If I’m totally honest with you all, the whole reason I did this advent song idea, is to share with you one of my favorite songs of the holiday season. Now I LOVE many of Stevie Wonder Christmas songs, One Little Christmas Tree, What Christmas Means to Me, but, there’s only one that gets me almost every time I listen to it, and that’s “Someday at Christmas”.
Stevie Wonder first recorded this song in 1967, but I have attached the version that he did with Andra Day in 2015. Please listen below:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
This song both breaks and emboldens my heart. It breaks my heart, because it was first sung fifty-three years ago. In 1967 the country was dealing with racial tensions around civil rights, the Vietnam war, Loving vs. Virginia, tornados in Chicago, and much more. It seems so very long ago, and yet the words ring as true today as they did back then. We still don’t have a Christmas morning were all are equal, a Christmas morning were there are no hungry children, no empty hands. We have yet to see a world were hate is gone and love has prevailed. We still have such a long way to go to see that Christmas morning. Some pastors that I’ve worked with before and some in my profession today say that that Christmas morning is an impossibility. They say that until Jesus comes, we cannot hope to have such lofty dreams.
I disagree. Why then would a baby be born into the world? Why then would angels sing a song of joy? Why tell the lowliest among us first? Why teach us to love one another? Why show us how to build God’s kingdom on earth? If all is naught until Jesus comes again then what was the point of all the time Jesus already spent here?
This is the bar. This is what we work towards: endlessly, relentlessly, unflinchingly. We work towards the day where there are no tears or fears, where there are no more wars, no more hunger, no more hate, no more homelessness, no more inequality based solely on who someone is, no more discrimination based on race, gender, orientation, age, disability, etc… because friends, until that Christmas morning comes, until we see THAT Christmas Day, our world is still very much in Advent no matter how many times we put up a tree or sing Silent Night.
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas with your loved ones either in person or on Zoom or on the phone, however you can celebrate this year, but know that once our celebrations are done, once we’ve eaten our ham and drank our eggnog, there is more work to be done to prepare for THAT Christmas. I am emboldened to work towards it, and I pray that you are too.
Amen.
