A Strange Christmas Carol for Him
Christmas carols ring through my soul and cheer up each Advent season. Don’t you love the faint whispers of angels singing while shopping in crowded stores?
The concept of the Christ child as Savior of the world, while known in theory, became true in practice for me during my fifteenth Christmas. I’d begun reading the Bible that fall and suddenly I saw connections all around in December.
I heard Handel‘s Messiah and viewed It’s A Wonderful Life for the first time that year.
Cover of Georg Friedrich HändelI’d never sung in four-part harmony until I attended Trinity Lutheran Church. Gloria rang through my heart and soul for the first time and I delighted to soar up to those high notes.
We’ve all got favorite Christmas carols, but one that has meant much to me for many years is 4Him’s 1993 “Strange Way to Save the World,” told from Joseph’s perspective. The chorus says it best:
Why me? I’m just a simple man of trade?
Why Him, with all the rulers in the world?
Why here inside a stable filled with hay?
Why her, she’s just an ordinary girl?
Now I’m not one to second guess what angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world.
Everyone knows Mary is the heroine of the Christmas story, after God himself, but this song reminds me of Joseph’s faith–and really, mine, too, that God would choose such a curious way to save you and me.
Christmas carols, the music, lights and presents, all are just a small reflection of the truly amazing event which happened when God poured himself into the innocent, feeble body of an infant and presented him to a young woman and a perhaps nervous man to raise.
Jesus is the reason for the season–and God chose ordinary people, in an ordinary time and place, to leave his mark for all humanity.
The full blog post, including all the lyrics to Strange Way to Save the World is here: http://michelleule.com/2013/12/17/strange-carol-christmas/
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?