Monthly column on the arts: sing we merrily

Due to the way periodicals are put together, I am writing this during mid-November, and a bleak November at that. Gales and floods are sweeping Britain, misery is nationwide and the nightly news is full of stories of personal sadness.

It's a strange time to be writing about Christmas. But one of the magical things about Christmas is that it is a festival that really does mediate joy. Even as I write, the occasional glimpse of Christmas goods in the shops, the family Christmas plans that necessarily need to be made in advance, the rich smell of the Christmas cake in the oven, and even a few early Christmas carols all have the old power to recall all the Christmases you ever experienced, and for those of us who are Christians, to turn our thoughts once again to our Saviour's birth.

It's mostly the carols that do it. Christmas cards are intriguing things. They celebrate the truth of the incarnation, wrapped up in a bundle of myths: most of us know that December 25 is the date of the old pagan Saturnalia, a date of convenience chosen to eradicate a pagan festival with a Christian one. The Bible doesn't mention kings, and certainly doesn't say there were three of them (though admittedly they did come from the Orient). The wonderful imagery of the thatched stable and snowy fields has little historical basis either. And so on ...

But what carols contain is truth, just as the core of Christmas remains undiluted by the Christmas tree custom we imported from Germany, the Yule log we got from Scandinavia, and the kindly Santa Claus who comes to us by a very tortuous continental route. When we sing carols we sing of a baby who was born in humility, was destined to die in humiliation, yet was the creator and redeemer of the world into which he came.

Ups and downs

Anyone who cares about that central meaning of Christmas is always going to have mixed emotions as the secular Christmas gets under way. Of course there are treasures in plenty: the BBC Music Magazine will doubtless provide its usual superb cover CD of Christmas music, and Christmas Eve will feature the annual feast of carols and readings from King's College. And there are enough articulate Christians in the media to ensure that the real message of Christmas will be very adequately presented: the Norman Stone drama series on Easter TV this year was a sample of what resources we have in that area. But the downside, as the Christmas tape goes into the supermarket PA, TV spectaculars feature artists who have spent the year celebrating materialism, and any and every pundit takes the opportunity to pass on a few words regarding peace and goodwill, is the annual trivialising of what is immensely important. Listening to inebriated revellers bawling out 'O Come All Ye Faithful', or carols as muzak being ignored on every street corner, one can only envy countries like Holland that have successfully separated the secular and religious sides of Christmas.

Christmas carols

But the meaning of Christmas carols doesn't depend on the commitment of the singer, and that's their great value in our society today. A carol is a simple, memorable statement of the biblical truth that God became man and dwelt among us - and almost everybody knows a few carols by heart. Every time one of them is sung, with care or carelessness, with commitment or flippancy, those meaningful words are being said and heard.

I remember a poignant moment when Gavin Reid addressed a conference on children's evangelism. He described hearing a drunk on a train chanting 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.' Gavin's comment was, 'I am so glad that somebody - probably a Sunday School teacher - taught that man those words. When he sobers up, he still knows them, and maybe he will start to think about them.'

In the same way, Christmas by Christmas, the words of the gospel are reinforced in popular culture, in the places where people go. It doesn't happen in the same way at Easter; not many Easter hymns are known by heart to most of the population. But many Christmas carols are. And that's a message that is cheering, even in so appalling a November as that in which I write this.

Thoughts about Christmas carols

Ups and downs

Christmas carols

David Porter

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