Recently, I played one of those games where it gives you the
name of a Christmas song or carol in fancy vocabulary so you have to guess what
it is. The examples ranged from “A singular yuletide yearning for a pair of
anterior incisors” (“All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”) to “Our
company consists of a monarchial trio” (“We Three Kings) to “A query concerning
the infant presently before us” (“What Child Is This?”)
It was fun trying to figure out the different titles, and
after a few, I got pretty good at it. It was when I got to “Proclaim tidings of
jubilation from the summit of a rocky terrain,” otherwise known as “Go Tell It
on the Mountain,” that I realized something: the “it” in the title is talking
about sharing the gospel with people, especially the good news of Jesus’ birth.
Who knew, right?
Maybe all of you knew that. Probably. Because it’s right
there in the song. But the “Name That Carol” game reminded me of something
really interesting: I never really listen to the words of the songs I sing at
this time of year.
There’s something nice, comfortable, and familiar about
Christmas carols. You can let your eyes wander to the starry background of the
screen during worship at church, not even glancing at the words, and still sing
them on auto-pilot. The memorized lines are tucked away somewhere deep inside
us, and we bring them out like treasures from the attic once a year, dusting
them off and displaying them proudly.
