Faith of our Fathers

Bing Crosby’s Christmas album has got to be my all-time favorite of Christmas albums. I don’t remember who first gave it to me, but I can remember playing it over and over. Bing’s smooth voice crooning these classic sacred and secular songs has been the soundtrack to my holidays throughout the years. But there was one song on that album that always stood out to me. 

The hymn “Faith of our Fathers” always seemed to me to be an odd choice for a Christmas album. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with Christmas. There is no talk of the baby Jesus, no talk of snow or presents, not much that we normally associate with this time of the year. Instead, the song is about a faith that has survived “in spite of dungeon, fire and sword.” It talks about how people have suffered greatly to share this faith and the song calls us to love friend and foe and to preach the faith with “kindly deeds and virtuous life.” It is not a song you are likely to hear while you do your holiday shopping, but because Bing chose to record it on his Christmas album, and I chose to listen to that album over and over again, I now have a strong association of that song with Christmas. I am thankful for that, because with all of the singing about the Nativity story and all of the songs about the secular joys of Christmastide, it would be easy to forget the reason that we know the story of Christ’s birth and are able to celebrate this season at all: the faith of our fathers.

Fathers and mothers to be exact. It is the faith of generations of faithful men and women that has given us this joyous time of the year. It is because Christians throughout history have been willing to sacrifice everything for their faith, that we now know this story that we sing about so casually every December. Their legacy is more than just the bricks and mortar of our churches and the hymns we sing inside. Their legacy is a story of hope. Their legacy is a message about what God is doing with a broken world and how he is saving his beloved children within it. Their faith was that God became one of us, lived like us, suffered with us, died like us and then offered us something we could never get on our own: new life. They made sure that that faith was preached, that God’s grace was celebrated and that their children and their children’s children would still be able to hear God’s amazing story of hope and salvation. What a glorious inheritance those men and women left us.

I need that faith, now more than ever. 

I need to be reminded whenever I read the news that it’s not up to me to save the world.

I need to be reminded when I see people suffering that God has not abandoned us.

I need to be reminded when I have failed that forgiveness is real and that miracles do happen. 

I need to be reminded when this world seems to be filled with nothing but noise and strife that there are angels singing in heaven. Christmas helps me, even for just a moment, to hear their song. I need that. I think we all do.

I am thankful for so many things this time of year, but mostly I am thankful for the men and women that have had the courage to point to either the crib or the cross and to remind me of what God has done. What faith! 

I am thankful that something inspired Bing to record “Faith of our Fathers” on his Christmas album. It is an important reminder that Christmas is about more than tinsel and cookies. It is about a story so important that people have been willing to sacrifice everything, just so you could hear it. 

I am so grateful to the person who first gave me that Bing Crosby album, it has brought much joy to my holidays throughout the years; but I am even more grateful to the generations of Christians that have been faithful in telling Christ’s story; a story that still gives me hope in the midst of darkness. 

It was that story, after all, that gave Bing something to sing about.

Father Kevin L. Morris is the rector at The Church of the Ascension, Rockville Centre