Three years ago I made a musical
discovery. I was introduced to
Sufjan Stevens, a singer-songwriter
from Detroit, Michigan, who is described as mixing ‘autobiography, religious
fantasy, and regional history to create folk songs of grand proportions.’ Since 2001, Sufjan has
recorded an annual EP of Christmas songs – although not the sort that you will
hear on the radio. Some are
typically idiosyncratic versions of traditional carols; others are original
works, often having a dig at the commercialization of Christmas with all its
false hope and ideals. One writer
notes:
Armed with a Reader’s Digest Christmas Songbook (and
a mug of hot cider) Sufjan & friends concocted a musical fruit cake year
after year… What he discovered, for better or for worse, was a fascinating
canon of Yuletide hits, some emotionally rewarding, some painfully cliché… What
does it all add up to? A headache, a hangover, and sentimental ruminations of
Baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and all those animals in the manger (http://music.sufjan.com/album/silver-gold).
Sufjan Steven’s music is interesting
because it brings together the sentimental and the critical, the sacred and the
profane, and the Holy and the human.
Yet, although it perhaps takes a patient ear to hear it, I wonder
whether it communicates something of the challenge of the biblical Christmas
story as it resounds through the ages and the reality of life in the 21st
century. In the Gospels we are
bedazzled by the appearance of angels, the movement of the Holy Spirit, and the
birth of Jesus, but at other times we read of the brutal awkwardness of the
human situation – political oppression, tough government edicts and murderous
power games.
As 2012 draws to a close we are only too
aware of human brutality and suffering.
Into this mix the Saviour of the world was born, our Lord Jesus Christ,
offering us hope and a promise beyond the confusion and pain; grace sufficient
for today and for all eternity. We
are bedazzled by the ‘Light of the World’.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New
Year.
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