The Sadness of Christmas Carols

I’ve got a confession to make. I love Christmas music. As far as I’m concerned, it’s some of the most beautiful music we hear all year, and I want to enjoy it as much and as soon as it is seemly.

Which means – you guessed it – we are one of those families. The rule in our house is that we begin listening to Christmas music as soon as the World Series is over. Yes, that’s right. That means that there have been years when we began listening to Christmas music before Halloween.

The moment the final out is recorded in the last game, we dig out the old Christmas CDs and plunge back into the world of shepherds, angels, wise men, and Mary and Joseph and the baby in the manger.

I have long believed that these gorgeous carols are not just lovely and nostalgic, they are also a rich and vital source of good theology. I love the carols of Christmas.

But I’ve noticed something this year. Christmas carols sometimes make me sad.

Not the Christmas songs that have nothing to do with Christmas or Jesus. I don’t mind the light-hearted and fun-loving side of Christmas, “Winter Wonderland” and “Jingle Bells” and even “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.” Sure, it’s sad that those popular songs miss the point altogether.

But I’m talking about another kind of sorrow. I’m talking about the sadness of the fact that for millions of people – including people we are with every day – hearing Christmas carols is as close to the Gospel as they’ll ever get. It is sad beyond telling that people think that because they get misty-eyed singing “Silent Night,” they’re good with God.

I remember seeing a video of a “Hallelujah Chorus” flash-mob at a major shopping mall in Philadelphia. (You can see the video here.) Unbeknownst to the throngs of shoppers, hundreds of vocalists had infiltrated the vast floor in the middle of the mall. The shoppers heard the opening notes of the “Hallelujah Chorus,” and they were suddenly transfixed as they found themselves in the middle of a performance of Handel’s masterpiece.

No one was prepared for this. Everyone stopped what they were doing to take it all in. Phones came out to record the moment, people sang along. As the last notes echoed in the vast space, you could hear thunderous applause and cheering. It was a magical moment.

But I cannot watch that video and see that moment without great sadness. How many of those people actually knew and loved and worshiped the God about whom they sang, the “King of kings and Lord of lords” who would “reign for ever and ever”? How many of them would someday face God and realize, too late, that they never knew God and now would face Him as Judge, utterly without hope?

For many people, the Christmas carols are as close as they will ever come to actually knowing and loving Jesus. What an unspeakable tragedy if year after year they should come so close to hearing the Good News of what God has given us in Christ and yet never actually hear the Gospel!

This season, when you hear the carols, press past the nostalgia to pray for your friends, neighbors, loved ones who don’t know Jesus. Pray that God will break through the pleasant cultural haze to speak by His Spirit to their hearts, that He will awaken a desire that nostalgia and tradition cannot satisfy.

And look for opportunities to talk about Christmas with your friends who don’t know Jesus. It could be that this Christmas season might be the beginning of their own spiritual awakening. And God could use you to open that conversation in their lives.

This blog piece first appeared on the pages of “Discipleship Weekly” in December, 2019. 

Persevere, 
Paul Pyle                                                                                             
Discipleship Pastor