Yet with the woes of sin and strifeThe world has suffered long;Beneath the angel strain have rolledTwo thousand years of wrong;And man, at war with man, hears notThe love-song which they bring;O hush the noise, ye men of strifeAnd hear the angels sing.
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,Whose forms are bending low,Who toil along the climbing wayWith painful steps and slow,Look now! for glad and golden hoursCome swiftly on the wing.O rest beside the weary road,And hear the angels sing!
For lo! the days are hastening on,By prophet-bards foretold,When with the ever circling yearsComes round the age of gold;When peace shall over all the earthIts ancient splendors fling,And the whole world send back the songWhich now the angels sing.
-from “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” by Marcus Tidmarsh
May the Peace of Christ be with you today and always!
And a very special blessing to a friend of Jesus (and friend of mine) who, just this week, donated a kidney to someone she doesn’t even know. Many, many blessings on you!!!! You are already famous in heaven!
I would like to know the eternal repercussions of every decision before I make it. I want to figure out every possible permutation and be prepared for it. (Maybe that explains my tendency to pack too much.) Change is not easy for those of us reluctant to let go of the past before we grab on to the future.
Sometimes, when we pay attention, we can hear the promptings of Holy Spirit, but then we want a complete itinerary -with an accompanying accurate weather report. Sometimes the only instruction He gives is, “Move. Get out of the driveway.”
Train engineers don’t need to worry about the myriad of options laying before them at every turn. It’s pretty much a matter of go, stop, pull over and rest and go again. They can trust that the tracks ahead of them will take them where they need to go and switches will be prepared for them. The train in this photo is on it way through the historic Crowsnest Pass. (That’s Crowsnest Mountain peaking around the corner there.) It makes provision for wheat and other commodities from the rich bread basket of the Canadian prairies to be shipped to the port on the Pacific Ocean. It’s path has been clearly laid. The train doesn’t need to forge new trails. It needs merely to start moving and follow the two lines of steel before it.
The story of Christ’s birth includes so many angelic interventions. It seems as if the information they gave was on a need-to-know basis. Different people had different parts of the story. In hindsight we can see the marvelous plan laid our from the beginning of time, but most people only had little bits of it to work with at the time. For some, the message was simply, “Go.” Joseph learned the importance of paying attention to God’s timing. His job was to protect the young woman who carried the most important message in the world. That’s why God chose a man who would listen and act on a message in a dream. He needed someone who knew how to trust.
Trustworthy people know how to trust.
When we trust God to lead us we can trust Him to have made a way for us before we get there. When He says go, we go. When He says stop, we stop. Good enough.
But first we need to leave the comforts of the familiar and move. Rise up. Go.
Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track. (Proverbs 3:5,6 The Message)
I try to be positive. I really do. I usually appreciate any attempt at singing. Song is a free gift that can be enjoyed by anyone. But to me some songs are sacred, holy, set apart and meant to glorify God. They are not meant to be recorded by pop singers with no sense of phrasing, or breath control, who have inadequate diction and obviously no emotional connection to the lyrics, and then piped through the aisles of Stuffmart to create background noise for harried shoppers who don’t give a damn. I’ve threatened to go postal if I hear Santa Baby in the produce aisle one more time -but that’s just irritating. It’s hearing one of the greatest hymns/carols of all time massacred over and over that makes me want to plop down on the floor by the gift boxed baubles and weep.
(Rant over)
When I taught singing my students often asked if they could work on “Oh Holy Night.”
“Not for a few years yet,” I told most of them. “And when you do it will in the original language.”
“Why?”
“Because your voice isn’t ready and because you have heard it so often in English you can’t hear the words anymore. Most versions drop half the lyrics anyway. I want you to study it, to translate it, to concentrate and savour every note and every word.”
Like songs that are sung year after year and have lost their flavour like chewing gum on the bedpost overnight, we can become so familiar with the goodness of God we cease to grasp the depth and height and width of it. We fail to comprehend the massiveness of His love. We take it for granted. We develop a sense of entitlement, as if God owes us freedom, and deliverance from slavery to sin. We fail to pay attention.
Translations that have to fit the meter and accents of a set piece of music are never entirely accurate, but here is another English translation of Minuit, Chretien. Listen to the words again.
Midnight, Christians, it is the solemn hour, When God as man descended unto us To erase the stain of original sin And to end the wrath of His Father. The entire world thrills with hope On this night that gives it a Saviour.
People kneel down, wait for your deliverance. Christmas, Christmas, here is the Redeemer, Christmas, Christmas, here is the Redeemer!
May the ardent light of our Faith Guide us all to the cradle of the infant, As in ancient times a brilliant star Guided the Oriental kings there. The King of Kings was born in a humble manger; O mighty ones of today, proud of your greatness,
It is to your pride that God preaches. Bow your heads before the Redeemer! Bow your heads before the Redeemer!
The Redeemer has broken every bond: The Earth is free, and Heaven is open. He sees a brother where there was only a slave, Love unites those that iron had chained. Who will tell Him of our gratitude, For all of us He is born, He suffers and dies.
People stand up! Sing of your deliverance, Christmas, Christmas, sing of the Redeemer, Christmas, Christmas, sing of the Redeemer!
Attend ta Délivrance
From the English version:
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we, His power and glory evermore proclaim! His power and glory evermore proclaim!
Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains
And the mountains in reply Echo back their joyous strains: Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Sometimes the longer we anticipate an event, the more surprised we are when it arrives. Perseverance is about the future. Endurance is about who we are becoming. Faithfulness is about hope. Joy is knowing the darkness of winter is not eternal. Light is eternal.
Wait for it… watch for it… because one day, all of a sudden….
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
The word judgment is often burdened with an association to the concepts of condemnation and punishment. Sometimes judgment is about determining what is praise-worthy. Since only the Lord understands our deep motives and thoughts, and since we are easily manipulated by appearances, only He is qualified to judge. It is the judge who awards the trophies -and His law is Love.
I think we may be surprised by what He chooses to praise in us.
“It makes little difference to me how you or any human court passes judgment on me. I even resist the temptation to compare myself to the ever-changing human standard. Although I am not aware of any flaw that might exclude me from this divine service, that’s not the reason I stand acquitted—the only supreme judge, our Lord, will examine me in the proper time. So resist the temptation to act as judges before all the evidence is in. When the Lord comes, He will draw our buried motives, thoughts, and deeds (even things we don’t know or admit to ourselves) out of the dark shadows of our hearts into His light. When this happens, the voice of God will speak to each of us the only praise that will ever matter.” (1 Corinthians 4:3-5 The Voice)
I do love to watch friends and family crowd the doors in the airport terminal building as they wait to embrace new arrivals. Yesterday at the airport I thought about the preparations needed for a plane to land. The ground is leveled, paved, and lit. Air traffic controllers, setting up various sensitive instruments, watch the skies. Airport workers clear the run-way, and prepare to move baggage carts, set wheel blocks, and at our little airport, get ready to secure stairs to the aircraft door.
I tried to imagine what people who populated this valley a hundred years ago would have thought if they saw a light in the sky grow bigger and move toward them in the clearing. Would they run toward it, or away from it?
I asked myself, “Self? If you saw something beyond your usual experience approaching, would you run toward it or away from it?
Honestly, I would probably yell, “Run away! Run away!” and head for a cave with wifi so I could research it.
I know some adventurous people who run toward new experiences. Sometimes it works well for them, and other times…. Still, I admire their fearlessness, their raw faith, and their willingness to risk making mistakes — and honest admissions when they miss it.
Preparing room in our hearts and heads for the presence of God, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, whose ways are greater than our ways, who is there and is not silent, requires preparation. Making room sometimes requires bulldozing established forests of old ideas and creating a landing-place for something that hasn’t arrived yet.
The Advent season reminds us of a time when the world, tired of sinful darkness, waited in anticipation of something more. The prophets told them something more was coming, but it was difficult to comprehend what the Messiah would look like. The scholars of the day had clues in the Book, but they still got it completely wrong, and humility demands that we admit even though the Bible is central, trustworthy and sufficient, we might not have the complete interpretation either. Maybe the people who take the risk of running toward a deeper understanding of the nature and plans of God are just ones who are trying to prepare Him room.
Abba, may I anticipate your plans with the same enthusiasm.
Charis: Subject to Change 