The Christmas Carol - Winner And Leveller

Death may be “the great leveller” - but so is the Christmas carol. In God’s economy, it is the instrument of egalitarian bliss that has consistently defied the most sophisticated attempts to disarm it of its powerful simplicity, its charm, its ability to bring together the Way of God and the ways of men.

Rudolph is supposed to have a red nose and you may dream all you wish about a white Christmas (there is even a “blue Christmas” song I once heard!) or hope that you’ll be home for Christmas with bells jingling and mama kissing Santa Claus - but these are all demolished and brought to nought in comparison to the simple, beautiful, shattering strains of “Silent Night, Holy Night” or “Joy To The World” or “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.”

Even away from secular winter songs, the Christmas carol is an outright winner. Skillful ballads with minor chords rising in crescendo (as in Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday”) or the majestic symphonies of classical music cannot hope to compete with “O Holy Night” or “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” You may be able to drag a reluctant friend or spouse to the 3rd piano concerto of Rachmaninov that you love (but she hates!) - but she (or anyone) will accompany you joyfully to a Christmas carol sing-song! It must be admitted, of course, that the competition is an unfair one - the former are infused with the intoxicating cadences of beauty, the latter with the Author of all beauty Himself.

If Plato could rise from the dead and join the singing of a carol, he would be on completely even intellectual par with a child belting away the tunes of “Away in A Manger” or “God rest ye merry gentlemen.” In our time, this child would be on level with Jordan Petersen, singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” together. The miracle the child perceives would be every bit as profound, as revolutionary, as soul-stirring and as valid - as anything Plato or Petersen may conceive or try to explain. “Unto such as this child”indeed, “does the Kingdom of Heaven belong.” This is perhaps the most important part of the levelling.

Rich and poor too, may both sing the Christmas carol together and in the same room, standing next to each other - the one perhaps contemplating the sharing of profits, the other remembering that Jesus proclaimed that the Gospel was being preached to the poor!  Not so long ago, in living memory, when we went carol singing from door to door, every humble home did indeed seem to us a castle, every drop of sparkling Christmas cheer like champagne.

The great Christmas carol leveller is not done. In 1914, warring armies in the killing fields of the first world war recognized our common humanity and emerged from their trenches singing, “Silent Night, Holy Night” (English) and “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” (German). Peace and good will returned and good cheer was passed around - as it is today, when long feuding families will sometimes forgive and even forget and come together at Christmas to celebrate the Prince of Peace.

T.S. Eliot’s poem, “Journey of The Magi” describes the journey that the Magi (rich and notable wisemen of the East) made to Bethlehem to visit the baby Jesus.  Upon returning to their Kingdoms of the East, they feel an unease, a deep disquiet, in “the old dispensation.” They are “no longer at home” and desire their own death - and a rising to a new life in Christ. The Christmas carol sings of both “We Three Kings” (Magi) from the Orient, but also of the good news brought to “certain poor shepherds, in fields as they lay.” Both of “Angels in the realms of glory” proclaiming the birth of the Saviour and of the “little Lord Jesus, no crib for a bed.” Both of “hark the herald Angels” singing triumphantly of goodwill to planet Earth and of there being no room at the inn for the birth of the Saviour - hence His birth in a stable:

“Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown,

When Thou camest to earth for me;

But in Bethlehem's home was there found no room

For Thy holy nativity.”

Thus it is that the Christmas carol levels the Good News too - which shall be “to all people” to “those who were far off and those who were near” and to “a great multitude from every tribe and nation.” And wonder of wonders - it sings of the Good News to me too! Surely this must be the greatest levelling of all!

A very Merry Christmas and blessèd 2023 to each and every one of you!!