Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas Songs

You have heard them, I am sure.

The Christmas songs on the radio, ugh!

I am so burned out on Christmas songs already I think that if I hear "I'll be home for Christmas" one more time I will gnaw through my steering wheel.

Why am I burned out on Christmas already? I am not sure, but the songs seem the same. Even Nat King Cole's "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" is making my gag reflex go off.  And I used to love that song.  Really!

Maybe it is where we are headed.

The songs sound tired to me. I've heard them and they have not grown. I have grown! Christmas is different to me now than when I was a child, but the songs are still the same.  And, they are tired.

I think it is because the songs keep Christmas fixed in time, and the spirit of Christmas is alive and vibrant. Every year is new and every Christmas is a new beginning. The old tired songs just do not do it justice. The secular songs just cannot change either--I mean, how many times can we sing about "In the meadow we can build a snowman?" Truly, how many people even can envision what that scene looks like today? What is a meadow?

Christmas is alive. It changes every year as we grow deeper into the meaning of the season.

This year, I have a friend who has helped me see that the sappy songs of Christmas do it a disservice because the baby born in the back roads of the Roman Empire has changed everything.

We do Him and the season a disservice by not growing deeper into the true meaning of the season, the meaning that God came down on Christmas to save the world--and was rejected by many of the people He came to save.

Sadly. I have grown tired of the "O Holy Night" sentiment that traps Christmas. I want a more upbeat sound to revive my soul and remind me of the grace, the peace, and the hope that the season is all about.

I went to a performance of "The Messiah" by Handel the other night and was reminded of the mission that that baby was on--the baby who grew into a boy and then into a man, and then was killed because the people of the time were blind to His perfection.

He has called me friend and He has called me brother.

God came down on Christmas day.  No religion in the world believes that their God ever came to walk with them. And to understand the crush of everyday life.

That is why Christianity is not a religion, but rather a life style.

Today, why not thank God for the gift of Christmas, His son?







 

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