'Tis Tuesday before Christmas and all through the land, the lights are on houses, the trees look so grand. The folks all a flurry doing last-minute things, like baking and shopping and singing with Bing. The colors seem brighter, the music does too! Cross & Kin lists all our favs just for you! So now you have gifts and the goodies, a soundtrack to boot, you're all prepped for the big man in his bright red suit! So let's get The Notes started you're certainly prepped, a song we have visited, this week we've not leapt. Filled with links you can click and thoughts you can think. We promise today's Notes will be the right sync. This cover for sure it will fill you with glee, Pentatonix's version of "What Christmas Means To Me"!
The Acapella band Pentatonix is not a stranger to visiting Notesland. Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Sleigh Ride" (Pentatonix), Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Winter Wonderland" (Pentatonix with Tori Kelly/Perry Como with Ann Blyth), Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Up On The Housetop" (Pentatonix/Pomplamoose), Tues
Since they dropped on the scene in the third season of NBC's The Sing-Off, Pentatonix has catapulted to being one of Christmastime's favorite groups and one of the world's biggest concert attractions. We confess we have a bias for the all-vocal band as we've seen them two different times and loved each show. We highly recommend them as well as their country counterparts and fellow Sing-Off winners Home Free ("What Christmas Means To Me" - cover by Home Free, "Colder Weather" cover by Home Free) for a concert-going treat! Concert tickets make a nice Christmas Gift!
Today's version of this month's featured song comes from Pentatonix's seventh studio album and their third Christmas-themed project, Christmas Is Here! On the album, they continue their trademark unique vocal arrangements of seasonal sounds as well as their dropping of albums into the top 10 on the US Billboard 200 album charts. Christmas Is Here! peaked at #7. Pentatonix only released one single from the record. That single was "Making Christmas" a cover from The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. But as with all of Pentatonix's albums, many of their songs, including today's featured song "What Christmas Means To Me" have an incredible video in support.
Pentatonix continues the fun established by Stevie Wonder and buoyed by Paul Young with their cover of the song that is beginning to come into its own as a Christmas standard. "What Christmas Means To Me" celebrates the season by detailing its attributes all wrapped up in a Christmas-time chord progression and beat that makes you see those smilin' faces like you've never seen before...
"Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness;..." - Genesis 1:26a
"...And I will make enemies Of you and the woman, And of your offspring and her Descendant; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel.” - Genesis 3:15
"...Then he said, “Listen now, house of David! Is it too trivial a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel." - Isaiah 7:13-14
"...For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of dry ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we would look at Him, Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him. He was despised and abandoned by men, A man of great pain and familiar with sickness; And like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for Him." - Isaiah 53:2-3
"Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had thought this over, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus (emphasis mine), for He will save His people from their sins.” - The Gospel of Jesus according to the tax collector Matthew, chapter 1, verses 18-21
What does Christmas mean to me? Well for the final time, to put it specifically and short, Christmas means Jesus to me.
Jesus is God. He came in the form of a man. He is one-third of the Trinity, God the Son. He is the part of the Trinity that served as the payment, penalty, and sacrifice for all of the sins of the world that was started by the arrogance of the Garden of Eden and continues by me and you. He is the substitutionary pathway of restoration for man's relationship with God the Father. He was involved in the creation of the world as we know it and will be involved in its end as the reclamation of its original perfected state begins when He will reign over all the nations, tribes, and tongues.
"Name Him Jesus" doesn't make the list of things that Christmas means in our featured song. "..Choirs singin' carols right outside my door..." and "...Sing sweet Silent Night..." are about as close as you'll get. But leaving Jesus out doesn't just happen in today's song. This disparity towards Jesus is much more prevalent than you might think. It is His birth that is being celebrated after all!!! But if you look at the Billboard Holiday 100 you find yourself going down the list quite a bit before you have a popular Christmas song with any mention of THE Reason for the season, Jesus!
This must change. But it must change first in the heart, lives, and yes even listening patterns of believers. We have relegated our Jesus to the commercialized, politically correct, cancel-culture long enough. Please don't misunderstand the point I'm trying to make. I am not suggesting getting rid of "Jingle Bells" or "Rudolph". What I am recommending is that those classic Christmas songs are held in balance or perhaps even listened to less than "Away In A Manger", "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" or "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". Christmas albums are filled with artists from all generations who have covered these incredibly rich, Jesus-focused Christmas songs. Their arrangements serve as a means of honoring and magnifying, with all the studio production they can muster, the reality of this time and why we celebrate. So this season, as we are checking our Christmas playlist maybe even checking it twice, let's make sure that there are a multitude of songs that..."Name Him Jesus".
Jesus - That's what Christmas means to me.
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment