The Emotions of Christmas

Celebrating the birth of the One who feels for our sadness and shares in our gladness.

Every year, Christmas Eve morning finds me puttering around with last minute preparations for the holiday, but always within earshot of the radio where the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is streaming live from King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England. The unique sound of the choir, combined with Scripture readings in tasteful British accents, has come to signal the start of Christmas for me.

While most of the music selections vary every year, the concert always opens with the same carol: “Once in Royal David’s City.” One lone little boy sings the first verse acapella, never knowing that he will be the chosen soloist until the choir director points at him a few seconds before the service starts. Talk about pressure!

That little boy, singing about another little boy born over 2,000 years ago, reminds me of a third little boy named John.

John was a little boy, about age eight, who came on a bus to the inner city Sunday School my church hosts. There he learned about and believed in Jesus, the babe in the manger, who came to save the world from its sins. A few weeks later, we learned that a fire had broken out in John’s home. Little John didn’t make it out.

John’s funeral was held at my church, and because it was only a few days before Christmas and the regular pianist was out of town, my 16-year-old self got tapped to provide the music. One of the songs selected was a carol I had heard for the first time that year: “Once in Royal David’s City.”

It seemed strange to have a Christmas carol at such a sad event, but it was oddly fitting, and I don’t think there was a dry eye by the time we finished the third verse:

Jesus is our childhood’s pattern:
Day by day like us he grew;
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us he knew;
And he feeleth for our sadness,
And he shareth in our gladness.

It probably doesn’t surprise you to know that I think of John almost every time I hear this verse from “Once in Royal David’s City.” As the years have passed, I’ve come to realize that John was released from the difficulties and tragedies of this life early on. Many of us, however, are not, and the older we get, the more weak and helpless we feel and the more tears and smiles we experience.

But such sadness and suffering is exactly why Jesus, the babe in the manger, the one whose birth we celebrate each Christmas, came to earth—to give us hope, to be our Comforter, to share in the ups and downs of our life so that we are not alone. This Christmas, as each of us are hit with the range of emotions that always seem to accompany the holiday, may that message of hope encourage and strengthen our hearts.

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Image Credit: BBC via YouTube