It’s that time of year again when Christmas carols are on heavy rotation and we can’t help but get in the spirit of the season. So we asked musician, songwriter, and author, Andrew Peterson, what his favorite Christmas song was and here was his response.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
My personal, favorite Christmas song, if I had to name just one, I would say, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is my favorite like traditional carol because it’s in a minor key and it’s this beautiful kind of cry from the heart of Israel. And, I don’t know, I’m an Old Testament guy so there’s something about that song that I love.
My favorite new-ish Christmas song is a song called “I Will Find a Way” by Jason Gray and Andy Gullahorn. And when Andy plays it on the Christmas tour, which he does most years, I just come apart. I cry every time.
And it’s based on a short story by one of my favorite authors named Walter Wangerin Jr. And it is the most subversive, surprising, heart-breaking, beautiful song that I don’t even have time to get into right now except to say that it makes me realize how utterly surprising and perfect the story of the incarnation really is.
In the song it’s kind of a parable about a woman who is a single mom who is pregnant in a tenement hall and is utterly alone. It’s about how she doesn’t believe that anyone could ever love her. And the story is kind of God asking Himself, “How can I show her how much I love her?” And the answer is that He’s going to come and love her through the child that she’s going to have.
God finds a way by smuggling Himself into her heart through the baby, the illegitimate child that she has. And so it’s such an amazing picture of the lengths that God will go to and the surprising ways that He will show up and love us.
And I just can’t recommend highly enough that you go and find the song “I Will Find a Way” by Andy Gullahorn and Jason Gray. Listen to it and be amazed all over again at how perfect the story of the incarnation is.
