Christmas Hymns Podcast Episode

Merry Christmas, everyone, and welcome to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. I’m joined here today by some of the church outreach team here at ACCFS, Katie, Arlan, Shauna, and Isaac. Great to have you all here. It’s good to be here. I think we would agree that Christmas music is especially rich and deep, and I’ve asked all of you to bring a favorite Christmas lyric to share and discuss here today. 

But before we get to that, where in the Bible do we first encounter music? Any ideas? I could be wrong about this, but I’ve got a really good guess. No, I’m blank. Matt, I’ll defer to you. Isaac’s our music man. Isaac, you’re the one. I was going to say Old Testament with sounds and cymbals and music and celebratory occasions is what I’m thinking. 

It is a celebratory occasion, so she’s on the right road. Who’s Jubal? Remind me who Jubal is. That’s like a biblical character that’s way back in Genesis? Or is that Greek mythology? No, that’s Bible. It’s Tubal-Cain and Jubal’s Horn. That’s what it was, celebratory. You’re onto something. 

When was one of the first celebratory things? Are you thinking it’s when Jesus was born? The angel? No, it’s before that. No, I’m thinking like it’s even before that. Was it like Passover time, crossing of the Red Sea, Miriam’s song. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the first time we have music in terms of singing and congregational singing and that type of thing, which I think is really pretty special, right? 

Music comes out of a heart of gratitude in that moment. That’s where we see it.  I know we sing for lots of different genres. We sing when we’re sad. There’s the love song genre, right? We see music being a vehicle for celebration. And I think that’s really exciting. 

Certainly, in the Christmas season, so much of that celebration is captured in music, isn’t it? Isaac, you’re the music guy. There’s something really deep about music and the purpose music plays in our life. Am I right? I think, yeah, one of the interesting things. is that every person on earth, every culture has music. 

Music is communally experienced. Yeah. It’s shared among people. It’s a very human act. Singing is probably one of the purest forms, perhaps arguably, of music that comes from the body. And I love how it shares a message together. While we can do it together in congregations, it speaks to each heart individually, right? In a very special, unique way.  

I would think Miriam’s song probably captured that moment. It was probably something that the congregation went back to. It was a bit of an ongoing Ebenezer of salvation. That was captured in melody, captured in lyric, captured in a song, and we remember these things. 

I mean, it’s such a good memory tool. We teach our kids through melody and that type of thing. I’ve asked you all to come here today with a favorite Christmas lyric because I think you’d probably agree with me, I find Christmas lyrics to be so thoughtful and some of the deepest theological verses are embedded into some of these songs. 

Would you agree with that? I mean, you think about just the history of that celebration, how long it’s been and how dear it’s been to so many people over the years and the songs that have emerged. We have our own separate genre of music and lyrics that really speak to the story all in themselves, which is beautiful to think about. 

I think one of the interesting things about it is the Christmas season in particular. We celebrate such a mysterious event with the incarnation, and I think maybe it lends itself to music for that reason. I like that. You talked about words and communicating and there’s this old cliche quote, when words fail, music speaks, something like that. 

Music is a language that goes deeper than even words. And I think we find as Christians, as believers, that we need something that goes deeper than our words to express what we believe and how we feel. So, with that foundation, I would love to hear some of the thoughtful lyrics or verses that you think about or have impressed you. 

So, there’s a line that came instantly to mind when you said we were going to do this, and it’s from the song Little Town of Bethlehem. And there’s a line towards the end of the first verse, I think, it says, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. And I love that line. It speaks to this idea of the joys and the sorrows and the fear, those things that just are deeply within us. This little backwater town, Bethlehem, became the foundation of hope for all time.  

And to Isaac, to your point, that’s the stuff music is made of. Right. Yeah, and mine piggybacks with that so well. I was thinking of the song In the Bleak Midwinter. And setting to music a poem by Christina Rossetti that just talks about how heaven and earth can’t sustain God, and yet he comes and incarnates himself to be with us. 

One of the lines in that song that I wanted to point out particularly as angels and archangels may have gathered there. Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air, but his mother only, in her maiden bliss, worshipped the beloved with a kiss. He came in this, the frailest package, the God of the universe, and subjected himself to the care of flesh, to the care of you and me and mortal men and women and just the mystery with all of that, that somehow all of the hopes and fears of all the years could be met in this tiny package is so unbelievable.  

It’s an unbelievable story, and we need to go beyond words to express it. Right. I’ve never thought of Bethlehem as a backwater town. I thought of it as this, like, glorious place in, like, Bethlehem, but it maybe wasn’t known for anything else besides that during those early church days. 

You know what, Katie? I’ve got fresh in my memory, Bethlehem, because I was able to be there in February. Oh, absolutely. In fact, it’s very rugged. It’s very local. It’s more normal than the lives that we live. It is local and normal to the dirt. And that’s what he came into. 

You know, there’s a thousand settings in this grand world where he would have been more fit. Yeah. But that song with the angels and the kiss of Mary really brings both of those worlds together in a beautiful way. Yeah, Isaac, I appreciated how you talked about the baby being this very fragile, powerless image. 

And I picked a line in O Holy Night that says, the king of kings lay once in lowly manger and all our trials born to be our friend. He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger. Behold your king. And just thinking about how, like you said, this small child is also called the King of Kings in the same line and someone that can handle our need and our weakness. 

That was like my second line, Shauna. I said this to a couple of you before we started recording that this is probably one of the hardest podcasts I’ve ever had to prepare for because there are so many options to narrow it down. Yeah. Decision paralysis trying to just figure out what’s the analysis paralysis, but I love that line. 

And there specifically it says he knows our need again, speaking to the idea that God is with us, God knows our need and to our weakness is no stranger. I love it when that song is sung, this is beautiful and that’s the word I want to go to, I’m so glad that you said it. It’s beautiful. Beauty is where we can make music like this that transcends the suffering that we all feel that we all face in life. And yet, we can sing out songs like this about hopes and fears being met in Jesus. And it’s beautiful. Because realistically, I mean, Christmas is a beautiful time. 

We think of the beauty but there’s also a lot of hard. And it might be the first Christmas this year where someone is not at the table that usually has been. Or there are difficulties. Or you could be having a fairly miserable Christmas with sickness or whatever. I mean, that happens. And yet, Christ speaks to our needs. Speaks into a very deep place of our being. I appreciate Isaac, In the Bleak Midwinter. That is minor. Isn’t that a minor song? Yes, it is. So, the melody of In the Bleak Midwinter certainly has this forlorn kind of mysterious sound to it, though I don’t think it’s technically in a minor key that is, relatively common with Christmas carols as they show musically, that tension found in the incarnation. 

I think of other Christmas carols are like that and set in minor keys, like We Three Kings, What Child Is This, Oh Come Immanuel. And there’s certainly others as well. I would say a segue into that is my favorite song. And, um, some of the lyrics I chose from that. It’s not technically a hymn. It actually started as a poem. 

A lot of music and lyrics do start potentially as poetry, and it started as a poem called Christmas Bells, and now we know it as I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day so penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the Civil War. A man, if you’ve done any kind of study or reading on him, who had suffered a lot. 

Obviously, we’re in the midst of trying to keep the country together, and he sees brothers fighting brothers. He had just buried another spouse and is fighting for his son’s life. And kind of looking up and just seeing what Arlan mentioned about a lot of grief or sadness.  

And so, holidays are joyous. Holidays are exciting. But there’s a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of sorrow and so forth. And so, the words just speak a little bit to that about not giving up. So, my favorite lyrics are not necessarily the beginning part of this song, but one of the verses. Talks about in despair I bow my head there is no peace on earth I said for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth goodwill to men. That’s powerful because I feels like it speaks to me and there are a lot of hearts alike that are hard. We want to give up. This isn’t the holiday I experienced or the time of life I want to be going through and the struggle I would like to feel if I could choose one, right? 

But then the gospel message is present in the very last verse, 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. God is present, he is an active God, he is caring, he doesn’t take a break. 

That’s the beautiful gospel message at Christmas. I just love that song. I love that verse and just that God is not dead. He’s searching and he’s waiting. I do like how you see that song just build the progression at the end. You see that conclusion. It says, he comes to this place of realization that God is there even in the midst of the hard. 

Yeah. I think Christmas hymns have got so much hope loaded in them. And I think it’s partly because of the narrative of a baby. We’re not to the cross yet and to resurrection yet, but it’s the baby. And so, I think it kind of forces the participant, the singer, to go there almost in this time before in innocence. Isn’t that something that’s really compelling? 

It’s a compelling place for people to go. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And just thinking about the manner in which he came again is just such a powerful part of that. Because as the most frail, as the most open to suffering. It’s telling to how God chooses to be with us in our suffering in that pain. 

There is little more vulnerable than a baby, right? And that is just the beautiful picture that in his vulnerability, then he comes to be with us. And there’s little more as hopeful as a baby, right? And the whole future ahead and the opportunity ahead. And so, all those things are wedded together in this moment in this Christmas time, so my lyrics really speak to that future part of what’s coming. I selected Angels from the Realms of Glory in the fourth verse. It speaks of the sinner and the hope that the sinner has. But I find this phrase to be so poetic. Justice now revokes the sentence. Which just kind of puts on its head what we typically think of justice, right? Justice maintains the sentence, and yet the writer here talks about justice revoking the sentence. He rolls that sentence back because of the man child, Jesus and his death and resurrection. Can you read the last, is it the fourth verse for that? 

It is the fourth verse. Okay, can you read the entire verse for us? Yeah, the entire verse reads, sinners wrung with true repentance, doomed for guilt to endless pain, but justice now revokes the sentence, mercy calls you break your chains. Which is just a tremendous second piece. They’re just a tremendous illustration of the gospel speaks to the power of that mercy that we receive again through the beautiful promise of that baby on that bleak midwinter day. 

Do I need to make it seem like we’re more intelligent than to think that the climate Jesus was born into was snowing? Or maybe people are going to be okay. I think part of the beauty and wonder of arts and music is that you put the story in your context. And that bleak midwinter makes a ton of sense to us. It doesn’t perhaps make a lot of sense in history or for some parts of the world, but it makes a lot of sense for me and it does a good job of getting me to where I need to be as a singer or as a participant. 

Because we, in our environment, we can imagine what this would be like. And it makes the point that it’s like, Earth is inhospitable. It can be an inhospitable place. It can seem bleak. It can seem hard and cold, and yet in the midst of that bleak, cold, hard space is where hope is born. I think what we have in these beautiful hymns, we have salvation packaged in a beautiful way. 

In much the same way as Miriam and the Hebrew congregation had in some of her hymns that they sang as they exited Egypt. And may they give you encouragement and hope and joy on this Christmas day. Merry Christmas everyone. ​