The other night at a festive gathering, everyone was asked a question related to Christmas. Mine was “What is your favorite Christmas song?”
Oh,
mercy. As I said that night, I couldn’t even give you my top ten Christmas
songs, much less a single title. So, I answered with two. One was the well-known,
“Joy to the World.” The other is lesser known, and has a title that seems sad,
but the lyrics are deeply touching to me. It is “In the Bleak Midwinter.” When
I searched my blog and found I had not written about it before, I was shocked,
because it is such a favorite of mine. It comes from a poem written by
nineteenth century poet, Christina Rosetti. Rosetti had her struggles. In her adolescence
her father became ill and passed away after a few years. The family struggled financially,
and Christina suffered from depression, but faith became a powerful force in
her life.
The
hymn begins:
In
the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan,
Earth
stood hard as iron, water like a stone:
Snow
had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In
the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Rosetti
uses her winter experience in England to set the stage for this hymn, but it seems to me these
words also point to the waiting, the longing, the wintry pause between Malachi and
Matthew as the weary world waited for the Savior.
She
continues to write:
“Our
God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven
and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign;
In
the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The
Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.”
Fred
Gealy, an authority on church hymnody wrote about this hymn, “ … it is a
proclamation, a declaration, a witness to the amazing mystery of what the
church when it spoke Latin called ‘incarnation,’ the Word becoming flesh, God
becoming man …”
The
miracle of Jesus taking our form in our space is a marvel. We are struck with
awe by God’s choice to send Jesus not to the acknowledgement of a huge applauding crowd, but to shepherds simply going about their business and wise men who came by devious purposes of their boss, but chose to protect the baby.
The
last verse:
What
can I give Him poor as I am?
If
I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If
I were a wise man, I would do my part.
What
can I give Him, give my heart.
With
Jesus, it is a level playing field. No matter how limited or how vast our
resources are, we all have the same gift to give Jesus—our hearts. Each of us can
make that full surrender—if we are willing.
So,
if you are wondering what the most important gift you can give this Christmas is,
it is the gift of your heart to the Savior.
Always
appropriate no matter the season.
" ...offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness" (Romans 6:13).