The Minor Sounds of Christmas

Likely you have heard it before.  The swelling guitar driving the chorus again and again and again and, well, again for good measure. The repetition in the lyrics is an echo of the repetitive nature of the underlying music.  Today, the majority of contemporary Christian music relies on the same three major chords, C, G, and D played over and over again.  There is of course a dash of A minor thrown in, but the major chords are dominant voices.  Together they create an uplifting and powerful sound designed to anchor our spirits with the warm, fuzzy feelings of faith.  These chords are comfortable to sing for most people so the songs are easy and catchy.  It creates a merry and bright Christianity, just like the Christmas season reflected back to us from Christmas lights, family Christmas cards, car buying commercials, and hallmark movies. People like to feel good - there is nothing wrong with that - and the Christmas season is an easy place to park our positivity.

However, we are not in the Christmas season, but the season of Advent. Though we light the candles of hope, peace, joy, and love, they are candles guiding us through the night rather than the clarity of day. When we honestly retell the stories of our faith, the dominant emotion is not happiness and cheer, but the hopeful expectation that can only come when our experience of good has been delayed.  While Advent is not in and of itself a melancholy moment, it has in its music more than a little A minor.  In truth, for many people this holiday season can be difficult.  The sounds you hear are discordant.  Perhaps you feel untethered and adrift.  The absence of loved ones from their usual place at the dining table, illnesses and sometimes their treatments looming over across the calendar, or the silent agony of isolation can be especially haunting during the holidays.  If this is the Advent season you find yourself in, that’s okay, too.  We can hold our honest experience of this life before God.  In God you will find no shame, no condemnation, no platitudes, just the love of the one who created your, redeemed you, and holds you and your loved ones even now.  There is nothing more true to the Advent spirit than longing desperately for a reality that is different than the one you experience around you now. May the light of Christ be a guide to the hope you may not see or hear right now.

If the minor sounds of Christmas ring most loudly in your ears this year, I invite you to our Blue Christmas service next Wednesday at 6pm in the chapel.  We can sit in the darkness together and hold our lives to the candles of God’s light.