Mennonite Weekly Review

When we hear, across 2,000 years, the angels announcing Jesus’ birth, they are singing. The spoken word wouldn’t match such a beautiful message: “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace . . .”

The fact that Luke tells us the angels were “praising God and saying” doesn’t stop us from imagining their words put to music. If the heavenly choir had a better composer than G.F. Handel, we’d love to hear it. For now, we’ll be satisfied to listen to his Messiah and believe that’s what the angels might have sounded like.

Our idea of an angel chorus fits the biblical picture of singing as the language of heaven. Rev. 5:11 describes “ten thousand times ten thousand” angels singing, “Worthy is the Lamb.” Handel turned that one into a masterwork, too.

At Christmas, music moves us beyond earthly concerns to “realms of glory.” We cannot imagine celebrating the anniversary of Jesus’ birth without music.

And what music it is. The sound of Christmas is the simplicity of “Silent Night” and the flourish of the Messiah. It is a huddle of carolers, slightly off-key. It is finding out how many verses of “Joy to the World” you know by heart. It is a child who can’t say his “Rs” singing “The Friendly Beasts” in the Christmas Eve pageant. It is the swelling intensity of “O Holy Night” and the softly interwoven lines of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

The sound of Christmas is the year’s best music, and everyone has a favorite — or two or a dozen.

At Christmas, and always, music amplifies emotion. It intensifies words’ meanings and draws us into God’s presence. In Singing: A Mennonite Voice (Herald Press, 2001), John Bell writes of “the physical sensation of being embraced by faith incarnate in song.” In a mysterious way, he says, “song connects us to our past, our soul, our future, our Savior.”

One person interviewed for Singing: A Mennonite Voice described how a Christmas song brought a moment of revelation: “Once while singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ I was struck by the line ‘be born in us today’ as if I had never noticed it before. It explained to me what Advent, coming and incarnation are all about.”

While a song can explain, reaching the mind, it also can touch the soul in ways words cannot. Music helps us experience God with head and heart. It has the power to stir emotions beyond expression — and never more so than at Christmas.

“Look now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing. O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.”