Tag Archives: Christmas
The Clausifixion of Santa
Santa Claus: a fat excuse foisted upon children by people who have aligned themselves with a culture of mindless consumerism; the last bloated burp of a shopaholic glutton who began overindulging on Halloween, through so-called Thanksgiving and right into the tinseled, beribboned present.
Santa is a tacky old man of dubious origins and intentions.
I used to teach 7th graders. I was surprised at how upset many of them were when told about the formulation of Santa Claus and the accompanying hype of Xmas in the U.S.A.
These were spoiled darlings from Suburbia – they were peeved that anyone would dare inform them of any reality beyond their distracted lives of plenty. I felt like sending them to Southern Sudan or North Korea to think about it for a while.
Saint Nicholas Saves Three Innocents from Death
The role of the Coca Cola corporation in consolidating the image of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas) more than a century after his makeover in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nick” by a Columbia professor of ancient literature is well-documented. But behind these recent pop-culture ploys looms the figure of an old bishop in a conical hat (not worn in the magnificent painting by Russian Ilya Repin at left) who was known for his acts of faith and for helping the poor of his native Mysia in Asia Minor during the 4th century.
I still love Christmas.
Artist: Elisabeth Jvanovsky
He is a Personation
Harry Belafonte and Mahalia Jackson both recorded it in 1956, and many other singers and bands have covered it – but I know it as the pop-disco hit by Boney M. What I did not know until researching this post is that the composer was Jester Hairston (1901-2000), born in North Carolina. I have also heard a Caribbean calypso version, but the song is an American composition originally. J. Hairston appeared in a number of well-known films and lived to be 98.
I never liked Boney M very much when they were at their height in the 70’s. They came from the Caribbean but became stars living as immigrants in (West) Germany. I remember a bunch of poppy dance tunes with silly names like Daddy Cool etc. I never heard Mary’s Boy Child until around the year 2000—but with every passing winter I love this song more and more. It grows on me every year when the radio stations drag it out for the obscenity of Christmas in the USA. It is perfect in theology, it is heartfelt, it is transparent, it is eternal truth and it has a disco beat. It catalyzes all the absurd contradictions of the holiday season.
Believing sinners (such as me) and unbelievers alike get swept up in the season against their own wills. I try to hold out against the holiday brainwashing and media-driven frenzy – but I eventually catch the “peace and goodwill” infection every year. It steals up on me when I least expect it – usually after a fit of Scrooge-like brooding negativity. This song is partly to blame. It condenses the mystery of Christ’s incarnation into 5 minutes of hummable pop. And yet it is timelessly profound – and if you listen closely, through 20 centuries over Judea in Palestine, your soul may be broken on the rock that is salvation. Who knows what the shepherds heard in the air that night, or what they saw; one wonders if they beheld celestial beings in disco garb singing this song from behind the sky . . .
Boney M (1978)
*There is a stanza missing from the YouTube.
Not sure why – but the radio version contains it. I included it below.
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day...
Long time ago in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say,
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
While shepherds watch their flock by night,
they see a bright new shining star,
they hear a choir sing a song,
the music seemed to come from afar.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
(Hum it with Boney M)
For a moment the world was aglow, all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted:
“let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace“.
Now Joseph and his wife, Mary,
came to Bethlehem that night,
they found no place to bear her child,
not a single room was in sight.
And then they found a little nook in a stable all forlorn,
and in a manger cold and dark, Mary’s little boy was born.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
For a moment the world was aglow, all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted:
let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace.
Oh my Lord
You sent your son to save us
Oh my Lord
Your very self you gave us
Oh my Lord
That sin may not enslave us
And love may reign once more …
Oh my Lord
when in the crib they found him
Oh my Lord
A golden halo crowned him
Oh my Lord
They gathered all around him
To see him and adore
(This day will live forever)
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
They had begun to doubt you
Oh my Lord (He is the truth forever)
What did they know about you ?
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
But they were lost without you
They needed you so bad (His light is shining on us all)
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
with the child’s adoration
Oh my lord (He is a personation)
There came great jubilation
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
And full of admiration
They realized what they had (until the sun falls from the sky)
Oh my Lord (Oh praise the Lord)
You sent your son to save us
Oh my Lord (This day will live forever)
Your very self you gave us
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
That sin may not enslave us
And love may reign once more…
~♥~
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord;
and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2nd Corinthians 4:3-6 [KJV]
☃♥☃
Next Christmas in Jerusalem
Susan J. Dallion, AKA Siouxsie Sioux is one of my favorite musical artists. I have great respect for her music, her band, and her art. Their songs make me wonder whether rock music can be considered as poetry in its own right. Do lyrics hold their own when read without the music? I am the type of person who considers the words FIRST—the message, whether subliminal or explicit, is paramount.
The song Israel analyzed as text has several diverging strands of sub-text:
- Anti-semitic Goth-Rock sensationalism (shock value)
- The singer’s personal disenchantment with Judeo-Christian religion
- a critique of the commercialization of Christmas
- The founding of Israel in 1948
- Yearning for the glory of a vanished Davidic past
- Israel’s rejection of Christ’s new covenant
Each of these conjectures would be worth exploring but I want to simply show you the lyrics and post some meanings I have discerned in the words. The song has always conjured up for me an image from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck: the Five of Pentacles.
Little orphans in the snow / With nowhere to call a home
Start their singing, singing
Waiting through the summertime / To thaw your hearts in wintertime
That’s why they’re singing, singing…
Waiting for a sign to turn blood into wine
The sweet taste in your mouth / Turned bitter in its glass
Israel…in Israel…
Shattered fragments of the past / Meet in veins on the stained glass
Like the lifeline in your palm
Red and green reflects the scene / Of a long-forgotten dream
There were princes and there were kings
Now hidden in disguise / Cheap wrappings of lies
Keep your heart alive with a song from inside
Even though we’re all alone, we are never on our own when we’re singing
There’s a man who’s looking in, and he smiles a toothless grin
Because he’s singing, singing…
See some people shine with glee, but their song is jealousy
Their hate is clanging, maddening…
In Israel…will they sing Happy Noel?
Israel…in Israel..in Israel will they sing Happy Noel ?
The song is cryptically open-ended. It can be spun in any direction because it is so vague. But I love the divinatory/liturgical imagery of these verses:
Shattered fragments of the past / Meet in veins on the stained glass
Like the lifeline in your palm
Red and green reflects the scene / Of a long forgotten dream
There were princes and there were kings…
Now hidden in disguise / cheap wrappings of lies
Keep your heart alive with a song from inside . . .
It all comes together in some kaleidoscopic way; the light shining through the stained glass, the divinatory desperation, the Christmas colors in the cheap wrappings of holiday gifts now given a deeper and richer Hebraic dimension of meaning. There is even a possible Merovingian sub-text because she uses the Frankish word Noël for Christmas.
Yet it ends with a self-negating riddle:
“In Israel will they sing Happy Noel ?”
The more I think I am pinning it down the more elusive it is!
I recently found some words by J.I. Packer in his book Knowing God which, for me, immediately summoned lines from this cryptic song. I have no way of knowing what Siouxsie’s original intent was. I feel the lyrics stand on their own right as poetry. There are certainly dark possibilities in the song but I prefer to dwell on the transcendent metaphysics of the imagery. What I found in Packer’s writing [* on the subject of Divine Adoption]:
” There are no distinctions of affection in the divine family. We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved. It is like a fairy story – the reigning monarch adopts waifs and strays to make princes of them. But, praise God , it is not a fairy story; it is hard and solid fact, founded on the bedrock of free and sovereign grace. This, and nothing less than this, is what adoption means.”
Siouxsie and the Banshees will have to forgive me. I have read my own message into their music, but that is what great art makes us do: search for meaning in Life.
CONNECT/HOOK 