamiliar gems. Last year, I was mercilessly persued by the infinitely creepy “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (most scarring moment: “Say, what’s in this drink?”) and the schmaltzy charm of the “Christmas Waltz” (line burned in my brain: “And this song of mine/in three-quarter time/wishes you and yours/the same thing, too”). Oh yeah, and the catchiest absurdity of the season, Nat King Cole’s “I’m the Happiest Christmas Tree.”
This year was a good year. Thank you, Sufjan, Sarah McLachlan, and assorted cast. I was the beneficiary of three sweet and low carols that kept the incarnation in ear’s reach for the last several weeks: “In the Bleak Mid-Winter,” “Once in David’s Royal City,” and “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”
(By the way, I’ve been digging the site on those first two links the last month. The third site is just cool for the art).
These songs unearth – or maybe enearth – something about the mystery of this event and the hope of this time of year. From “In the Bleak Midwinter:”
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
And, “Once in Royal David’s City:”
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Savior holy.
What I’m most enjoying about these songs, though, is that they make the Advent connection between the hope of Jesus’ birth and the promise of Christ’s return.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
And,
Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in heaven,
Set at God’s right hand on high;
Where like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around.
What I love about “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming,” besides all the hilarious archaisms, is this repeated phrase: “Amid the cold of winter/ When half spent was the night.” Roman calendars be darned, this is finally a reason to have Christmas in December. Here we are, furthest from the sun, and a sudden star announces that the night is half over (as opposed to glass half empty) – the promise of a warming that will bloom in the spring of his reign.
I also think Sufjan does a pretty good job getting at the now-and-not-yet, in an appropriately concrete way:
