Music is the background of our lives. It’s hard to escape it. Radios sound forth in nearly every venue—our homes, our vehicles, the grocery store, the factory, the mall. Even if we don’t have the radio on in our own cars, we can often hear the favorite picks of the car next to us. It is often said, “Music can calm/soothe the savage beast.” Some sermons are better understood if they are in song—rather than just the spoken word.
Every Advent/Christmas season, the music starts sometimes as early as October. The retailers and shopkeepers know that music puts us “in the mood” to celebrate. They know that we tend to buy and spend more than we have or that we were planning on spending. We find ourselves humming along with songs and music being piped over every PA system from the grocery store to the factory. We can’t help it. There is something “contagious” about music. When we hear a melody and our toes start to tap, our fingers snap, our head bobs along. and sometimes we even start singing or dancing!
The first Christmas sermon ever preached was a message in song
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men.
Luke 2:14
It is a song that has echoed through the ages, a song that we hear anew each Christmas season. It’s an old, old message that is ever new because it is a song of celebration, a song of longing and a song of challenge.
Have you heard…a simple song?
Have you heard the song of celebration—GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST? It is a song of unending praise that the Creator would allow Himself to become part of His creation. Never again would we be able accuse the God of heaven and earth of not understanding our needs, wants, desires or dreams.
Have you heard the song of longing—PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN and prayed that it might be true? We long for peace. If not for our nation, then for ourselves or our loved ones. Who among us has not had at least one emotional upheaval during the past fifty weeks? Has there not been a time during these past three hundred plus days when you longed for peace in your own spirit? How often have you prayed for a calmness, a cessation of fighting withing your own heart and mind? Can we help make peace actually happen in our lives–our world–in our lifetime?
Have you heard the song of challenge—daring you to run counter to your common sense, to yield to the tugging of faith in your heart? Do you dare to believe that the birth of the Bethlehem Babe is the coming of God in the flesh?
Are you willing to allow the angels’ song to echo through your spirit—to resound through your life—to be sung anew by your lips this Christmas season?
Have you heard…a simple song?
Will you sing it—speak it—show it—to those who have not yet heard?
