Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/909943
DECEMBER 8 3 "Sing to the Lord a new song." —Psalm 98:1 W e looked through five-and-dime stores for hours, searching for Christmas cards showing black faces in the glistening holiday scenes. Instead, when I was a child, my mother rarely found Christmas cards to send to friends that showed people who looked like us. Every jolly Santa on a card was white. So was every joyous family, every happy child, every robed choir, every heavenly angel, every worshiping wise man, and, indeed, so were every Mary, Joseph, and swaddled Baby Jesus. All white. Always. How, then, did we as black believers prepare for His coming? In our Jim Crow circumstance—limited in a land that enacted laws to lock us down, lock us up, and turn us away—how could we prepare to welcome the Christ? First, we sang about Him. Sang pretty loud, in fact. Inspired by the psalmist, our small black Denver church was filled to bursting during Advent with celebrating song. Defying our humble size, the tiny congregation dared to mount ambitious productions of Handel's Messiah, some years presenting the whole oratorio—not just the "Hallelujah" chorus. Filled with passion, we also sang the spirituals, or field music, of our ancestors: enslaved Africans who helped build our nation from the ground up. Their unpaid toil guaranteed wealth, comfort, and privilege for people who used God's Word to exploit them and segregate us. Still, we sang. Second, to prepare for Christ despite injustice, we lit candles. In the dark Sunday mornings of December, the church assigned one family a week to light the Advent tapers. That family then led us in yet more singing: Walk in the light … Jesus, the light of the world. Third, we opened the church to people who needed Him—perhaps more than we did. Lonely or lost, they were folks who'd somehow neglected Jesus all year, but returned to church before Christmas for His warmth. Their response? Many sang. None of it made total sense, all of this singing despite so much existential pain. Years later, however, long after greeting card companies launched "black Christmas" card designs, and many unjust laws were struck down, we remembered why we sang. Our praise prepared room for the One arriving to heal us. All of us. And that's the best way to sing His welcome. In harmony. Together. Patricia Raybon, MA Board Member Sing Together, Children