the red-nosed messiah

I was playing a gig the other day with the delightful Loretta Cormier, and pointed out that I'd heard "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was written by Jewish songwriters. Since then, I haven't been able to confirm the truth or falseness of that. But of course, as Loretta pointed out, "White Christmas" is by Irving Berlin, and "Chestnuts" is by Mel Torme, both Jewish.

The interesting thing to me, though, about "Rudolph" is its distinctly Christological shape. Berlin and Torme wrote mainly about winter in their songs, but May and Marks wrote about a rejected suffering servant who is then called on to save the day — and the undeserving reindeer — and winds up the center of an eternal rejoicing.

When I mentioned all this to Catherine, she was skeptical, saying I was reading that Christology into the song. But you can't do that with "White Christmas," or "Here Comes Peter Cottontail."

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is, on the other hand, millenarian rather than Christological. It reminds us that Advent is as much about the Second Coming as the first. Go through the lyrics yourself: creepy, isn't it? No chuckling, no merriment, not a word about gifts and toys for girls and boys. This is the old-school Santa, straight from the Dutch. It sounds like Jesus's warnings about a master who leaves and then returns to reward his servants based on how they've done in his absence.

Meanwhile, what if Isaiah hadn't chosen stones as his metaphor when he said "the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?" He would have done just as well to mention an outcast reindeer.

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