O Holy Night: Carols of Christmas

5 REFLECTIONS FROM CAROLS of CHRISTMAS

Luke 2:13-14

The heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven.”

10 REFLECTIONS FROM 5 REFLECTIONS FROM

CAROLS of CHRISTMAS

EDITORIAL TEAM: Paul Brinkerhoff, Tom Felten, Tim Gustafson, Regie Keller, Toria Keyes, Becky Knapp, Monica La Rose, and Peggy Willison

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from Holy Bible, New International Version® niv® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. © 2023 Our Daily Bread Ministries.

Introduction | Monica La Rose Chains

shall he Break

The carol “O Holy Night” has long haunted me. I could say it’s my favourite Christmas carol, and while that would be technically true, it would only scratch the surface.

“O Holy Night” isn’t a carol I sing for fun because it sounds pleasant. It’s a song that shakes me every time I hear it. It convicts me—almost frightening me even as it draws me in.

Every time I hear “O Holy Night”, it feels as though silence and repentance are the only appropriate response.

The carol starts out serenely: O holy night, the stars are brightly shining / It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth. This is the quiet, hushed peace envisioned for that holy night that many of our beloved Christmas carols capture.

But soon we transition to the harsher context: a world “in sin and error pining”. And in that world Christ’s birth is more than a beautiful event on a quiet night. It’s the only possible light of hope. It’s the event that changes everything. For when “He appears . . . the soul felt its worth.” I used to mishear this line as “the soul felt His (Christ’s) worth”. When I realised the true lyrics, it staggered me. My faith upbringing had strongly emphasised the sin and evil of humanity but said little about the worth of humanity.

But the carol pointed to the truth: that Christ “did not come to condemn the world” (JOHN 3:17) but to show every person in the world God’s love for them. Their worth.

When Christ appears, and we see Him as He is, we also see for the first time our worth—as well as a sense of who we were meant to be. Who we could be in Him.

And not just us; the whole world and everything in it. At His coming all “the weary world rejoices”; a “new and glorious morn” dawns; the universe itself is forever changed.

In verses two and three of the carol, we’re brought deeper into the gospel story: of a King who “lay thus in lowly manger / In all our trials born to be a friend.” His humility calls for our own: “Behold your King; before Him lowly bend.”

But the song doesn’t stop there, at what could be misunderstood as only a private relationship with Christ. Instead, it boldly insists that we must not twist this good news into good news only for ourselves. Bowing before our humble King requires more than lipservice. At a time when slavery was still legal, the song dared to say what should have been obvious: that the oppression of anyone loved by God is an offence to the gospel. Knowing our worth in Christ means seeing and knowing the worth of those whose humanity and pain we would often rather ignore. His coming made us sense our worth; how then could we possibly deny the worth, the humanity, of another? How can we turn a deaf ear to their pain?

Christ will break their chains and “all oppression shall cease”. Will we be a part of this work, or dare to resist a holy God of justice?

When heaven touches earth, when the holy truly reaches into our lives, we are shattered. We fall to our knees. Our prejudices, our arrogance and our cold-heartedness in the face of others’ suffering is exposed for what is. We tremble and repent. Those marginalised, pushed to the side, blamed for their struggles, dehumanised—they are our brothers. They are our sisters. There is no justifying indifference or silence in the face of their pain. When the holy God of the universe reaches down in love and justice, how could we do otherwise than be changed?

Fall. Hear. See. And be forever transformed. This is how we proclaim Christ’s “power and glory evermore”.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

19 This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

The new-Born k ing

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

[ JOHN 3:16 ]

Since I grew up in a non-Christian, Asian family, I didn’t celebrate Christmas as a child. But once when I was young, my siblings and I, together with a few neighbourhood kids, decided to have a Christmas gift exchange. I don’t know where we got the idea—maybe from all the TV shows we’d been watching. We put our names into a bag, and each of us picked the name of someone to buy a present for. We decided we liked this tradition. We didn’t yet realise the perfect gift had been given to us 2,000 years ago by God our Creator. Charles Wesley captured this in his hymn “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” He wrote of Jesus, “Light and life to all He brings, / Risen with healing in His wings.”

The Bible tells us, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (JOHN 3:16). Why did God give us his Son, and what does that mean for us? As Wesley wrote, “Born to raise the sons of earth, / Born to give them second birth.”

As a teenager, I heard about Jesus—the one born to give us “second birth”—and believed in Him as my Saviour. Christmas is special to me now because I understand its meaning—it’s a celebration of God’s perfect gift, Jesus Christ. God isn’t a mystical force out there; He’s a personal God who extends His love to people of all nations and socioeconomic classes. And this personal God expressed His love for me by dying for me. “Glory to the new-born King!” POH

FANG CHIA

REFLECT: What Christmas traditions do you celebrate? How might they remind you of Jesus birth?

PRAY: Dear God, thank You for showing us that to love is to give.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Silent night! Holy night! Son of God, love’s pure light, Radiant beams from Thy holy face With the dawn of redeeming grace— Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth, Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.

SILENT NIGHT

Truly He taught us to love one another His law is love and His gospel is peace Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother And in His name all oppression shall cease Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise His holy name.

O HOLY NIGHT

Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the new-born King: peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations, rise, join the triumph of the skies; with th’angelic hosts proclaim, “Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING

10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. 12 He says,

‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.’

13 And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.’

And again he says,

‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

in our Bleak Midwin Ter

[He] shared in their humanity so that by his death he might . . . free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. [ HEBREWS 2:14–15 ]

It probably wasn’t a “bleak midwinter” when Jesus was born. Given the climate in Palestine, there probably was no “frosty wind” moaning, and it’s highly unlikely that “snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow.” But these haunting lines from nineteenth-century English poet Christina Rosetti’s poem, now best known as the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter”, still ring profoundly true.

By describing Christ coming in the harshest of winters, Rosetti painted a picture of a harsh world in desperate need of hope. Her words “earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone” point beyond the literal to the state of human hearts—wounded and hardened by pain and death.

And in our bleakest of winters, Christ comes. The One who, as Rosetti wrote, “cherubim worship night and day”, was content with the humility of living “fully human in every way” (HEBREWS 2:17). He entered our world, sharing in our humanity to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (V. 15). He came to forever free us from the grip of death on our hearts, to free our hearts to experience joy.

It’s a gift beyond words and beyond repayment. As Rosetti concluded, “What can I give Him, poor as I am?” But our prayer can be, “What I can I give Him: give my heart.”

MONICA LA ROSE

REFLECT: In what ways are you experiencing a ‘bleak midwinter’? How does the gift of Christ offer hope?

PRAY: Dear Jesus, please help me give You my heart.

Today

Luke 2:11

in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

7 Verses a Bou T “g od wiT h us”

1 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. ISAIAH 53:2-3

2 “They will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

MATTHEW 1:23

3 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

JOHN 1:14

4 What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-4

5 When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

GALATIANS 4:4-5

6 He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. PHILIPPIANS 2:7

7 We do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. HEBREWS 4:15

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 ‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written:

6 ‘“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.”’

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.’

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’

away in e ngland

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” [ MATTHEW 2:15 ]

Ididn’t anticipate that singing a carol at church would jolt me with surprise and pain, but that’s what happened my first Christmas in England. I’d lived in this new country for nearly a year after marrying an Englishman, and I found the adjustment challenging. I hadn’t reckoned on church being so hard, with the different customs unsettling me. Thus, when from the piano wafted a strange (to me) tune for “Away in a Manger”, I blinked back my tears. I was happy to be married but sad to be away from the familiar.

Yet singing this particular carol was fitting during that time of unease. After all, the first line describes Jesus’ birth: “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed.” Not only was He born in humble circumstances but as a toddler He also fled from Herod. God’s angel warned Joseph in a dream to leave: “Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt” (MATTHEW 2:13). Jesus was kept safe, but He knew what it felt to be displaced. It was a feeling He experienced throughout His earthly life—away from His Father in heaven.

We don’t need to change locations to feel out of place; pangs of longing can come at any moment and at any place. When they do, we can turn to the Man who suffered and grieved. His birth and His presence bring us hope and strength.

AMY BOUCHER PYE

REFLECT: When have you been surprised by an ache or a yearning? In those moments, how can you turn to Jesus?

PRAY: God who became Man, You felt the ultimate dislocation when You came to earth as a baby. When I feel lost, I look to You for comfort.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.

What can I give him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb, if I were a wise man I would do my part, yet what I can I give him, give my heart.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.”

CHRISTMAS BELLS

O come, O Bright and Morning Star, and bring us comfort from afar! Dispel the shadows of the night and turn our darkness into light.

O COME, O COME, EMMANUEL

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’

22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).

wi T h us

“They will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

[ MATTHEW 1:23 ]

On a Christmas morning years ago, I stood beside my dad at the foot of the stairs and saw the sadness in his face. The effects of dementia were progressing. He realised he’d never again climb those stairs and enter the room he’d shared with my mum all these years.

Our family entered a season of waiting. Waiting for the disease to remove Daddy’s voice and thinking. Waiting for the moment when his eyes would tell us he didn’t know who we were. Waiting for the endings to come.

That Christmas I found hope in the song “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”. It’s about waiting. The Israelites had been waiting for the Messiah to come—wondering if He really would. Their waiting, however, wasn’t in vain. Jesus was born into our world to save us from sin—His birth fulfilling a prophecy made hundreds of years before: “the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (ISAIAH 7:14). Jesus’ birth redeems the endings in our life. His presence strengthens us as we wait for them and journey through them. God was with my dad that day as he looked up the flight of stairs. And one day, He will be with us, forever. He’s the end of all our painful waiting—the end of all our endings. God is with us

(MATTHEW 1:23).

KAREN HUANG

REFLECT: How does the truth of God’s presence with you transform your seasons of waiting? Even while knowing that life is full of endings, why can you still look to the future with hope?

PRAY: Dear Jesus, thank You for being my Immanuel.

Hebrews 13:5

God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

a P rayer for Those who a re l onely aT Chris TM as

Heavenly Father, how good it is to know You have made me Your child. I can rest with You any day or night, experiencing Your deep grace and compassion. Lord, You know the lonely ache I feel in my heart, especially during a season that emphasises spending time with family and friends. So I pray Your Word back to You today, putting my hope in Your promise to never leave or forsake me. Surround me with Your love. Hem me in with Your wonderful presence. May I feel how close You are.

Please also bless me with brothers and sisters in Christ who will bring wisdom, kindness and grace into my life. You have made me for community, so I ask that You would provide. I put my trust in You to meet my needs according to Your way and timing. My life and my heart are in Your hands, O Lord.

Amen

1 Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

5 He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’

The se V en T h sTanza

I am making everything new! [ REVELATION 21:5 ]

In 1861, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wife died tragically in a fire. That first Christmas without her, he wrote in his diary, “How inexpressibly sad are the holidays.” The next year was no better, as he recorded, “‘A merry Christmas,’ say the children, but that is no more for me.”

Longfellow’s son was then badly wounded when away fighting in a war. As church bells announced the arrival of another painful Christmas, Longfellow picked up his pen to write “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

The poem begins pleasantly, lyrically, but soon takes a dark turn. The violence of the pivotal fourth verse seems ill-suited for a Christmas carol. “Accursed” cannons “thundered”, mocking the message of peace. By the fifth and sixth verses, Longfellow’s desolation is nearly complete. “It was as if an earthquake rent the hearthstones of a continent,” he wrote. The poet nearly gave up. “And in despair I bowed my head; ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said.”

But from the depths of that bleak Christmas, Longfellow heard the irrepressible sound of hope. And he wrote this seventh stanza: Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: / “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; / The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail, / With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The war raged on, but it couldn’t stop Christmas. The Messiah is born! He promises, “I am making everything new!” (REVELATION 21:5). Change is in the air.

TIM GUSTAFSON

REFLECT: When have you faced despair? How does the promise of Revelation 21 give you hope?

PRAY: Dear God, we long for the day when You will make all things new.

A Final Thought | Tim Gustafson awakening aT ChrisTMas

One August day in my early teens I was pedalling my bicycle up a country road. A perfect summer breeze wafted past me. Green leaves rustled and whispered of autumn’s approach. Suddenly, a wonderful, elusive feeling descended over me. I can best describe it as a longing. Gazing at the inviting road stretching before me, I wanted to keep travelling forever. This was not a desire to run away. No, it was a yearning to run to something—a sensation of a freedom so expansive it could never quite be grasped. In that moment, I sensed something much larger than myself—something wonderful waiting out there. What was it?

These days, I get a fleeting trace of that sensation every 1 December when my local radio station begins playing Christmas music. In an exhilarating moment, I’m transported to the vicinity of that nostalgic place—the place I yearn to return to even though I’ve never really been there.

But soon, I’ve had quite enough of Christmas music. Too many of the songs ring hollow. They don’t say anything. At Christmas, give me the traditional carols. Give me substance. Give me something bigger than myself.

And so I quickly abandon the radio station for a website featuring old English carols. Their musical magnificence transports me. One day I dared to peruse the listener comments. Many of them were from people who don’t identify as Christian.

One listener wrote, “I wonder how this has touched me because I am not a Christian. But this music can really move one’s heart.” And

my favourite comment was, “THIS is what the supermarkets should be playing! I’m sick of ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.’ ”

Then there was the woman who said she’d been an atheist but had experienced a “spiritual awakening” while contemplating these weighty carols.

A spiritual awakening. Her phrase gives us pause. What draws all of us to compositions like Handel’s Messiah or carols such as “Silent Night”?

That thing we hunger and thirst for—the place we can’t describe— is a spiritual longing. It’s expressed in our better Christmas songs, for they point us to the real meaning of Christmas.

Our best Christmas music recognises that we are singing of things we can’t fully grasp. The carols of Christmas awaken in us the knowledge that God visited His world in human form! This changes everything. As “O Holy Night” reminds us, in a frequently chaotic world, “truly He taught us to love one another”.

The poet Isaac Watts understood that our global chaos is precisely why Jesus came to earth:

No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

The “curse”, as Watts puts it, is everywhere we look. Yet he anticipates a different day, a day when Jesus will return:

He rules the world with truth and grace

And makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness

And wonders of His love.

Now more than ever we crave a silent and holy night. We yearn to hear the angels on high. How we wish we had peace on earth.

At Christmas we celebrate Jesus’ birth. But He came to die, and many of our greatest composers and poets understood this. Handel quoted Isaiah, who spoke of this Messiah: “He was despised and rejected.” Handel also anticipates the day when Jesus returns. Then He will be “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, forever and ever. Hallelujah.”

Our best Christmas music taps into our primal awareness that we all need rescue. Jesus came to give us that rescue—to be with us. Despite living in a noisy, war-torn world, “Christ the Saviour is born.” Immanuel is with us.

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HE APPEARED, AND THE S O UL FELT ITS WORTH

Christ’s birth is more than a beautiful event on a quiet night. It’s the event that changes everything. For when “He appeared . . . the soul felt its worth.”

—Monica LaRose

Now more than ever we crave a silent and holy night. We yearn to hear the angels on high. How we wish we had peace on earth. Our best Christmas carols tap into our awareness that we need rescue. They inspire us to celebrate Jesus who came to be that perfect rescue. Join Monica LaRose and more Our Daily Bread writers to reflect on the language and the historical context of these treasured songs—and to offer prayers of thanksgiving! May they help you enjoy Christmas music more deeply and lead you to “Fall on your knees” and “Hear the angel voices”!

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