In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone…
This Christmas hymn, perhaps musically one of the most beautiful, begins with an almost mournful lyric, of chilling cold and endless grey, interrupted only by the seemingly relentless blanketing of snow. A timely mention? Just yesterday the northern hemisphere observed its winter solstice. And — it’s cold…very cold…and, as I write, outside my window…you guessed it—snow.
But there are other “winters”, more cold, more endless-seeming than the earth’s annual wobble associations: the winters of loss, of loneliness, of the many breakages and unfixables that plague the human condition — snow on snow on snow…
If the above mentioned song ended with verse one, then Rip Van Winkle’s sleep would not be long enough. But nay, the singer goes on to tell of the Creator-Deliver who made the house call of the ages, to deliver those who will open their wintry door, that He might rescue them from the spiritual hypothermia sure to steal their eternal souls.
When I recorded this song a few years back, I took the liberty to give a brighter take on verse one, though a take that reveals what it cost for this Deliverer to save me from my winters:
“…Dark the skies at midday,
dark it felt below;
when His blood flowed crimson,
washed me white as snow.”
The last verse of the original lyric by Christina Rossetti asks if there might be anything one could possibly can give in return to this One who takes the cold and pain of all our winters, and in return gives us His abiding presence now, and a coming endless summer The Beach Boys could only dream about. The answer? “Give my heart.”
Please — won’t you come in from the cold this wintry Christmas season? Just open the door (Revelation 3:20; Galatians 4:4,5)…
Noel Shalom,
Brian
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