I love Christmas music. I love traditional Christmas music, but I also love non-traditional songs that sometimes challenge us and cause us to look at the season through a different lens. We have commercialized Christmas, as evident in the popular songs we hear this time of year. Christmas is nice and pretty. It is celebrated in shopping malls and wealthy neighborhoods that put on the best light displays. This is all wonderful, but it has little to do with the story we find in Scripture, which is shocking in many ways. The biblical narrative of the birth of Jesus does not fit in a nicely wrapped package with a bow on top.
Mary is an unwed pregnant teenager.
Jesus is born and then placed in a feeding trough for animals.
His parents are peasants, who along with others, are being oppressed by the Roman empire.
Jesus is pursued by Herod, the king of Israel, who has many male children slaughtered. He and his family then flee to Egypt, where they become refugees.
There are not many Christmas songs about unwed pregnant teenagers or the murder of innocent children. For many, Christmas is about shopping, gifts, and Santa Claus. We spend little time reflecting on the Bible accounts that began it all.
One of my favorite non-traditional Christmas songs is First Snowfall by Over the Rhine. I love it because it reminds me of the grittiness of the birth story of Jesus. The song opens, not in a shopping mall or upper-class neigborhood, but in the poor part of town. It's the kind of place you would find Mary and Jospeh if the Christmas story were to take place in modern times.
The Christmas decorations
Look ragged and rusty
A little sooty with coal dust
Santa's missing an eye
The neon sign flickers
On the cinder block tavern
By the Salvation Army
And the plumbers supply
The old downtown mission
Has John 3:16 painted
In all capital letters
Above cans full of trash
But the paint is all peeling
Broken glass on the sidewalk
Glitters like chandeliers
Somebody smashed
Jesus enters our world, not in a palace, but in a meager abode used for feeding animals. It's not a dwelling where most of us would stay. We certainly wouldn't choose to have a child in such a place. And yet, this is where the light first shines in the darkness. The chorus reminds us of just how surprising the Christmas story actually is.
It's like an angel starts singing
An old gospel song
In that part of town where
No angel belongs
Christmas is not just for families who live in nice homes with presents overflowing under the tree. Christmas is for all. Christmas happens in the parts of town where we do not want to live. It happens in the places where we refuse to go. It happens in the slums and homeless shelters. In fact, if we were to go looking for Jesus on Christmas day, these are the very places where we would likely find him.
"He has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty."
(Luke 1:52-53)
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