Christmas, a major Christian holiday, is also a globally celebrated secular holiday. It is fashioned as a time for family, gifting towards friends and loved ones, and a festivity of light. As for Christian holiday, you might be surprised to find that neither the word Christmas nor Santa Claus were ever mentioned in the Bible.
Today, on Christmas Eve, I want to take a closer look at the lyrics of a widely popular Christmas carol – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing to illustrate the claim above.
You can watch/listen a beautiful rendition of the classic hymn here, or browse through the lyrics. Once you’ve done that, there will be a few immediate questions such as:
• Who is Jesus? He is the ‘everlasting Lord’ who from ‘highest heaven’ had come down to become an ‘offspring of the Virgin’s womb’.
• What did Jesus come to do? His mission was to see it through that ‘God and sinners reconciled’. That sounds impossible whether you believe if there’s a God and/or if you are indeed a sinner incapable of saving yourself.
• How did you accomplish his mission? By ‘laying his glory by’ so that ‘we no more may die’. If Jesus is indeed the Son of God, he has infinite glory. But He chose to be born a helpless baby and suffered a terrible death. In my place. And yours.
Beneath the surface of warm, cozy vibes, the core message of Christmas – or the story of the birth and life of Jesus Christ – both reveals a disturbingly dark reality and promises a beautiful light of hope.
We don’t have to look far for darkness – wars, crimes, injustices both on the global scale and in our personal lives. We often look to career, romantic relationship, technology, or the market – oftentimes leaving us empty, disappointed, or even hopeless.
And right there, in the middle of that lowly manger – when Christ was born – lies the light of hope.
Born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth
Keane Nguyen 