This is in my YouTube favorites list and I pull it up every year. Something about it just so solidly prepares me to be open to receive the great gift of God, the Christ Child, on Christmas Day.
No disrespect intended, but I have trouble getting past the first stanza…. i doubt it was either bleak, midwinter, or snowing when the Christ was born.
Granted, but the poet, Christina Rosetti, who wrote the poem which was later set to music lived in 19th century England where December 25th had been set as the Church’s celebration of the Nativity. Her poetic license takes into account the harshness of much of the northern latitudes that time of year and tries to use that experience of place and time to create an image of the harshness of conditions in which our Lord and Savior was born. Some accounts claim His birth to be in April, 6 BC; which would be warmer and dryer than in December…..but does not change the fact that God came to be with us in poverty and harshness. Combined with Gustav Holst’s tune, the words paint a picture [for me at least] of great wonder arising out of the gloom of the world.
This is in my YouTube favorites list and I pull it up every year. Something about it just so solidly prepares me to be open to receive the great gift of God, the Christ Child, on Christmas Day.
No disrespect intended, but I have trouble getting past the first stanza…. i doubt it was either bleak, midwinter, or snowing when the Christ was born.
Granted, but the poet, Christina Rosetti, who wrote the poem which was later set to music lived in 19th century England where December 25th had been set as the Church’s celebration of the Nativity. Her poetic license takes into account the harshness of much of the northern latitudes that time of year and tries to use that experience of place and time to create an image of the harshness of conditions in which our Lord and Savior was born. Some accounts claim His birth to be in April, 6 BC; which would be warmer and dryer than in December…..but does not change the fact that God came to be with us in poverty and harshness. Combined with Gustav Holst’s tune, the words paint a picture [for me at least] of great wonder arising out of the gloom of the world.