New Sermon Series: Songs of Christmas

Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him. I love these words from the Book of Common Prayer, for use in public worship this time of year, welcoming us into the hope of the Advent of Our Lord. Just writing these words down here for you makes me want to start singing: “O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord!” Truth be told, I did break out into the first verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” at my desk while writing this paragraph. Then I listened to Carrie Underwood sing it just a wee bit better than I did!

In doing all that, I violated one of my personal little seasonal rules: No Christmas music is sung or played until after Thanksgiving. Fran likes to purchase our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving, then we get it decorated by that Friday evening. Only then do the Hahns start with the Christmas music. When do you start listening to Christmas music: December 1^st? Thanksgiving weekend? Right after Halloween? In July? No judgment here, whenever the start date!

The important question is this: Do you find yourself singing this time of year? You really should.

On Sunday, December 1^st, Redeemer will embark on a new sermon series, “Songs of Christmas,” based in Luke 1-2,which will carry us through Advent and Epiphany. In this series, we will be listening to various voices singing about the coming of Christ into the world: Zechariah, Mary, Simeon, the heavenly choir of angels, as well as Hannah, the mother of Samuel the prophet, who looked forward to Jesus’ coming about a thousand years in advance. You will hear tones of longing and need blended together with notes of hope and confidence as their stories are told and their songs sung.

This season at Redeemer will offer you many opportunities for singing! Our Redeemer Christmas Party on December 8^th includes Christmas carols, “Lessons and Carols: Behold the Lamb” on Sunday evening, December 15^th will be an evening of Scriptures and music recounting the incarnation, and our Candlelight Christmas Eve service is full of singing together.

I also encourage you to embrace the music of Christmas in your personal and family times of worship. We have some great Advent materials for you, your family or roommates to use together, singing as you light an Advent wreath, perhaps at your kitchen table after a shared meal. You can visit our Advent Resources table in the church foyer on Sunday morning to pick up an Advent Worship Guide or a devotional. (Click here to download these resources.)

The wait for Christmas to finally get here can be excruciatingly long for many of us, especially the young or young at heart, mirroring the long wait for so many who looked for the coming of Christ the Messiah. Anna the prophetess, we meet her in Luke 2 alongside Simeon, waited perhaps as long as 84 years, after becoming a young widow, waiting day after day in the temple for the Christ Child to be presented there. And when he came there with Mary and Joseph, presented for his and his mother’s purification rites, Anna and Simeon burst into peals of praise as they saw and held him.

And yet for many, when Jesus did arrive, they missed who he is and what he came to do – to renew all things, to turn the upside-down right-side-up, to give life through his death, to forgive us and welcome us home to God, to become the people of his kingdom life for a dying world. Let’s not miss Jesus, his grace and truth, this season. Let’s treasure these things up in our hearts, the way Mary did on the first Christmas; let’s sing praises of great joy, the way the shepherds must have as they returned from their visit to the manger with the babe; let’s await his coming again to make all things new the way Anna and Simeon waited and waited in the temple for his first arrival. May we wait this year for Christ’s appearing with glad songs of joy and hope.  Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.