The carols that we sing each year do such a magnificent job of underscoring who Jesus is and why He came. For example, in Hark the Herald Angels Sing, we learn that only through “the newborn King” can “God and sinners [be] reconciled.”
This Advent we looked beyond the Christmas story, to the Christmas “back story”. We spent three weeks looking at Caesar Augustus, King Herod, and the Magi, the mysterious “Kings” from the East. Only when we understand the Kings and claims of the day, will we realise how subversive it is to sing “Glory to the newborn King”!