Christmas
Songs: What Does Your Heart Sing?
Luke
1 :67-80
It has been noted that Luke's story of the birth of Jesus bears some resemblance to a Broadway musical. As in a Broadway musical the story goes along for a while and then suddenly at crucial moments in the story characters burst into song. Also as in a musical, the lyrics of the songs provide interpretive clues to the unfolding events of the story. In fact, we can even say that, as in most musicals, the songs are the story. Here it is Zechariah's turn to sing. Unable to speak since he received the news of the coming of his son, who would later be known as John the Baptist, Zechariah now cannot contain himself. He bursts into song. But he is not alone.
Others
sing their own songs to God. Elizabeth, Zechariah's wife, is the first singer
in this choir. Elizabeth sings a song of blessing for the way God is at work in
the lives of all those around her:
Blessed
are you among all women;
Blessed
is the child within you.
Blessed
am I that the mother of my Lord is here;
Blessed
is my baby who heard your voice and leapt for joy.
Blessed
are you for believing the Lord's good news to you.
If
Elizabeth sings a song of blessing, then Mary sings a song of laughter for the
promise of God's reversing the fortunes of the downtrodden:
My
soul laughs in praise to the Lord,
and
my spirit rejoices in God my savior;
My
soul laughs for he has gifted me with incredible blessing…
God
shows his strength with mighty deeds,
scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful,
lifting the humble, filling the hungry….
If
Mary's sings a song of laughter, then the angels sing a song of glory for
the peace God is bringing for all people:
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and
on earth peace
to
all humankind,
on
whom God's generous love rests.
Now
it is Zechariah's turn; he sings a song of praise for God’s salvation:
Praise the Lord, the God
of Israel,
the
God who redeems his people;
the
God who brings salvation;
the
God who is true to his Word.
Praise the Lord, the God
of Israel,
the God who
saves us from our enemies and those who hate us;
the God who shows mercy
and remembers his holy promise;
the God who is true to his
Word.
Praise the Lord, the God
of Israel,
the
God who rescues his people,
the
God who makes us able to serve,
the God who
makes integrity and goodness a living possibility;
the God who is
true to his Word.
And you, my child, will be
a messenger for God Most High,
to prepare the
people, to prepare their hearts and heads and hands,
to proclaim
salvation and the forgiveness of sins,
to
pronounce the tender mercy of our God,
which causes
the sun to shine upon us,
which causes
light to shine in the darkness,
which causes
the shadow of death to become the light of life.
I find it fascinating how these songs are so similar and yet so different. Each has a theme and each has a reason for the theme that names something God is doing to forward his grace to us. Yet everyone in this biblical musical is different. Elizabeth sings a song of blessing for the way God is at work in the lives of all those around her. Mary sings a song of laughter for the promise of God's reversing the fortunes of the downtrodden. The angels sing a song of glory for the peace God is bringing for all people. And Zechariah sings a song of praise for the salvation God is bringing to Israel. All a song. All a reason for the song. Yet each one different.
I wonder: what song does
your heart sing this season of Advent as we prepare to celebrate Christmas? If
you wrote out the lyrics to the song that is in your heart, what would
those lyrics say? What joy might you sing about? What love might you express?
What deep desire might you describe? What need might you admit to that you have
always kept hidden? What comfort might you convey? What courageous thing might
you claim? What cause for justice might you demand? What song would your heart
sing?
I
was looking this week at some of the songs of the Christmas season, which of
course are a big part of what makes this time of year so special. Most of the
Christmas carols we sing have lyrics that simply recount the biblical story.
But let's listen to some of the other lyrics and what kind of song we hear.
Better yet, let's sing some of these songs and ask as we sing about the song
that is being sung.
Open
your hymnbooks please to #44, "0 Little Town of Bethlehem," to the
third stanza. Let's sing it:
How
silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human
hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this
world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters
in.
Here is a song that is down right evangelical: Will you receive Jesus? Will you let Christ enter into your heart? Only Jesus can give to your heart the blessings of heaven.
Or let's sing "God
Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," the first stanza, which tells us why Jesus was
born; it talks about spiritual warfare:
God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day; to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray. 0 tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy; o tidings of comfort and joy.
As
we sing #28, "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice," the third stanza,
we'll hear a slightly different take on why Jesus was born; we'll hear a song
that talks about the hope of heaven:
Good Christian friends, rejoice, with heart, and soul, and voice; now ye need not fear the grave: Jesus Christ was born to save! Calls you one and calls you all, to gain His everlasting hall. Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!
When we sing #40,
"Joy to the World," the third stanza, we see still another
perspective on why Jesus was born; we hear not about the hope of heaven but
about help for here on earth:
No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found.
I
find it fascinating how these songs are so similar and yet so different. Each
has a theme that names something God is doing to forward his grace to us. Yet
each Christmas song is also different. One song sings of our need to allow
Christ into our heart. Another song speaks of Christ's power over Satan. One song
offers us the hope of heaven. Another song speaks of help for the here and now.
All a song. All a reason for the song. Yet each one different.
I
wonder: what song does your heart sing this season of Advent as we prepare to
celebrate Christmas? If you wrote out the lyrics to the song that is in your
heart, what would those lyrics say? What joy might you sing about? What love
might you express? What deep desire might you describe? What need might you
admit to that you have always kept hidden? What comfort might you convey? What
courageous thing might you claim? What cause for justice might you demand? What
song would your heart sing?
The
songs of Christmas and the song of Zechariah in today's passage echo the same
message. If there is one over-arching theme to all these songs, it is that
Jesus Christ is our Savior. The Christmas songs sing: "Jesus Christ was
born to save." "Christ our savior is born." "Cast out our
sin and enter in, Be born in us today." And Zechariah as well sings of the
salvation Jesus will bring. He praises the Lord, the God of Israel "who
redeems his people...who brings salvation...who saves us...who shows
mercy...who rescues."
Zechariah
is thankful that his son will be used as a servant of this God "to
proclaim salvation and the forgiveness of sins, to pronounce the tender mercy
of our God." If there is anything these songs do, they remind us of who
God is and who we are: God is savior and we are the saved. In our songs, we
remember who we are and what we are here for: we are God's servants sent to
proclaim salvation.
I
am reminded occasionally of the sweetness of salvation, the forgiveness of
sins. The notion of salvation is always kind of there lurking in the background
for ministers because of our job. But occasionally we are reminded not of the
notion but of the actual experience of it when someone moves from fear to
assurance, from the struggle to prove oneself to the peace of accepting grace,
from life being all about me to life being all about Jesus. When one accepts
Christ as Savior and Lord, the joy and peace is plain to see.
This
is what Christmas is about. This is what we are to be about. There may be other
things we do. There may be other things we do a whole lot more of. But nothing
is more important than this. Nothing else matters if this does not happen.
Without salvation there is no Christ: "Jesus Christ was born to
save." "Christ our savior is born." "Cast out our sin and
enter in, be born in us today." Without salvation there is no Christ. And
without Christ, there is no church.
I
wonder: what song does your heart sing this season? Whatever songs our hearts
sing, somehow we need to learn to make them songs of salvation. Whether we sing
like Elizabeth a song of blessing or like Mary a song of laughter or like the
angels a song of glory or like Zechariah a song of praise, somehow we must
embrace in our songs the work that God is doing in his Son: "Jesus Christ
was born to save." "Christ our savior is born."
And so we pray, "Cast out our sin, Lord, and,
Father, enter in. Through your Son Jesus, be born in us today.”
Amen.