Some Thoughts on Christmas Carols

Warning, this post may offend your Christmas sensibilities!

Among the Christmas songs we've been playing in our house since Thanksgiving, one of them caught my particular attention. The song, recorded by Randy Travis, presents a rather different picture than what we have come to imagine of that night in Bethlehem:

It was not a silent night

There was blood on the ground

You could hear a woman crying

In the alleyway that night

On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean

And the cobblestones were cold

And little Mary full of grace

with tears upon her face

had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of pain

It was a cold sky above

But for the girl on the ground in the dark

with every beat of her beautiful heart

it was a labor of love.

Noble Joseph by her side

calloused hands and weary eyes

No midwives to be found

on the streets of David's town

in the middle of the night

so he held her and he prayed

shafts of moonlight on his face

but the baby in her womb

he was the maker of the moon

he was the author of the faith

that can make the mountains move

I like this song because I think it more accurately reflects the events of that night. While the song "Silent Night" has become beloved by many, I seriously question whether that night was in fact so silent and whether all was really calm and bright. And despite what another favorite song tells us, did the newborn baby Jesus really not cry? Maybe, but I suspect he behaved much like any other baby, complete with crying and all.

I'm not saying we shouldn't sing all these other classic Christmas songs. I just think that in singing them we must remember that they skew our view of the Christmas event. God entered the world in the most unexpected of ways. The birth of Jesus was full of scandal (a child conceived out of wedlock--do we forget that part, or have we become numbed to the cultural shame this would have brought?) and took place in the most humble of circumstances. We want to picture the scene in such heavenly terms, probably because we have a hard time imagining God coming to earth among such dirty, ordinary conditions. The Scriptures don't give us much detail concerning the process of the birth, but I think it probably wasn't any different than any other human birth. While remaining God he became a complete human and dealt with the realities of ordinary human life. I don't think that God arranged for his birth to be a uniquely beautiful, blissful event. He didn't book him a room at the local birthing center or the Bethlehem regional hospital. Instead he chose to enter the world through the ordinary labor pains of a young woman in a dirty stable full of farm animals. And he did this because he wanted to experience our reality and identify himself with us. Yes, it was a unique event, unparalleled in the history of humanity. It was a divine moment. But it was also a very human moment. This is the amazing reality about Jesus that we must always keep in proper tension: that he was both fully God AND fully human.

I for one find it difficult to sing "Silent Night" wholeheartedly anymore. (I told you I might offend your Christmas sensibilities.) While a lovely song in its own way, I just don't find it to capture adequately the significance of the Christmas event. Of all the Christmas songs that have been written over the centuries, I find it interesting that some of the most popular present the most idyllic view of Jesus' birth. It's as if we feel a need to picture it this way. But I think we do well to stop and reflect on the fact that God's entry into our world came in the most radically humble of conditions. Otherwise we risk creating a Jesus who wasn't really human like we are.