I love Christmas music - it is one of my favorite things about the holidays! Besides being fun and festive and putting me in the holiday spirit, I think it is wonderful that for one month out of the year, you can walk into pretty much any major retailer and hear songs blaring on the speakers about our Lord and Savior! And nobody is throwing up picket signs or protesting or screaming at management to change the station! Its a beautiful thing, and I suspect that some hearts have been turned to Christ simply through hearing His message in the mall while doing holiday shopping!
In that, I think, we can find a powerful example of the power of Christ - when we let Him in, He changes us, sometimes without us even meaning for it to happen. That is especially true this time of year, as we prepare and anticipate the arrival of the babe in a manger who, when Mary let Him into the world, changed it forever.
I love the simplicity and subtly with which Christ came. Now, having had 2 babies of my own, I am in no way saying that pregnancy and giving birth are simple or subtle - far from it! But here's the thing - by coming as a baby, Jesus kind of "snuck in" without us even realizing it. Think about it - only a few people were in on it from the beginning - Mary, Joseph, likely Elizabeth and Zachariah, eventually the wise men and the shepherds, but outside of that, for all anyone could see, His birth was just that - the birth of a baby boy, by no means an unusual event.
And that is part of the power of how He came - and how He calls us to bring Him to the world today. Christ was revolutionary because of who He was and how He lived - and when you look at it, who He was, as a human, was a simple rabbi who loved unconditionally, reached out to all people, especially the poor and marginalized, spoke the Truth with confidence, and lived what He preached, and gave His entire life to following the Father's call for Him. But he did it through love, compassion, justice, and radical peace. He did not yell, scream, tear down walls, condemn or threaten.
The way He came modeled the way He lived, and the way He gathered people to Himself.
One of my favorite Christmas songs is called "Winter Snow" and is sung by Audrey Assad. I love it because it speaks of exactly this - that Jesus could have come with power, force, terror, and destruction, but He didn't. He came, instead, like a winter snow - quiet, soft and slow.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
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