I love Christmas songs. Most of them are very uplifting. They remind me of my childhood. And a lot of Christmas songs proclaim the birth of Christ in wonderfully poetic language. I’m drawn in by the joy of “Joy to the World”, the longing of “O Come, O come Emmanuel”, and the calm of “Silent Night”. These songs and many others are wonderful additions to anyone’s Christmas celebration.
However, not all Christmas songs give me joy or calm. Some Christmas songs are upsetting. And no, I’m not talking about Mariah Carey or “Santa Baby”. I’m talking about Christmas songs that get the story and the meaning of Christmas wrong. These are Christmas carols that are theologically or historically inaccurate. So, here are three Christmas songs that you should skip over the next time they cross your playlist.
Mary Did You Know?
Okay, wait. Don’t tar and feather me just yet. I too like this song. It has a beautiful melody. I especially like the version sung by Pentatonix. However… the song asks over and over again if Mary knew about who Jesus was. It seems to imply that maybe Mary didn’t know.
Of course, she knew! Stop asking her!
She knew because Gabriel told her when he first appeared to her. In Luke 1:32-33 Gabriel tells Mary, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.” Being a first-century Jew who grew up learning the Old Testament, Mary would have known exactly what Gabriel was talking about. She would have heard in Gabriel’s words the fulfillment of 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 110. Yes, Mary knew.
She knew because she wrote her own song about Jesus. When Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth in Luke 1:39-56, she praises God in what is now called the Magnificat. In this song/prayer, Mary recognizes that this unborn child will be the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah. She says in verses 54-55 she says, “He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he spoke to our ancestors.” Mary knew that the blessing of the nations through Abraham’s descendents would come directly from her Son.
What’s especially cool about Mary’s praise song in Luke 1 is that Luke tells us he used “original eyewitnesses” to write his Gospel (Luke 1:2). This means that Mary must have mentioned to Luke while he was interviewing her that she had written a song while pregnant with Jesus. Luke must have asked for a copy, seen how good it was, and included it in his Gospel. And we still have it today! It shows us that, yes, indeed, Mary did know.
We Three Kings
Never in the history of Christmas Carols has one song led to more incorrect understanding of the Christmas story. We must hold “We Three Kings” accountable for its sinful ways. The egregious first line of this hymn contains not one biblically correct word. I’m reminded of Luke Skywalker’s line to Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi: “Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.”
They were not kings. The account of the magi comes from Matthew chapter two where the word magi (from the Greek magos) means “wise man and priest, who was expert in astrology, interpretation of dreams and various other occult arts.”[1] The wise men were astrologists. When they saw the star appear in the sky, they interpreted it as a sign of the birth of the promised star of Judah from Numbers 24:17. No where in Matthew 2 does it say that they were kings of any kind.
There were not three of them. Yes, they bring three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – but that does not mean there were only three wise men. In fact, we are not given a number in Matthew 2 at all. However, given the dangers of travel in the first century, it is likely there was a large group of people including the wise men, their servants, and any others who traveled with them.
Also, they were not from the Orient. Once again, we cannot know for sure where they came from since we are only told “the East” in Matthew 2, but we can make an educated guess. The fact that these wise men are aware of the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah, and the fact that the word “magi” originally referred to a Persian priestly cast means that they most likely came from Babylonia. They were Arabic, not Oriental.
The rest of the song describes what the three gifts mean, and is actually accurate in this regard. But the song focuses on singing about the Star itself rather than Jesus, so it is really not worth singing at all.
Away in a Manger
Now, I know a lot of people like this Christmas Carol. I’ve sung it every Christmas in every church I’ve ever been to. There’s just one problem: it is theologically unsound. Specifically, it makes the newborn infant Jesus seem less than fully human. The song says that Jesus didn’t cry.
“The cattle are lowing
The poor baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes”
This smells of Docetism – the heresy that teaches that Jesus only appeared human, but really wasn’t. This simply isn’t true. A core belief in Christian theology is that Jesus in the incarnation was both fully God and fully human. That means that Jesus felt everything we feel. Jesus cried as a baby. He also dirtied his diaper, kept his parents awake at night, and knocked his food onto the floor. He was a real baby. He cried.
Anyway, if I never hear any of these songs again, it’ll be too soon. Let’s move on from these songs, and go listen to some better Christmas carols.
[1] Arndt, William, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. 2000. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature.