photo credit: krisdecurtis

We woke up yesterday and went to church here in Williamsburg where we’re vacationing for the week. I employed the best method possible in finding a solid, evangelical church to worship at on the Lord’s Day: the phone book. Flipping through, we had an extended list of almost every conceivable denomination. We decided that we wanted to do something a bit different and go to a service at a denomination of church that none of us had ever visited.

I was immediately partial to a Coptic Orthodox church, but my sister-in-law wasn’t so sure about the possibility of incense. I then suggested we go Presbyterian. Still, so many to choose from. Is it the PCA or PCUSA that are the more evangelical, missions-minded denomination? We went with a good orthodox sounding name:  Grace Covenant. We like grace and I’m interested in covenant theology. It seemed like a good fit.

Great service. I was struck by, and this is the main purpose of this post, the singing of carols after Christmas. All except for one of the songs sung yesterday morning were Christmas carols. They’re hymns nonetheless, but they’re primarily now known as Christmas carols.

Doesn’t it make all the sense in the world to sing most of our carols after Christmas rather than before? They tell of the newborn babe lying in a manger. If the purpose of Christmas is to re-live the advent of the Savior, then the month leading up to the Day should be spent reading prophecy and the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, stopping short of the actual birth narratives. The songs sung should be sung to match. Instead, we sing of the Savior’s birth before we celebrate it happening. Yesterday morning, it was refreshing to reflect on the birth of Savior through Christmas carols after we had celebrated it–or should have–on Christmas Day.

There is so much theology packed into these carol-hymns. Check out the last verse of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing:

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.

Let’s spend the month of January singing about the new-born King rather than jumping straight to Easter.