Christmas Carol Recommendations
Five Carols that Deepen our Experience of the Season
Christmas carols are so pervasive during this season that they are almost synonymous with Christmas itself. Year after year, songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” play on the radio, in busy restaurants and in crowded shopping malls as we prepare for the celebration. There are a few Christmas carols that I have found particularly powerful in helping me take steps closer to Jesus in this season. I have listed five short descriptions below. I have also included Scripture passages closely related to each song. Can you guess the titles from their descriptions? See the footnotes to find the answers and my recommended versions of each song.
1-This hymn was published in 1719 and is the most published hymn associated with Christmas, even though it is not a Christmas song. (Psalm 98, Genesis 3)1
2-This song began in 1933, one of 19 well-known Christmas carols, including the ones mentioned in the introductory paragraph, written in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. John Jacob Niles, a collector of folk songs, overheard a poor Appalachian evangelist girl singing for quarters. Her song repeated a lyric that caught his attention. He developed it into this well-known Christmas song. (Psalm 72:18, John 1:1-18, 1 John 2:2)2
3-This well-known Christmas carol was first produced in a Latin monastery in the 8th or 9th century. In the 15th century, its Gregorian chant was put to the tune of a French melody. (Habakkuk 2:20, Zechariah 2:13)3
4-This English Christmas carol was written in 1865 by the manager of an insurance company after a near-death experience revived his spiritual journey. (Matthew 2:1-12)4
5-This ancient carol was first written in Greek, in 275 AD, as an offertory hymn for an annual liturgical service called the Divine Liturgy of St. James. It was later translated into Syriac and much later into English. (Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 11:1, Luke 1:78, Revelation 3:7-8)5
Joy To The World In this hymn, the nations are called celebration because God's faithfulness to the house of Israel has brought salvation to the world. This carol, written in 1719 by Isaac Watts, an English minister and author of the textbook “Logick, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as well as in the Sciences.” We know the carol according to the American composer Lowell Mason's 1848 arrangement of a tune attributed to George Frideric Handel. Spotify: many traditional versions that are wonderful by I find the simple and subdued version by Sufjan Stevens inspiring as well.
I Wonder As I Wander Niles attended a fundraising meeting in Murphy, North Carolina. In his unpublished autobiography, he wrote of hearing the song:
A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins. ... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song.”
The girl who sang the inspirational phrase seven time was named Annie Morgan, leaving Niles with "three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea." Spotify: John Jacob Niles sings a haunting version. Ed Ames has a version that takes me back to my childhood.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel This song helps me prepare for the coming of Jesus by peering again into the mystery of God’s plan (Eph. 1:10), a plan that even angels are excited to see unfold. (1 Peter 1:10–12). Spotify: Phil Wickham
What Child Is This? in 1865, William Chatterton Dix was working as the manager of an insurance company. He was afflicted by an unexpected and severe illness that resulted in his being bedridden and suffering from severe depression. His comprehensive reading of the Bible inspired a spiritual renewal, including the words of this Christmas carol. Spotify: Kari Jobe’s version is wonderful as is Sarah McLachlan’s.
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent In modern times, Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged the English version of the song using public schoolmaster Gerard Moultrie’s translation from the Greek. Williams used the tune “Picardy,” a French medieval folk melody for his carol. Spotify: Red Mountain Church.