Merrily embark on a journey of discovery about the baby born in Bethlehem

I HAVE continued to think about the carols that many of us will sing in the coming weeks.

I have to confess to quite enjoying Ding Dong Merrily on High, although that extended “Gloria” in the chorus can cause problems. (I know how to sing it. I just don’t know when to stop). Whereas many of the familiar carols retell in words and music the Christmas story from the gospels, here there is almost a complete absence of references to the baby of

Bethlehem. What we have instead is an outpouring of joy and celebration. It is as though the writer of the carol doesn’t feel a need to explain why we should celebrate – they assume that everyone knows.

Nowadays, that is not always the case. I was once teaching a primary school lesson. We had listened to the Christmas story and the class were then invited to draw a picture and write a sentence or two about the part of the story they remembered most. After a few minutes, one of the children raised a hand and said: “Sir, what was the name of the baby?”

That was over 30 years ago. It is unlikely that general awareness of the details of the Christmas story has improved much since then. It is important that we don’t just sing about this baby in Bethlehem but take the trouble to make sure that people are helped to understand why this birth was so important.

We can’t force people to believe (nor should we) but we can encourage them to make their own journey of discovery. When the shepherds were told of the birth of Jesus, they could have simply thought “how nice” and gone back to keeping watch over their flocks by night. Instead, we are told that they went to Bethlehem to “find out for themselves”. Having done so, we are told that they came back “praising God”.

No doubt if the carol Ding Dong Merrily had existed in those days, they would have been singing it. But singing with real understanding.

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