Christmas Carols Express Deepest Truths of Christian Faith

Dec. 24^th, 1999.

My favourite hymns of all are Christmas carols. This is because, as some noted theologians have said, the very best theology is expressed in Christmas carols. Christmas carols have unmatched depth and balance in their expression of the truths of the Christian faith: "Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinner reconciled." There is hardly anything more profound in the English language.

Some Christmas carols are so excellent that they still say something profound, even when you mess them up. I recently came across a rendition of the carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" where the text, instead of reading "to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray" actually reads: "To save us all from Santa's power . . . " Now this, I think, may be a typo. But even as a typo it expressed something that we probably need to hear just as much as the original these days, due to the excessive commercialization of Christmas and the Santa image.

Christmas carols focus more steadily on the Incarnation than other Christian music. They focus on the time which Christians hold to be the most momentous event of human history: the time when God was born in the person of a human baby, the baby Jesus. The idea of the divine incarnation, when God comes into the human flesh, is expressed in virtually all great Christmas carols. And incarnation is what Christian faith is all about. The "enfleshment" of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth forever rules out any type of spirituality that would undervalue the importance of the human body, for God wore the flesh in the person of his own Son. "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity, born as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel, Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king!" This is profound theology. There is no "pie in the sky" spirituality with this down-to-earth God.

Early Christians held the flesh to be the location of salvation, and that made them very different. That is why Christians were early noted as people who took care of the sick and the dying, a rarity in the ancient world. Roman governors noted that the Christians took care of not only their own poor, but also the Roman poor who were not Christians. This was because to them, the flesh was not to be disdained: it was not illusory or inherently evil, but good enough for God to wear.

An early Christian leader was Bishop Nicholas of Myra in Lycia in the 3rd and 4th centuries, in what is now called Turkey. Bishop Nicholas was known for his love of the poor, and especially of children. So much did his giving and his love remind people of Christ's that he was later made a "Saint." The later corruption of the name "Saint Nicholas" gave rise to the modern day "Santa Claus."

The carol "Good King Wenceslas" is about a real king who lived in what is today the Czech Republic, and was martyred in 935 AD. He too was famous for caring for the poor. He could not bear to see one of the poor struggling to gather winter fire wood, on "the feast of Stephen." So the king went himself, the story goes, right into the forest in the stormy blast of a winter's night, to retrieve the poor man and see him dine in the palace. "Bring me flesh and bring me wine, bring me pine logs thither, thou and I must see him dine . . . " This story is also reminiscent of God's own action in becoming a man in Jesus. And the importance of the flesh is that it becomes the means of salvation. The early church father Tertullian liked to say: "the flesh is the hinge of salvation." That is, the actions of God are perceived through and acted out in human bodies. People are saved in their bodies, not from their bodies or out of their bodies. This incarnational theology is what made Christianity different from the Greek dualistic philosophies common in the near east in the 1st century. Dualism had separated the mind from the body and valued the mind far above the body.

People have to be shown the Life, not just shown a picture of it. If you are starving, a picture of a sandwich will not do. What you need is a real sandwich with real meat in it. In the same way, people do not respond well to a teacher who can only describe a real life, but is unable to live it. So this is why it became necessary, ultimately, for God to become a living person, Christians hold. And so we sing: "Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies . . . born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth." This is the greatest gift of all.

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