As November comes to a close with a wintery Thanksgiving for us in Erie, PA, we embrace December in it’s chilly embrace while we cherish making memories with the people we love. In December with Christmas and New Years coming up, I think we all can relate with looking back over the past year. This year had its fill of ups and downs; some moments we’ll look back at forever and smile and some that gave us experiences that shaped us, but I think that if we focus on the positive trajectory of what we’ve accomplished, we can expect nothing less from our future. Before we get too ahead of ourselves in thinking about our futures–lets go back to 1499 for our final Yeshuwa Review of 2025 with a beloved favorite, “In The Bleak Midwinter” by the Gloucester Cathedral Choir!
Founded in England in 1499, the Gloucester Cathedral has always featured choral singing, however the configuration that we have today came a few years later in 1958 by King Henry VIII. The Gloucester Cathedral has one of England’s oldest and most famous cathedral choirs, currently featuring 20 girl choristers and 18-20 boys who are accompanied by 12 adult singers.
The Gloucester Choir, however, was unable to sing “In the Bleak Midwinter” right away, that’s because the original poem as we know it today was written a few years later in 1872 by Christina Rossetti. This is a less widely known Christmas song and when I was gathering information about this song, I wanted to have a video that had good imagery to pair with this song and this one easily took the cake in being the best option. The choir looks and sounds great in the video and being able to see the choir adds presence to the song, especially when voicing changes from the choir to the audience members, and then to the adult choir. One of my favorite parts is as the lyrics sing about Mary and Jesus the video features a family but zooms in on the mother with her infant child.
The way the song describes Jesus’ birth is very simplistic and pure but is still able to explain the mightyness of Jesus and what his coming means for us. The opening lyrics give us Western Christians a winter that we can relate to with a frozen and snowy scenery which leads us to singing about when Jesus comes to reign and response of heaven and earth to His birth. The theology in this part of the song comes from 1 Kings 8:27 which mentions how God’s presence is unable to be contained by even the highest heavens, or especially by earth, the temple that He built for us to praise and worship Him. Then, the next following line has another biblical reference to Revelation 20:11 as the song mentions that heaven and earth will flee away from Jesus’s almighty presence.
In the third verse we start to experience the juxtaposition that this song has explaining the power of Jesus and just how meek His birth is as we sing about a manger of hay and his mother’s milk are enough for The One that cherubim and angels worship endlessly and even the animals adore. The fourth verse goes on to show us what may be the first earthly form of worship to baby Jesus as Mary gives Him a kiss. Some of us may notice how this is symbolic of how Jesus will go on to be pointed out by Judas to the Roman Army.
In the final verse of the song, it gives the singer a question: in wanting to bring a gift to our newborn savior, what does one give the Lord of all things? Jesus Christ has reign over all things. The song suggests that “If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb, if I was a wise man I’d do my part” but lo, and behold, that we are able to do both of these things for The Lord God is our shepherd and will keep us safe, as long as we have the wisdom of giving our love and lives to Christ.
I hope that you’re familiar with this song, but if not, this is definitely a Christmas song that I suggest to give a listen to, additionally the song’s theologically accurate and not hyper commercialized like some songs (maybe that’s why it’s a lesser known song). However, while the hyper commercialized songs may be what’s in your ear around this time of year and it is great to give our loved ones gifts from time to time, I hope that we all are able to take time to remember what the Spirit of Christmas is truly about: worshiping and welcoming the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. With this being the last Yeshuwa Review of 2025 I hope that your year is peacefully concluded and immersed in love from friends, family, strangers and, ourselves too, but most importantly God.
I pray that you’re as eager as I am for what our faith in God will lead us to for 2026!
References:
“Gloucester Cathedral Choir – In the Bleak Midwinter.Flv.” YouTube, 8 May 2010 . Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti Rossetti, Christina Georgina. “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Hymnary. Org. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
“Gloucester Cathedral Choir.” Spotify. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
Prior, Karen Swallow, et al. “The Remarkable Woman behind ‘in the Bleak Midwinter.’” The Gospel Coalition, 17 Nov. 2020. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.