Christmas Music

Howard Smolleck           

            Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are officially over, we are told. Worship planners are now looking toward Lent, Palm Sunday, Easter, and perhaps even Pentecost. For weeks, music catalogs, replete with lily and cross motifs, have featured Lenten and Easter selections.

            Christmas is over. Or is it? How many of you wonder, as I sometimes do, at the ease with which even we Christians tend to compartmentalize and shelve the celebration of the Incarnation, one of the greatest events in God’s chain of salvation for mankind?

            Let’s consider this from a musical viewpoint for a moment. Nearly everyone is aware of the fact that some of the greatest music of the Christian faith, whether in the form of a hymn, cantata, oratorio, instrumental selection, or vocal solo, centers around the events leading up to or following Christ’s birth. And yet how automatically do we, if only subconsciously, restrict the great music of this season to a few short weeks of the year! It is almost as if we build up a feverish expectation to experience the music of the Christmas season, and are then just as eager to relegate it, like a string of lights or a box of ornaments, to a back closet until the following year.

            Of course, as an organist, I’m not affected in this manner to any great extent. I love Christmas music, and I pull it out of the file, play it, purchase new Christmas music, and appreciate it privately all year. Even if I didn’t enjoy Christmas music, it is difficult for a church musician to escape from it. Yet, with the responsibility of selecting four or five “appropriate” instrumental pieces for worship each week,  I would feel a bit strange if I were to select and play three or four “Christmas pieces” in, for example, the middle of May.

            Do you wonder why we behave this way? We certainly don’t treat Easter or Pentecost hymns, for example, in the same way; we see no incongruity in using them all year. Why? Is there something so special about the season celebrating the birth of Christ that we shelve it for eleven months of the year? Let me venture an explanation in an effort to shed a little light on our behavior in this regard.

            Briefly, I am convinced that we believers tend to compartmentalize Christmas and its celebrations because we follow the world’s practices rather than Scriptural norms. The culture around us has appropriated the season of Christmas. This is more than self-evident. It is a time for songs and visuals centering about Santa Claus, reindeer, snow, beautiful lights and ornaments, a warm fire, and perhaps the surfacing of a type of goodness and social concern that is idealized but which is, in reality, somewhat foreign to a fallen humanity.

            The world has captured Christmas to a degree that it has not appropriated any other Christian holiday. The Easter bunny, for instance, cannot remotely compare with Santa (the latter brings more and bigger gifts, for one thing!) Furthermore, the cultural trappings of Christmas have subtly forced their way into our Christian institutions. Esther and I were surprised, a few years ago, to hear numerous secular selections (about reindeer, Santa, chestnuts, sleighs, etc.) on our local “Christian” radio stations around Christmas time. This was something totally foreign to our extensive previous experience with quality Christian radio on the east coast.

            Please don’t misunderstand. Few reflective Christians today (except, notably, members of  one or two cults or those with ultra-fundamentalist leanings) would tend to dissociate from the celebration of Christmas. Most of us enjoy hearing and singing secular as well as more sacred songs of the season. It is, and probably should be, part of our enjoyment. However, perhaps we should pause and thoughtfully reflect on what is really central in the season, and why we celebrate it as believers. In fact, the rampant secularization and commercialization of the season mandates that we do this.

            As masterful theologians have pointed out, the culture around us adopts the trappings of the Christmas season because they are comfortable and pleasant. There is something that appeals to the better instincts of humanity in thinking about a humble birth, a clear cold night (which might not really be Scriptural), expensive gifts brought from afar, angels (so popular in today’s culture!), and a spirit of “goodwill to men”. Humankind in its fallen state is not afraid of a small, helpless infant. A tiny baby, born some two millennia ago, poses little threat to any status quo. In fact, it is a boon for Madison Avenue. I recall hearing the tongue-in-cheek comment of one advertising executive who recalled the hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus” each November. Clearly, his perception of that phrase was quite different from ours.

             Have you ever noticed that, while at Christmas time the secular world blares out even the beloved sacred carols about the coming of Christ, we find no such phenomenon manifest at Easter? Do you hear popular radio stations that broadcast the strains of “Glory to the newborn King” in December sound forth the more introspective “O sacred Head, now wounded” in the spring? Redemption implies repentance, as our hymnody teaches us. Hints of sacrifice for sin, or a cruel death on a cross, are concepts that make an unbelieving world uncomfortable.

            As Christians, should we not endeavor to proclaim the “whole counsel of God”, including Christ’s wondrous birth, all year? Our lectionary helps us to do this in a timely way, but that shouldn’t prevent our celebrating any part of the Christian message during any season of the year. When I came to First Presbyterian as organist, I was pleased to hear the always-relevant text “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” sung during different seasons of the year. I wish that we could all re-learn the practice of appreciating Christmas hymns throughout the entire year.

            I love Christmas music! So if you chance to hear a “Christmassy” piece from the organ on some warm summer Sunday, I hope that I will be pardoned for that indiscretion.

Return to home page