Apparently their cover version of “O Come O Come Emmanuel” is causing a bit of a stir amongst some Christians. Being an Christian and a music lover myself, I hadn’t heard it yet, so I had a listen a couple nights ago.
Here it is for good measure.
Firstly, this is quite light compared to a lot of their stuff. I appreciate that they did all the verses.
I think the problem people have is the screamo part in the bridge.
Jesus wasn’t exactly born into perfect sunshine and rainbow times. The people of Israel were being brutally oppressed by the Roman Empire. They would over tax them, leaving them poor and destitute. They would rape women at will. They would force you to carry their stuff for a whole mile walking. Herod was so insecure about Jesus taking over his role as king that his guys were out killing babies. Due to this extra challenge, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Not using this as an expletive here. I mean the actual three people) were forced to flee to Egypt until Herod died. These were angry times. Jesus was and is the culmination of thousands of years of hope that things could be better.
The very first people to hear the news of the birth of Christ were sheep scat, poop covered shepherds, who would be classified as unclean gentiles. They wouldn’t have been able to participate in Jewish culture due to their occupation. If angels were as fluffy and winged as people have come to believe, they wouldn’t have had to keep saying “Do not be afraid.” The shepherds knew what one angel could do from back in Exodus times…they couldn’t imagine what was about to happen when they got to see a multitude! The Maji were also gentiles due to the location which they had journied from.
Also, we can never forget the purpose for which Jesus came to earth in human flesh. He was to be the sacrifice for our sins. If we’ve forgotten, sin is a big deal. Ours and other people’s.
God wants to be with us, but He can’t be around sin. Sin separates us, no matter how much we want to argue. Sin leads to death. Jesus, who never sinned was the only one who could be the solution to the problem. He died a cruel death of crucifixion, which is not a walk in the park.
“Brian! This is too hard to watch! In my brain it happens differently!!!!”
Christmas and Easter get sanitized a lot. People want it to be this flowery time with no cares in the world. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if the first Christmas was like that too…but it wasn’t. Jesus came into an extremely angry, imperfect world, and changed it forever.
In that context of things, it doesn’t bother me at all that Skillet’s version of the carol “O Come O Come Emmanuel” is a little rough around the edges. Those were extremely difficult times.