“Foggier yet, and colder!” describes Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol. “Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of–‘God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!’ Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.” The irony within this icy picture is not missed on Dickens’s careful detail. In the piercing, wearying cold stands the cheerful caroler while warm and sheltered sits the cold, cantankerous Scrooge.
The contrasting hearts Dickens paints in this scene are on all our minds and hearts this time of year; particularly for those who enter it with greater apprehension than hope. Life often presents the irony of this caroler. Some of the warmest hearts belong to lives that have been surrounded by the darkest and coldest days. The words of the caroler and the familiar lines of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen amplify the contrast. This much loved hymn tells a mighty story for even the bleakest of lives.
God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Savior was born was born on Christmas Day,
To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy.
With the comma, we know that this song is not addressed to “merry gentlemen.” In Dicken’s book this word “merry” conjured up for Scrooge Christmas’ long ago when life was freer and his future was bright, full of life, able to rest in the goodness of things…until that great loss struck Scrooge and he began to look at life as harsh and unforgiving…and he became bitter to his core. This word “merry” has come to mean something quite different than it did for the first hearers of this hymn. Now it communicates lively cheerfulness, it once meant “mighty” or “strong” as when one is in the prime of their youth and their life is fully ahead of them…or in the case of the Christian who trust in the Lord’s strength and might in the faith because of what someone else (read Christ) has done for us. Similarly, the word “rest” also signified the notion of being kept or made well…things done to and for us. This being the case, it is best understood as a prayer: “God make you mighty, gentlemen (all believers).” What specifically makes us mighty is explained in the story the song retells:
From God our heavenly Father a blessed angel came;
And unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same;
How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name.
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy..
For those living in cold and harsh realities, brought on by hard memories this time of year, remembering that Jesus was born to save the lost is far more than a thought that warms the heart; it is more like the sun that provides the very capacity for life.
When Mary’s sung her Magnificat it was not sung in a vacuum, without the reality of hard times ahead; being pregnant without a husband bore the stigma of adultery and the risk of death. But she sang because the angel gave her a mighty story to sing about: “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:30-33).
We remember this ancient story because it brings life and breath into our own. The “comfort and joy” promised by the angel and proclaimed in the song God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen is not an outburst of seasonal cheer, nor a call to passive contentment. Comfort comes from the mighty encounter of knowing the Son of God by name, and joy is the child-like wonder of finding Christ so near. Whether in the midst of warmth or cold, light or darkness, Christ is here, the Son of hope has been given; God has made us mighty.
May God make us mighty for His glory today and in the days ahead!
God Bless and Merry Christmas!
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
