942 Hopmeadow St. Simsbury, CT 06070
Mailing Address: PO Box 575
860.658.7627
Mailing Address: PO Box 575
860.658.7627
Search
-
December 23, 2021Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas certainly is a beautiful time to be together with family and friends, for the exchange of gifts and “decking the halls” with festive decorations. Christmas music fills the air in stores and offices, along the sidewalks of outdoor “malls” and across the airwaves. So much of our contemporary music, though certainly celebratory, fails to capture the true meaning of Christmas. Reflecting recently on one of our lesser-known Christmas carols, I was reminded of the meaning of this season and how we might be invited to respond. In the Bleak Midwinter marries a text from a 19th century poem of Christina Georgina Rossetti to a tune composed by Gustav Holst (more famous for his symphony known as “The Planets’). The song begins with a reference to the time of year Jesus was born, according to tradition: “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.” Although for us in the northeast United States, this description is very familiar, it likely was not the case where Jesus was born, where mild winters never dip below freezing, and summers can be scorching hot. The carol continues by poetically reminding us that God came down from heaven, taking on human flesh: “Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain; …a stable place sufficed the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.” Finally, this wonder of God becoming human elicits a response from us: “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a wise man, I would do my part; yet what can I give him: give my heart.”
Christmas is indeed a time when we celebrate God’s abundant and generous love, which cannot be confined to heaven, but rather spills over onto the earth in the person of Jesus. As John’s Gospel tells us, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). Jesus, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the eternal Word of God, takes on human flesh, becoming one of us, like us in every way except sin. This is the amazing truth of Christmas – God who is so absolutely, head over heels in love with us, that God (2nd Person of the Trinity) would leave heaven and take on a human body, a human nature, so that he could be that close to us! Do we fully appreciate the lengths to which God has gone for us in love? Maybe this Christmas Season (which does last until January 9th this year) we could take some time amid the crinkled wrapping paper and dropped needles from the tree, and reflect on God’s amazing love for us – God’s presence with us through his Son, Emmanuel. In this way we can better appreciate how loved and cared for we are by God, and the great gift he has given us in Jesus. And just maybe, as with that little known Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter, we can respond along with the composer, “Yet what can I give him? Give him my heart!” May you all have a most blessed Christmas!
