Christmas Songs and Stories
Merry Christmas.
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or wait this Christmas.
For most of my life, I hated O Holy Night. I saw it as schmaltz, almost always over-sung. Then I really thought about the text. And the history. Now I love it and seek out less overwrought versions that include the glorious third verse.
“His law is love and his gospel is peace.” At Christmas, the prophecy rings true.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. For those who lived in a land of deep shadows — light! sunbursts of light! You repopulated the nation, you expanded its joy. Oh, they’re so glad in your presence! Festival joy! The joy of a great celebration, sharing rich gifts and warm greetings. The abuse of oppressors and cruelty of tyrants — all their whips and clubs and curses — Is gone, done away with, a deliverance as surprising and sudden as Gideon’s old victory over Midian. The boots of all those invading troops, along with their shirts soaked with innocent blood, Will be piled in a heap and burned, a fire that will burn for days! For a child has been born — for us! the gift of a son — for us! He’ll take over the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness. His ruling authority will grow, and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings. He’ll rule from the historic David throne over that promised kingdom. He’ll put that kingdom on a firm footing and keep it going With fair dealing and right living, beginning now and lasting always. The zeal of God-of-the-Angel-Armies will do all this.”
This TBL will provide some wonderful Christmas songs and tell some Christmas stories, including some I’ve told before. Christmas is all about retelling and revisiting the familiar, after all.
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The Best Christmas Present Ever
My lovely bride and I were married in June of 1979, three weeks after she graduated from Wake Forest. Our honeymoon was wonderful but short because we were so poor.
We soon returned to North Carolina for my second year of law school at Duke. My LB found a teaching job. It paid $6,000 per year (almost $25,000 in today’s dollars), although summers were off. I was a part-time TA earning $2.30 per hour. We were very happy and very poor.
The local A&P had some very cheap prices when their workers went on strike in November. The workers’ demands were reasonable, and we wanted to support them, but there were always five or six hard-to-resist food items offered well below cost – most prominently whole chickens at $0.09 per pound – as an inducement to cross the picket line.
My very smart wife went to the leader of the strikers with an idea. She proposed that she would go into the store but only to buy the items sold below cost. That way, on a net basis, she’d be helping the strikers. We’d buy the rest of our groceries (to the extent we could afford them) elsewhere.
The steward agreed. Every week my LB would have a friendly chat with the strikers, go in and buy (just) the below-cost items, and return to finish the chat. It took several months, but the workers ultimately prevailed. We liked to think we helped a little.
We were still poor, of course. There was always month left at the end of the money.
We were planning to return home to our families for Christmas – our first one married. School was out on a Friday and we were hoping to leave that afternoon for the drive north, to my parents in Western New York first. We had hope and, perhaps driven by hopium, we even packed, but we didn’t know how we could do it. We hadn’t told anyone, but we didn’t have enough money even for gas.
When my LB returned to her classroom after lunch on that Friday, on her desk was an unsigned Christmas card containing $100. We never found out who the angel was, although we have our suspicions. It may have been a real Christmas angel, for all we know.
Correction: It was a real angel, no matter the source.
That was the best Christmas present we ever received. It conveyed the spirit of the season better than anything I could ever concoct.
May you share in Christmas joy this holiday season and throughout the year.
“Its inside is bigger than its outside”
In the seventh and final book of the C.S. Lewis Narnia series, after the last great battle for Narnia, with the kings and queens and faithful servants of Aslan pressed to the uttermost by foreign invaders and Narnian traitors, those loyal to the last king of Narnia, Tirian, are forced into a small stable at the top of a hill. At the start of the story, the stable held an unwitting Aslanic imposter, and now houses the terrifying god Tash, unwittingly summoned by invaders paying lip service to their own god. As the loyal Narnians are forced into the stable, they do not meet the grotesque Tash in the darkness of the barn. Instead, they find themselves in another world. Unlike most of the other of Narnia’s royalty, King Tirian has never traveled between worlds. So he peaks back through the stable door to see the fading fire beside the stable, Narnia on its last evening.
Tirian looked round again and could hardly believe his eyes. There was the blue sky overhead, and grassy country spreading as far as he could see in every direction, and his new friends all round him laughing.
“It seems, then,” said Tirian, smiling himself, “that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.”
“Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”
“Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
Christmas Obscured
Over a performing career that spanned four decades, concertgoers routinely paid a lot of money to hear Phil Smith play the trumpet. The long-time principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic retired in 2014 to academia after more than three decades in the orchestra due to a diagnosis of focal dystonia. In his first professional audition, while still a student, he won a place in the Chicago Symphony.
Still in his 20s, Phil came to New York following just his second (and final) professional audition. According to The New Yorker, “For the past thirty-six years [as of 2014], Smith has presided over orchestral trumpet playing, with a resonant, clarion sound and a reputation for never missing a note.” He was acclaimed by The New York Times for his “brilliant technique, elegant lyricism and wide range of colors.” He has been, inarguably, one of the world’s great musical performers.
“Music can touch people spiritually in their souls,” Phil says. “I try to let the Lord’s love reflect from me.”
Since we are talking about music, rather than my writing about Phil and his influence, you should simply hear him for yourself. Here he is playing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. Listen to how consistent, clear, and exact he is.
And here he is playing an excerpt of a very different piece – the brass chorale from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Listen to that perfectly struck last note just fade away.
Or to switch genres entirely, listen to Phil play his own lovely arrangement of the classic Gershwin tune, “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
If it doesn’t melt your heart, you can’t have been listening.
The classical music world is well tuned in to Phil’s greatness. Less well-known is that Smith grew up in a Salvation Army family, playing cornet on street corners and in church bands. As a teenager, Phil was gifted enough to make it into Julliard despite having had no formal training. His father, a Salvation Army cornet soloist, was his only teacher. You can hear Phil play a duet with his father below. Notice that the video has barely been viewed and provides no indication whatsoever that Phil became world-famous.
It may surprise you to learn that Phil never gave up playing with the Army, often anonymously. As the Associated Press reported, “Philip Smith trumpets for God by the little red kettle, when he can still find the chance. He loves the whole thing: The ‘Sharing is Caring’ sign. The elderly veterans who tell him how Salvation Army volunteers handed out doughnuts during World War II. The young people who stand appreciatively as he hits the high notes in ‘O Holy Night.’
“‘You’re terrific,’ one young man told him. ‘You should play music for a living.’”
Indeed.
I love to imagine Phil slipping out of Avery Fisher Hall after a performance with the Philharmonic near Christmas, changing jackets, and joining some Salvation Army brass in front of a kettle near Lincoln Center. He wouldn’t hear “Bravo!” there. In that context, people who had just paid a lot of money to applaud his virtuosity would routinely ignore him and his music. It would be as if he was a Christmas angel hiding in plain sight.
In nearly every context and situation, we routinely hear, see, and perceive exactly what we expect. No more and no less. Believing is seeing as much as seeing is believing.
Since concert-goers (or more precisely, concert-leavers) wouldn’t expect a world-class performer to be playing with the Salvation Army on a street corner for free, they weren’t likely to notice when one was doing just that. They would miss greatness by failing to expect greatness or even to consider that greatness might be lurking unawares.
Christmas is like that. There are obvious joys and beauty, of course: Lights, trees, decorations, presents, and music. But the best of Christmas is often obscured – like a world-class musician playing for the Salvation Army. Like a secret Santa allowing a young couple to go home for Christmas. Like an out-of-wedlock Baby-God born out back in the stable because there was no room at the inn.
Did Mary Know?
It’s a popular evangelical trope to hate on this song – of course Mary knew, you idiot (Luke 1:30-38). Allegedly, the song is “the most biblically illiterate Christmas tune” because “[a]nyone actually listening to the words who has even a slight familiarity with the biblical account of Christ’s conception and birth shouldn’t need to ask if Mary knew, because the Bible plainly tells us she did.”
But.
There’s a big difference between being told and knowing. She pondered (Luke 2:19). She couldn’t have begun to have known all of what her son would be and become. She hadn’t yet encountered the full power of the Incarnation. And which of us hasn’t doubted our calling, at least a little bit?
Drop the Blanket
America’s most famous Christmas sermon was delivered by a cartoon character. In the wonderful, climactic scene of A Charlie Brown Christmas, wherein he shares “what Christmas is all about,” Linus provides a clear and simple explication of the Christmas story. I have seen it many dozens of times.
I noticed something new, recently, when I watched yet again. Notice how, at exactly the moment he utters the words “fear not” (at 0:44), Linus drops his security blanket. If we’re going to make a proclamation of “fear not,” we need to make an effort to give up those things that offer false security.
I am reminded of Moses at the burning bush, who threw down his staff, his source of security, at God’s command.
We know, of course, that Linus picks up the blanket again, just like we keep grabbing for false security in various forms. May we throw it down, too, and keep throwing it down as needed.
Comfort and Joy
If you’ve seen one Hallmark Christmas movie, you’ve seen them all, which is not to say you won’t watch them all. Hallmark Christmas rom-coms adhere to stylized rules and a formula which, like Bach themes, allow for endless variations. They’re a different sort of Christmas decoration but, like regular Christmas decorations, they start showing up a little before Halloween. It usually goes something like this.
A Sad Single Woman has a good career in the city and a boyfriend everybody else knows is wrong for her. Despite her “perfect” life, she’s a bit sad, knows something isn’t right, and is lacking in Christmas spirit when she must return to the idyllic small town where she grew up for the holidays. Upon arrival, SSW runs into her high school sweetheart she admits remains easy on the eyes (or he’s a disguised royal). Anyway, he is obviously perfect for her. Fate puts them together to run the town Christmas Tradition that is in real trouble….
Why don’t I just show you?
After the old boyfriend is (agreeably) dispatched, an inevitable (but minor) misunderstanding with the new one resolved when she “goes to him,” and the small-town best friend convinces SSW to follow her heart, they discover together the true magic of the Season, sealed with a dry kiss under the mistletoe, and live happily ever after as fake snow falls and credits roll.
O. Henry it isn’t … and is, in that The Gift of the Magi became the source material for a 2010 Hallmark Christmas movie.
In the weeks leading up to The Big Day, Hallmark regularly ranks as cable television’s most-watched entertainment network in primetime. This year saw a slew of new Hallmark Christmas movies plus imitators from Lifetime, Netflix, HBO, Great American Family (the new upstart), Peacock, and others.
It shouldn’t be hard to figure out why. Hallmark movies offer tidings of comfort and joy by providing a delivery mechanism for one of the more powerful themes in literature – the longing for home. The novelist Walker Percy, for example, saw the key mystery of humanity in our inborn homesickness.
Every time someone asks if my children and their families will be home for Christmas, I get a lump in my throat. I get the same feeling on Christmas Eve, in church, receiving and passing candlelight while singing “silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light.”
This longing, this love, is endemic to humans. Maybe, just maybe, it reflects something universally true. Perhaps, as Frederick Buechner explained, “home, finally, is the manger in Bethlehem, the place where at midnight even the oxen kneel.” I call it the Hallmark apologetic.
May each of you truly be home for Christmas.
Loud and Deep
For me, the most powerful Christmas lyrics come from the “immensely moving, overwhelming” 1863 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They reflect their dark times.
And yet (don’t miss the final stanza).
I heard the bells on Christmas Day | Their old, familiar carols play, | And wild and sweet | The words repeat | Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, | The belfries of all Christendom | Had rolled along | The unbroken song | Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way, | The world revolved from night to day, | A voice, a chime, | A chant sublime | Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth | The cannon thundered in the South, | And with the sound | The carols drowned | Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent | The hearth-stones of a continent, | And made forlorn | The households born | Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head; | “There is no peace on earth,” I said; | “For hate is strong, | And mocks the song | Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: | “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; | The Wrong shall fail, | The Right prevail, | With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Totally Worth It
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“Our God, in whom we trust: Strengthen us not to regard overmuch who is for us or who is against us, but to see to it that we be with you in everything we do. Amen.” (Thomas à Kempis).
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The TBL Spotify playlist, made up of the songs featured here, now includes more than 240 songs and about 17 hours of great music. The TBL Christmas playlist is here. Whichever one you listen to, I urge you to listen in, sing along, and turn up the volume.
Sometimes, the best sermons aren’t even religious, at least overtly.
Benediction
Hear the story again: Tidings of great joy.
Gracious God, in this holy season of prayers, songs, family, gifts, laughter, and love, we praise you for the great wonders you have sent: for a shining star and angels’ Gloria, for the infant’s cry and a mother’s love. We praise you for the Word made flesh in a little Child who dwells among us, the King of Kings born in a feeding trough, all your grace in one tiny face.
Inspire us as we proclaim the ironies of Christmas: the incomprehensible made plain, the poetry shown true, the helpless Babe who breaks the world asunder to let in your glorious light. Your anthem drowns all music but its own, even when it’s a lullaby whispered by a teenaged mother in the darkness before dawn.
We kneel before you sheep, shepherds, innkeepers, oxen, wise men, asses. May we rise more than we are.
Amen.
Now, be blessed by a wonderful song offered by a reader.
Amen.
Thanks for reading.
Merry Christmas.
Issue 134 (December 23, 2022)
This is a beautiful letter Bob. You excel at capturing the spirit of joy and goodwill and wonder at the glory of our species’ creative power on our days of celebration. Happy Christmas and thank you for your writing.