Behind Day 15 of my Advent Calendar is:
SLADE FRONTMAN NODDY HOLDER – NOW AND THEN
It is now 50 years since Slade topped the charts with ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ and a week today we will learn who will have the honour of being this year’s Christmas number one.
No doubt many of us will have at least one CD which has on it a collection of the classic tracks that have become such an important part of what for many is ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ and each of us will have our own personal favourite. But amongst all the genuinely great songs out there, there are one or two that contain lyrics that are, to say the very least, somewhat bizarre.
Take, for example, Chris de Burgh’s ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’ which suggests that an extraterrestrial came to earth 2000 years ago, travelling here in his intergalactic space craft to break the good news of peace and goodwill to all men. And then there’s ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’ which, whilst being part of the genuinely admirable money raising efforts of Bob Geldof, seems to suggest that Christmas might go unnoticed by those who have the least rather than being longed for all the more.
But it’s not just the songs that make up our party playlists that contain some strange lyrics – so do some of the carols that are sung in church. Take that staple of a countless infant nativity plays, ‘Away in a Manger’. Given the fact that scripture informs us that Jesus was ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’ [Isaiah 53:3] and that ‘Jesus wept’ at the tomb of his good friend Lazarus [John 11.35], it seems unlikely to me that, when woken by a herd of lowing cattle, ‘the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes’.
And then there is the much loved ‘In the bleak midwinter’ which gives the impression that there were subzero temperatures and deep snow in Bethlehem when Jesus was born. Now I’m not saying that this is totally out of the question but given how a quick Google search reveals that the average snowfall in Bethlehem is no more than a couple of inches a year, and that the Bible makes no mention of wintry conditions at the time of Jesus’ birth, it would appear that Christina Rosetti’s words owe more to the romanticised notions of how those in the west like to imagine the first Christmas than to any meteorological reality.
That said, there are some carols that contain wonderful theological truth, including ‘In the bleak midwinter’ itself which, in its much more profound second verse, manages to convey something of the paradox of the one who holds the whole world in his hands taking up residence in a young girl’s womb. The verse begins with…
‘Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away, when He comes to reign’
…before going on to describe how the Lord of all creation humbled himself by becoming, not only a vulnerable baby boy, but one for whom ‘a stable-place sufficed’.
Another great Christmas carol containing wonderful biblical truth is Charles Wesley’s ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. If there a finer sound to be heard on Christmas morning than that of this magnificent hymn being played by an organist who, quite literally, has pulled out all the stops, then I’ve not heard it. And what a joy it is to add to the noise by joining with others and singing words that announce, so much better than John Lennon ever did, that war is over:
‘Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled’
The hymn continues with an exhortation for everyone to see that the ‘offspring of a virgin’s womb’ is none other than God himself…
‘Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see!
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emanuel’
… before finally reiterating just why it was that Jesus came:
‘Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth’
It’s all tremendous stuff , and surely the best Christmas song of all time – save perhaps for the one that was originally sung by a choir of angels in a live performance that took place over the fields not that far from little town of Bethlehem. The lyrics may be familiar to you, found as they are in Luke 2:14
‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’
*****
Sadly there is no recording available of what took place on what was surely far from a silent night. So instead for today’s song we’ll go with the carol that their anthem inspired. I do hope that you’ll all enjoy singing this majestic carol at least once over the coming weeks.
Previously from ‘A Christmas Countdown’:
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 14’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 13’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 12’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 11’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 10’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 9’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 8’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Part 7’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 6’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 5’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 4’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 3’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 2’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 1’, click here
To read ‘An Advent Calendar – Complete’, click here
Some musings 