Advent and Music

Advent and Christmas are hard to imagine without music. As a classical music fan, the holiday provides me substantial moral support. The best pop, club, hip-hop, country, or rock holiday tunes fail to rise to the level or category of even the simplest, standard orchestral arrangement of a Christmas hymn or carol. "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" vies for tolerability while "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" roots itself in the brain stems of hundreds of millions of people from childhood.

Music is not incidental to Advent, nor to Christian life. Psalms are songs. The angels "said" things in Luke 2 about Jesus that many of us picture them singing. Revelation features songs. Raising our voices in song is a permanent part of expressing our faith.

The first verse I remember remembering is Psalm 118:14. "The Lord is my strength and my song, he has become my salvation." There are implications here. We all have a song. It is the musical signature of our deepest faith, gratitude and affection. To say that the Lord is my song is to say that the Lord has taken up all the room in my thoughts. He occupies my emotional attention. He distracts me from everything else. My day-by-day walking experience of Him is so full and rich that it overflows into my need to sort out and let out my feelings for Him in song. We sing in church and on Christmas Eve because singing is the best way to give the most of ourselves in the moment. To prayerfully sing Scripture verses back to God is a distinct honor. What else heals and nourishes us more? What else is more satisfying for our souls? Feeling so limited before God sometimes, we sing to worship Him regardless. Many of us will testify, very subjectively, that it feels like God likes it when we sing to Him. Amen.

PRAYER: Lord, our lives are songs to You, songs about You, and songs for You. We are bound by so many things until You release this unbound, musical glory in our hearts. Thank You for being such a welcoming and joyful audience of our imperfect praises. Thank You for giving us Your attention and blessing. Thank You for Jesus and the invitation to join the angels in His exaltation. Let Advent this year compose a new song out of our lives, lifted by and to You, Lord. Amen.

TOMORROW: Advent and Toys