Real Hope: O Come Let Us Adore HimSample

Angels We Have Heard on High

Christmas carols are tainted for me. Every year, trying to work out new and interesting arrangements of these old, wordy, hard to sing (too high, too low, no one has enough breath to finish singing ‘Gloria’) songs with words we don’t use anymore. But then I took a break. It wasn’t up to me anymore to work out these arrangements, or involve the kids’ church somehow, or set up gear outside on a typical hot, humid, ‘is it going to start pouring with rain or are we going to be struck by lightning’ December evening.

I thought about what that first Christmas would have been like. I immediately thought of the stories told in those old and dusty Christmas carols. The fringe of society, rough and ready shepherds looking after their sheep, the frightening, overwhelming, earth-shaking heavenly choir lighting up the night sky singing ‘glory to God in the highest’, and God enacting His plan for our salvation through His Son becoming one of us.

Take a bigger breath before starting to sing the ‘gloria’ bit. Finish the last word of the verse a little earlier and you’ll have enough time to fill the lungs. Make a joyful noise. Thank the musicians who played the new arrangement, and for setting up in the heat and humidity, and thank God for loving us so much that He sent His only Son into the world to save us.

Come to Bethlehem and see, Him whose birth the angels sing, Come, adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

Written by AARON WRIGHT