I didn't want to cover well-known Christmas songs because while many do a good job at that, it's been done many times over. Additionally, I wanted the album to "feel" like Christmas and when considering Advent, I usually just become enthralled in a way that is difficult putting into words.
So there are no words.
I'll theologize a little bit here for those who are interested in such things. For those who are not, may you still enjoy the sounds and spirit of the record.
Christmas is historically - no big secret here - the celebration of Christ's birth. Many people consider this event to be monumentally important. But I started wondering why it's important.
You'll run the gamut of answers such as, "Our Savior was born,""He will grow up to lead the way," and the like. Fair enough. But there's more to it.
The Christ being born is the manifest act of The Miracle of the Incarnation. To catch a glimpse of the significance, we turn to scripture.
John 1:18 states: No one has ever seen God. It is the unique one, he who is in the bosom of the Father, who has told us all about God.
To quote Scottish theologian William Barclay:
"When John said that no one has ever seen God, everyone in the ancient world would fully agree with him. People were fascinated and depressed and frustrated by what they regarded as the infinite distance and utter unknowability of God."
Christ also made some pretty provocative statements, like (John 14:9) "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."
Barclay, once more, states, "God was completely unknowable. In Christ the distant, unknowable, invisible, unreachable God has come to men and women; and God can never be a stranger to us again."
In the Incarnation, all distance between God and man has been utterly erased. There is no chasm. There is forever a human with flesh and blood in the middle of the Trinity.
While it's true that man often holds God in enmity out of shame and then projects this false perception back to heaven (Colossians 1:21 Once you were alienated from God IN YOUR MINDS because of your evil behavior), from His perspective, it's done.
All distance erased.
We can now approach the formerly unknowable one and call him personally, meaningfully, intimately, closer than the air we breath: Father.
This is the miracle.
credits
released November 24, 2013
Written, performed, and produced by Thomas Rehbein.
Recorded and mixed by Andy Keech.
"Advent" contains samples of public domain Orthodox chant.
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