Religion: A Pastor Ponders

Night shot of Christmas yard decor.
Photo By Marilyn Clark,
League City Area News Online

The music of Christmas

By Pastor William Jenkins

November 30, 2006

One of the distinctive features of Christmas is its music. Some of the most beautiful and joyful music ever written is sung at Christmas time. Christmas was birthed in heavenly music.

On the night Jesus was born, after the angel announced the good tidings of great joy, a heavenly host sang a joyful tune over the fields of Bethlehem, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill to men!”

Is it no wonder that Isaac Watts could write the words and Handle could compose the music for “Joy to the World!”? Christmas music is the most inspired of all music.

In this world we need Christmas to give us a course adjustment; to remind us of the way the world is supposed to work. Christmas is about faith and hope and joy and love and things that refresh our souls. Christmas music lifts the downhearted, lightens the spirit of the depressed, and expresses our deepest desires of hope and joy. Christmas music helps us regain our “true north” bearing.

Jeremiah lamented over young men who had lost their reason to sing. (Lamentations 5:14) Christmas can be therapeutic for those who have lost your reason to sing. If the pressures of life have squeezed the music out of you listen to the music of Christmas.

Allow the gentle sway of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” to massage your tensions, the exciting rhythm of “Joy to the World” to invigorate your hope, the grand orchestration of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” to inspire your soul. It is not possible to have Christmas without its music.

League City United Methodist Church is located at 1411 Main Street (FM 518), one block east of Interstate 45. For information, call the church offices at 281-332-1557 or visit the website at

HYPERLINK - http://www.lcumc.org

Note: Christmas picture update.