{"id":44761,"date":"2018-12-24T11:52:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T17:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=44761"},"modified":"2018-12-29T08:24:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T14:24:24","slug":"in-praise-of-christmas-carols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/24\/in-praise-of-christmas-carols\/","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of Christmas Carols"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I suppose it\u2019s the <em>music<\/em>\nof the carols the capture our attention. Even as I write this I hear in my mind\nsweet strains of \u201cO Come, All Ye Faithful,\u201d \u201cHark! The Herald Angels Sing,\u201d and\n\u201cWhat Child Is This?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But let us not miss the texts. Let us not miss that many\nChristmas carols are nothing less than a profession of faith in God\u2019s\nrevelation in Christ. Yes, the carols sing of the babe in the manger; but even\nmore they sing of the Word-Made-Flesh and the Savior of the World. In the\nChristmas carols we sing the full truth of the Incarnation, the depth of human\nsinfulness and the glory of its redemption by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consider the second stanza of \u201cO Come\u201d: <em>God from God, Light from Light eternal, lo! he abhors not the Virgin\u2019s\nwomb; only begotten Son of the Father.<\/em> This is the truth of the Nicene\nCreed in verse. This is poetry worthy of Athanasius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there is Charles Wesley, who could be considered a\nfather of the Church, but for the fact that he was an eighteenth-century\nMethodist Anglican. At his pen the herald angels sing of <em>God and sinners reconciled.<\/em> All this is the fullfilment of the\nprophets and the turning of the ages: <em>Late\nin time, behold him come.<\/em> When we hail the babe, we <em>hail the incarnate Deity, <\/em>and we <em>the Godhead see.<\/em> The paradox of divine abasement is sounded: <em>Mild he lays his glory by.<\/em> And this, not\nsimply for a bit of spiritual inspiration, but eternal life: <em>born that we no more may die.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Isaac Watts\u2019 \u201cJoy to the Word, the <em>glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love<\/em> are not just\nfor my personal piety, but are something for <em>the nations<\/em> to <em>prove.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gentlemen may well rest merry \u2013 but it\u2019s hardly the merriment of superficial social pleasantries. It\u2019s the much deeper <em>tidings of comfort and joy<\/em> of those saved from the reign of evil: <em>Remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas Day, to save us all from Satan\u2019s power when we were gone astray<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To be sure, not every Christmas carol taps into the depths of the mystery of the Incarnation. Some carols avoid the deeper message and settle for the sentimentality of the manger scene. (I suppose \u201cAway in a Manger\u201d is the low point in this.) But still, carols such as these witness to the earthyness and the material reality of the Christmas story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And even the rather sweet \u201cSilent Night,\u201d which is 200 years old tonight, speaks of our redemption: <em>Love\u2019s pure light radiant beams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everyone loves Christmas carols. As we enjoy singing them, let&#8217;s not miss how deeply creedal and liturgical they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">God has come to save us. We have much to sing about. Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God has come to save us. We have much to sing about. Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":44783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>In Praise of Christmas Carols - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/24\/in-praise-of-christmas-carols\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Praise of Christmas Carols - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"God has come to save us. 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