Atypical Christmas Songs: #1 Cry Of a Tiny Babe

This is the continuation of a collection of posts I'm doing this year about some of my favorite "Christmas Songs" that most people may not think of when they think of  Christmas.  This is a re-post of a blog from 2012 about my all time favorite song in this category.  Merry Christmas!

One of the things I enjoy most about the Christmas season is the music.  I enjoy the traditional carols with their images of silent and holy nights and a peaceful scene in some manger far away.  There have also been some newer songs that capture my attention with a new twist to the old themes we find in Christmas carols.  Then, every once in a while, an unexpected song comes along that connects the timeless truth of the Incarnation with the hard realities of the world we live in every day.  These songs usually come from mainstream artists who spend most of their time speaking to the world in which we live, but have a sense that there's a bigger story that needs to be told.

While at a Christmas party in the mid-90's a friend introduced me to "Cry Of A Tiny Babe" by Bruce Cockburn.  As an aspiring philosophy student with a bent toward social justice, I was just beginning to discover Bruce's music and the prophetic way he addressed many of the issues of the day we lived in.  His music showed a faith that was sincere, even if it was edgier than what I was accustomed to.  As I listened to his telling of the Christmas story in song that night, it had the same edgy, but truthful, feel to me.  Over the years it has become my favorite Christmas songs.

It's the edgy and down to earth nature of this song that captures something often lost in our more traditional carols.  Jesus' birth did not happen among the acceptable people of his day, but in the midst of scandal and on the margins of society.  Jesus spent much of His life dealing with the messiness of human existence.  He cared for and restored dignity to many who lived on the margins of society.  These were the people Jesus said He came to touch.  One verse especially captures this point:

There are others who know about this miracle birth
The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth
For it isn't to the palace that the Christ child comes
But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums

This remains true today. Whatever there is in our lives that brings shame and messiness, that is the part of our lives Jesus wants to enter into and bring healing and wholeness. Even as it was for those on the margins in Jesus' day, it is true for us today that "forgiveness is given for (our) guilt and (our) fear." In a single moment in history, redemption and restoration ripped "through the surface of time" and the ripples of that moment carry on to our day.

Merry Christmas.

Guest Post by Tina Longard: Christmas: The Heart of the Battle of the Ages

One of my favorite writers lives under my own roof.  I really liked a couple of pieces Tina has written lately and asked her permission to include them on this blog as a way to share them with others.  The first is a reflection she wrote early in the Advent Season, after one of our family devotion times.  It seems very appropriate to the challenges our country and world face leading into Christmas this year.

Christmas:  The Heart of the Battle of the Ages

By Tina Longard

“So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (NIV)

Throughout the ages the battle has raged between the offspring of Eve and the serpent.  The battle raged as the people of Israel cried out in agony in their slavery in Egypt.  God’s hand was on Moses, “son of Eve.”  The Serpent through Egypt’s pharaoh, reared his ugly head--struck, but missed Moses, as God “hid” Moses under Pharaoh’s very nose.  Other infant sons of Eve died from that strike of the Serpent.  Moses grew up to lead the people of Israel out of that land of slavery, into the Promised Land.

But many years later, the blessed Land of Promise, lay under siege—occupied by the Romans.  Again the ugly serpent is rearing his head—this time through King Herod.  This time the offspring of “Eve”, is also the offspring of God Almighty.  Jesus is the target of the serpent.  The serpent knows that this Offspring of Eve has the ultimate power to destroy him; but right now Jesus is only a vulnerable infant.  Now is the time to strike!  The serpent coils and strikes, but God has warned Joseph in a dream, and he and Mary have already fled humble Bethlehem.  Again, other infant sons of Eve die from the strike of the serpent.

How ironic it is, that the Israelite Land of Promise had become the land of danger; whereas Egypt, former land of slavery, had become the land of refuge.  Jesus is sheltered in Egypt until Herod’s death. 

Jesus will battle the serpent again and again during his time on earth—in the wilderness, in the garden, but ultimately on the cross.  At Golgotha he will be lifted up on a cross—just as the serpent was lifted up on a cross in the wilderness in the time of Moses.  As the Israelites who looked upon the bronze serpent were healed of the effects of their snake bites (Numbers 21:9), those l who look upon Jesus will be healed of their sin.  What appears on the surface to be Jesus’ death and defeat, is actually Jesus ultimate victory over the serpent, and over sin and death!

Yet, here we are 2000 years later, still feeling the vibrations in our world, as the serpent writhes in the throes of death. In reading the book of Revelation, we see that the serpent is doomed; yet, right now we see around us the far-reaching effects of his destructive strikes against the sons of Eve.

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is the Christmas carol/prayer that most resonates with my heart in this Christmas season. 

“O come, Thou rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
from depths of hell Thy people save. And give them vict’ry o’er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel .”
~ Verse 2, Latin Hymn, 12^th Century

“He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus.”  Rev. 22:20 (NIV)

Atypical (and modern) Christmas Songs: Baby Boy

This is the continuation of a collection of posts I'm doing this year about some of my favorite "Christmas Songs" that most people may not think of when they think of  Christmas.  They're not in any particular order and I'm not sure how many I'll come up with, so I wouldn't exactly call it a countdown.  Perhaps that will be a future year.  This one may be on this list due only to how new the song and the artist are.  Time will tell if song enters the realm of modern Christmas classics.

By far, my favorite new artist emerging on the Christian Music scene is For King & Country.  Everything I have heard from this brother duo up to this point has appealed to me in one way or another.  "Baby Boy" is no different.

Between their debut major-label project and their most recent release, For King and Country released a four song / five track (includes both a studio and live version of "Baby Boy") Christmas EP titled Into The Silent Night. Of the two traditional carols and two original songs, "Baby Boy" has received the most airplay on Christian radio stations.

The imagery of the official video tells a great story.  The entire EP revolves around an animated tale of a Confederate drummer caught in the middle of a fierce Civil War battle played out against the backdrop of a peaceful winter landscape.  In this video, our battle-weary drummer ascends a hill carrying a sword left by a fallen soldier.  After a time of at reflection at the top of the hill, the drummer descends the hill carrying a white flag he made from a sheet hanging on a nearby clothesline.  It's a sign of surrender to the unexpect King that came down in the form of a baby boy.

In a time when the world seems very divided and we get battle-weary, we need songs like this to remind us that there is hope in the midst of the battle.

Atypical (and modern) Christmas Songs: Better Days

This is the continuation of a collection of posts I'm doing this year about some of my favorite "Christmas Songs" that most people may not think of when they think of  Christmas.  They're not in any particular order and I'm not sure how many I'll come up with, so I wouldn't exactly call it a countdown.  Perhaps that will be a future year.

No list of modern Christmas songs would be complete without "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls.  I'm not sure if I would define it as "atypical" since it has been a mainstay of pop culture Christmas and New Years events since it's release in 2006.  The song definitely has undertones of John Rzeznik's Catholic upbringing in it.  Still, for those of us who grew up in and around the Evangelical church culture this one may not be as familiar to us.

To me this is a call for a missional understanding of Christmas.  It's a call for the Incarnation to be about more than sweet, sentimental feelings once a year or initiating a personal transaction that buys us our ticket to Heaven someday.  It's a call for real transformation in the world around us as we embrace "the one poor child who saved this world."  It calls us to embrace God's mission to restore the world He created to Him again and reminds us that the opportunity is there for re-creation to happen in our lives and our world ("tonight's the night the world begins again").

I don't know if this is what Rzeznik had in mind when he penned these words and some of the finer points of theology in it can be debated.  Still, I can identify with this prayer found in the bridge:

I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

Atypical Christmas Songs: Peace on Earth

By Visitor7 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

This is the continuation of a collection of posts I'm doing this year about some of my favorite "Christmas Songs" that most people may not think of when they think of  Christmas.  They're not in any particular order and I'm not sure how many I'll come up with, so I wouldn't exactly call it a countdown.  Perhaps that will be a future year.

14 “Glory to God in highest heaven,
    and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

The news this week of a hostage situation at a chocolate store in Australia and the Taliban massacre of over 130 people, mostly children, at a school in Pakistan remind us of how far we are from complete peace on earth.  It's the paradox of living between the initiation of the revealing of the Kingdom of God through the incarnation of Jesus (Christmas) and the final fulfillment His second coming.  It's a reminder that Satan is still active in the world and still about the business of destroying any sense of peace in our world.  In seems all the more poignant when tragedy involves children.  My wife responded to hearing the news of the school massacre in Pakistan by saying, "It seems like Satan always likes killing children at Christmastime."  Looking at the number of such tragedies in December, it would be hard not to agree with her.

As I thought of the tragedies of this week the song "Peace on Earth" by U2 came to mind.  This song strikes me as the "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" of our generation.  It captures the paradox of living in world where peace is promised at the time of Jesus' birth, but has not been fully realized yet.  The choice when facing such paradox is to either try to shelter our lives from tragedy and just focus on personal peace, give up on the possibility of true peace on earth and despair, or to continue to pursue the final fulfillment of the promise of peace while recognizing we are not there, yet.  This song seems to take that third way.  It acknowledges tragedy and suffering, while calling out to Christ to bring peace to those who suffer.  It's not done in a cynical way, but in the form of a prayer asking for this peace to be fulfilled.

I like this particular video version.  It captures the paradox of simultaneous peace and tragedy very well.

Atypical Christmas Songs: Christmas at Denny's

I've previously mentioned wanting to assemble a collection of posts about some of my favorite "Christmas Songs" that most people may not think of when they think of  Christmas.  I've decided this will be the year.  They won't be in any particular order and I'm not sure how many I'll come up with, so I wouldn't exactly call it a countdown.  Perhaps that will be a future year.

For those not familiar with Randy Stonehill, he is known as one of the pioneers of the Jesus Music movement of the early 1970's and what later became known Contemporary Christian Music.  He's best known for his high energy, quirky songs such as "Shut De Do," "American Fast Food," and "Can't By A Miracle."  He also has a gift for folk-style storytelling and ballads, though.

In 1989 he released "Christmas at Denny's" as part of his Return to Paradise album.  It's the haunting tale of a drifter who's spending another Christmas Eve with other nameless lonely souls at a Denny's restaurant because they have nowhere else to go.  It tells a story that has become all too familiar to me as I have gotten more involved in the lives of friends without homes these past two years.  It's not a song that you can ever say you enjoyed, but it sticks with you over the years and touches your soul if you're willing to let it.

As our nameless drifter reminisces of the life he left behind and the circumstances that brought him to this place he has one simple prayer, " I don't need no miracle, sweet baby Jesus.  Just help me find some kind of hope in my heart."  When you reach a point of total despair, this is sometimes the only prayer you know how to speak.  It's the kind of prayer Jesus entered this world to answer.

So, here we have "Christmas at Denny's" by Randy Stonehill:

Humility Critical For Real Change To Happen

This past Monday I watched our local city-county council get bogged down in petty politics as they debated a proposal to provide legal protections to our neighbors living without homes.  As I watched this, I kept thinking of how important the quality of humility is if we are ever going to see any substantial change in the treatment of our friends without homes.  In his book Spiritual Leadership J. Oswald Sanders called humility one of the essential qualities of leadership.

Humility is needed by the current ensemble of professional service providers in our city to admit that, although they have done much good, there are still many not being helped by their services and some people fall through the cracks in the current system.  The assumption can be that the ones not being helped are choosing not to receive the help, but reality is more complex than that.  They must also recognize that grassroots efforts to bring necessities to those living on the street are not about enabling the homelessness, but about building trust in order to assist our friends off the street.

Humility is needed by those of us involved in grassroots faith-based efforts to recognize that many of those in the professional service industry entered the field with good intentions, though it's not always apparent by the way things are operated.  It's possible that some of them have lost sight of their original purpose in the struggle to keep their organizations afloat, but the heart that got them involved in their mission must still be there somewhere.  Perhaps our efforts will yield fruit in seeing these providers spending time in self-examination and stepping up to meet the challenges they face in a way that yields the type of results we would like to see.  So, we need to see them as colleagues in the fight against poverty and not obstacles.

Humility is needed by conservative politicians to recognize that the dogma of personal responsibility does not define the story of every person in poverty and some may need help pulling on their "bootstraps."  As someone who lives among you and grew up with many of the same views I had to learn to listen to people to find out what they really needed instead of just giving them what I thought they needed.  I had to take time to listen to their stories instead of hurrying to find a "solution" that would make me feel good, but not make any real difference in their lives.

Humility is needed by those of us who champion the cause of the poor to recognize that we don't hold the corner on compassion.  Sometimes questions asked by political conservatives are simply an effort to understand the issue better and have answers to bring back to their constituency that will be looking at the cost of our efforts.

My hope is that all involved will find the humility to come together for real change and not simply stay entrenched in their divisive views while our friends without homes struggle through another winter.