Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
This time of year we often read the story of the Christmas miracle in the Gospel of Luke, which may hold a dear spot in our memory from our youth. It also highlights two key holiday themes: Joy and Mystery.
Yet when it comes to what can really stir us emotionally at this time of the year, I look to Christmas carols. These traditional, often shared songs give us a vision, through sound, of the different themes of the season. Again, the two predominant themes, Joy and Mystery, are imparted to us in a unique way with carols that simple words cannot fulfill.
During the Christmas season, we feel the power of music, in either a religious or secular sense, like in no other time of the year. We might play a few patriotic songs around the 4th of July, but that holiday is about fireworks more than music. Many great Easter hymns celebrate Jesus’ victory over death, but few are heard outside church – where it’s all candy and the Easter Bunny.
At Christmas, the music begins early, is widely varied, and we hear it everywhere. Yet I wonder, perhaps it’s too much? Do we maybe miss a lot of how this music might move us because it’s just so ubiquitous and we tend to tune it out? If we’re willing to listen, carols can have great power and awaken us to the season’s great themes.
We have joy at the birth of the Christ child; we have mystery that it could even occur. Joy is easier, expressed in many popular carols such as Joy to the World, or a Gloria carol, such as Angels We Have Heard on High and Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Mystery is trickier. Some carols ask a question, like What Child is This? or the more secular Do You Hear What I Hear? Others tell a story, like We Three Kings, which begins in a minor key as it introduces sages from afar, men of mystery looking for a new king, before shifting into a major, more joyous key to proclaim their excitement at finding the “star of wonder, star of light!”
Mystery, and joy, in one carol. And then there are those favorites we remember from childhood, like O Little Town of Bethlehem, Away in a Manger, and of course, Silent Night. They just seem to have a sense of joy of their own.
Lest things get too heavy, there is also a bit of light-heartedness in how the secular world celebrates the season in ways that have little to do with the birth of Jesus, yet still hold meaning. Think of seasonal favorites like Jingle Bells and Rudolph, Deck the Halls, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I recall going out caroling and singing a mix of all these songs.
As we move through this holiday season, we’ll likely hear all of these carols, and others, many times. For me, they never get old – nor does the experience of listening to them. I hear a favorite and all of a sudden the memories come flooding back from years ago. My mind recalls some aspect of the Christmas story in a way that is powerful, yet hard to describe.
Music does that, at least for me. This year, listen as you hear these carols, even though you might tend to push them to the background. Let them speak to you. Maybe you’ll find one that suddenly has new meaning or brings up meaningful memories from long ago.
Perhaps you’ll find something you’d lost from Christmases past, or awaken to something that you’d never seen before. That is mystery, and that is joy.
Roger Reynolds, a Jefferson City resident, is an ordained Episcopalian deacon.
