It came upon a midnight clear\u2026 that is: the moment Thanksgiving Day ended, the Christmas Season formally began. That\u2019s when I was a kid. Now the Christmas decorations in stores are festooned after Halloween, sometimes before that. Pretty soon, Santa Claus will be hunting for Easter eggs and marching in Fourth of July parades.<\/p>\n
Nearly everyone decries the \u201ccommercialization of Christmas,\u201d and so they should. But in American society it seems like the observance of Christmas itself might disappear before the culture of consumerism does. However, the commercial aspects of the holiday ultimately will harm the celebration of Christ\u2019s birth as much as have the adoption of the pagan-originated date and the traditions of evergreen trees. Not much, unless we let it happen.<\/p>\n
About which we say, Hallelujah!<\/p>\n
Around us we see another seasonal tradition beginning, and this one we can embrace. In malls and shopping plazas, vocal ensembles and choral societies have been gathering, and, despite the fact that \u2018tis the season to be shopping, they break out in the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel\u2019s Messiah. The mighty music \u2013 and the mightier words \u2013 draws the attention of everybody within earshot.<\/p>\n
In Philadelphia, the atrium of Macy\u2019s Department Store is home to the largest pipe organ in the United States. Recently, 650 choristers mingled with shoppers until the moment to sing this wonderful music arrived, and the blast-furnace organ notes combined with thousands of voices (for shoppers joined in) \u2013 and it was glory indeed.<\/p>\n
This has happened elsewhere too. Local organizers can claim that these are field-trips of singing clubs, or activities of an opera society; or publicity events; or class projects; maybe even churches\u2019 outreach. (You will see in this video clip, signs proclaiming the performance a \u201crandom act of culture\u201d \u2013 a rather secular camouflage.) Yet when all is said and done \u2013 or seen and sung \u2013 what has happened is the proclamation of the prophecy and birth of mankind\u2019s Savior; of the Incarnation; of the promised reign of the Christ.<\/p>\n
To mingle this news, and Handel\u2019s anointed music, with busy shoppers and the preoccupations of a \u201choliday\u201d season, is brilliant\u2026 redeeming the Message, and restoring its place in the midst of our lives, even for a moment; forever, and ever; Hallelujah!<\/p>\n
Click:\u00a0\u00a0 Hallelujah!<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Thanks to Marlene Bagnull of the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference for forwarding the clip linked above ( <\/em>http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/26hfmt8<\/em><\/a> ) from Philly; and to Diane Obbema for sending the clip of another Flash Mob singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a food court ( http:\/\/<\/em>tinyurl.com\/25xpqy8 <\/em><\/a>). There have been other such outbreaks around the country\u2026 maybe next year we will all participate in our own communities!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It came upon a midnight clear\u2026 that is: the moment Thanksgiving Day ended, the Christmas Season formally began. That\u2019s when I was a kid. Now the Christmas decorations in stores are festooned after Halloween, sometimes before that. Pretty soon, Santa Claus will be hunting for Easter eggs and marching in Fourth of July parades. Nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,7,31],"tags":[1909,40,38,42,41,39],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-jesus","category-service","tag-christmas","tag-flash-mob","tag-hallelujah-chorus","tag-handels-messiah","tag-holidays","tag-shopping"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1bRYz-119","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}