The Great Christmas Hymns—Why We Love Them

You are no doubt familiar with the well-known hymn, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” which includes the phrase in the first stanza and again in the refrain, “glory to the new born king.” Many of us know these words from memory. We sing about a coming king with great gusto and emotion. But what do these words truly mean? What exactly is implied when we sing of Jesus as this newborn king, yet who is to be received by all the earth? How can we speak of that ruby-cheeked babe in a manger scene as the King of kings and Lord of Lords?

Christmas in America—Tough for Christians to Navigate

Christmas is a surprisingly difficult time to be a Christian in America, because Christmas as traditionally understood–the celebration of the birth of Jesus–has been transformed into a secularized shopping event known simply as “The Holidays.” During the four Sundays before Christmas (Advent) many Christians use each of these Lord’s Days in sequence to focus upon one aspect of the coming of the Savior on that first Christmas. Advent is intended to be an annual reminder of who Jesus is and what he has come to do for us. The very fact that a Savior must come to earth to save us from the guilt of our sins forces us to consider the reality that we are sinners in need of a savior. This is but one reason why the Christmas story is so compelling. The German Reformer Martin Luther’s best sermons were arguably his Christmas sermons. This story stirred many a Christian heart to compose the great music and hymns packed with rich theological content, which we love to sing when Advent comes each year.

Since the transformation of Advent into the secular gift-giving season, the traditional focus upon the birth of Jesus is almost completely lost. Given this continual barrage of a secularized “happy holidays” replete with a now svelte Santa and his reindeer, it is easy to reduce Christmas to a sort of “birthday party” for Jesus. The justification for the giving of gifts is tied to the imitation of the wise men from the east who brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Because these changes to the biblical Christmas story can be so subtle, and distort the biblical account of Christ’s birth so badly, this is but one of the reasons why the Puritan side of the Reformed tradition views the very idea of Christmas/Advent with an understandable suspicion

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