Caroling Wars

Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I gigged for a couple Christmas seasons with a company that supplied atmosphere entertainment for corporate events and mansion-size holiday parties.

In other words, I dressed up like a character in a Dickens novel and sang four-part harmony while blending into the rest of the Christmas decorations.

I’ve worshiped on a lot of geography, but this itinerary would have been pretty inaccessible for a standard church praise team. Yet here, an innocuous caroler could sing Gloria in excelsis Deo while the lesser gods of wealth, power, and image only pretended their ephemeral glory mattered. Here as a caroler, I could declare that “He rules the world with truth and grace…” into an atmosphere where Jesus’ name had probably not been honored in a very long time.

To be sure, most of my fellow musicians were not on the same page spiritually. And sometimes the client requested no songs about Christ. Ugh, I was already putting up with jingle bells and reindeer just for the sake of getting to the good stuff. At those events I always wanted to wink at heaven when someone would invariably ask, “Do you all take requests? Could you do… ‘Silent Night’?”

In such a setting, honoring the special request of an attending guest trumped both fear of offense and Jesus-disdain in the host, so we obliged. Of course, I had to restrain myself from hugging the stranger and asking, “Now, are you a real person or an angel?”

Did I elaborate on the gospel and invite anyone forward to be baptized? No. But somehow I knew it mattered that I worshiped from my heart—in either lyrics or presence—in places where the Lord Jesus deserves to be praised.

With that background, I watched this year as all kinds of caroling opportunities randomly opened around me.

I’ve caroled over the last three weeks in nursing homes, neighborhoods, and other quarters only made accessible through this cultural construct of Christmas music. We were invited under the banner of spreading Christmas cheer. I came to worship. And I worshiped alongside homeschool kids, church families, and Bible study friends.

A remarkable experience. Engage with someone who sings along in the nursing home dining hall, and she will tell you her life story. Hand another a stuffed animal and find how that very color and kind proves to be a deliberate hug from a God who knows her better than she suspects. Sing to the lady sitting outside her apartment and listen to how she misses her family in this new job she’s taken. Watch the mentally unstable one take a song sheet and sing along with you. Cry as a young child hugs an elderly soul desperate for human touch. And marvel as a 100% rain chance breaks instead to a glorious sunset followed by stars that surely sing along with you.

All that happened and more. But other dynamics intrigued me as well.

Every spiritual climate feels different. Not that I’m an expert, but experiencing them back to back to back grows discernment. Some drain the life out of you. Others feel hostile. Some are like the first plow through hard ground. And some are well-tended fields that you just celebrate.

The dynamic of the aftermath is the new one puzzling me this year.

One would wish, of course, that we left a wake of peace behind us and joy that continues its ripple effect. In the “tidings of comfort and joy” department, hopefully that played in somewhere.

But on some other level, things got harder after we left. I spoke to a staff member at one place who said, “These last three days since your group was here have been just crazy. I don’t know what’s going on.” When I apologized, she wisely said, “Oh, don’t be sorry. When the Holy Spirit shows up, that’s always a good thing. But sometimes other stuff gets stirred up in the process.”

There was sobering news in another location. A young woman, in whose residence we sang only last week, lived just a few more days before collapsing and dying suddenly.

Was our timing good in light of unforeseen hard times to come? Or did we poke a bear? What happens in the spiritual realm when we worship in different physical places? And how should we steward that privilege for God’s maximum glory and people’s highest good? Besides singing, what other types of worship can we offer our King, with the byproduct of breaking up hard ground and gathering others into His loving presence?

We step into the middle of a myriad of stories and briefly intersect them without knowing the beginning or the end. Yet these are real people who live and die. We move in and out of spiritual dynamics, cosmic in scope and beyond our ability to see. The stakes are high in this business of carrying around the treasure of Christ in our jars of clay. I don’t want to squander a minute or a heartbeat.

I will give thanks to You, O LORD, with my whole heart. Before the gods I sing Your praise. The kings of the earth will give You thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of Your mouth, and THEY shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. 
Psalm 138: 1,4,5

Sing it with me: He makes the nations prove/The glories of His righteousness/And wonders of His love/And wonders of His love…