The tune of We Three Kings streams regularly through my house these days. My eight-year-old son, Jack, is learning it for piano class.
Kings is not your typical Christmas carol. It is played in a minor key. In Listening to Music, author Craig Wright explains that in the Near East, minor key tonality is often used in optimistic tunes. To western ears, however, minor keys sound somber and foreboding.
Reading Matthew 26 in the second week of Advent, We Three Kings reverberates in my mind. I cringe as the plot against Jesus comes to fruition. It is painful to see him praying in agony and devastating when he is betrayed and denied by his own. Micah’s prophetic words, “They do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand his plan,” ring true.
This is not typical Advent material – and yet there is a great beauty in it. All the betrayal, the suffering, the pain and loss accomplished what was begun in Jesus’ birth. Christ’s movement toward Calvary is God’s love in motion. The pain and the joy are all part of the whole.
We Three Kings ends this way:
Glorious now behold him arise;
King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia, sounds through the earth and skies.
Alleluia and Amen.
--Susan Beebe
Kings is not your typical Christmas carol. It is played in a minor key. In Listening to Music, author Craig Wright explains that in the Near East, minor key tonality is often used in optimistic tunes. To western ears, however, minor keys sound somber and foreboding.
Reading Matthew 26 in the second week of Advent, We Three Kings reverberates in my mind. I cringe as the plot against Jesus comes to fruition. It is painful to see him praying in agony and devastating when he is betrayed and denied by his own. Micah’s prophetic words, “They do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand his plan,” ring true.
This is not typical Advent material – and yet there is a great beauty in it. All the betrayal, the suffering, the pain and loss accomplished what was begun in Jesus’ birth. Christ’s movement toward Calvary is God’s love in motion. The pain and the joy are all part of the whole.
We Three Kings ends this way:
Glorious now behold him arise;
King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia, sounds through the earth and skies.
Alleluia and Amen.
--Susan Beebe
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