If you heard all the curmudgeonly things I say about Christmas time, you’d think I was a real-life Scrooge! Someone bought me a Christmas themed-tie with the Grinch on it. And I wear it proudly all season!

Christmas is the season for music ministers, it’s true. (After all, Thanksgiving services are usually low key, and we don’t have many Halloween cantatas.) Truthfully, I have to be careful or I can allow the notes and rhythms of fancy choir arrangements to take precedence over the simple, yet incomprehensible, doctrine of the carols.

Think about it—what other season has a body of hymns all its own? Easter is a distant second. And what other time of year do we hear raving liberal agnostics singing, “Glory to God in the highest”? The special tenderness of peoples’ hearts at Christmas is the reason that we put so much evangelistic emphasis on an already too-busy time of year. Ron Hamilton wrote:

Christmas is a season with a beauty all its own.
People’s hearts grow tender, and our thoughts return to home.
Manger scenes surround us with a Babe so meek and low.
But this tiny baby left the manger long ago.

We need to remind our co-workers, friends, and family that

He is more than just a baby, He’s the God of Abraham;
He is more than just a memory, He’s the ever great I AM.
More than just a dim reflection— Jesus Christ, the Living Word!
He is more than just a baby, He’s the ever-lasting LORD!

This season I will attempt to keep my focus on why I am doing, rather than what I am doing. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to another rehearsal . . .

David Stertzbach II, B.A.
Music Pastor