What would
Christmas be without music? Christmas without music just wouldn’t be complete. It
would be like a Thanksgiving turkey without the stuffing! Music has been a part
of Christmas since the earliest years of its celebration! This morning’s
scripture reading (Luke 1:39-55) contains a song that Mary sang when she
visited her cousin Elizabeth. “My soul glorifies the Lord,” she sings, “and my
spirit rejoices in God my savior!” It’s one of four songs that Luke includes in
his story of Jesus birth: Zechariah’s song of praise when his son John the
Baptist is born; this song of Mary; the song of the angels on Christmas night;
and Simeon’s song of gratitude when he sees the infant savior in the Jerusalem
Temple. Luke knew that when our emotions can’t be fully expressed in words, we
sing; and Christmas surely is one of those times when spoken words just aren’t
enough. But did you know that when we sing the Christmas songs that we love so
well, we’re actually singing about the deep symbolism of the miracle of
Christmas? The Bible stories of Jesus’ birth, as well as our own Christmas
traditions, contain symbols of both who God is and our relationship with our
God. We usually just skip by those symbols without thinking much about them;
but this morning, we’re going to stop and ponder them for a few minutes; much
like Mary pondered the birth of her son after the shepherds visited him in
Bethlehem.
The town of
Bethlehem itself, in fact, is a symbol. In the Old Testament, the prophet Micah
(Micah 5:2) announced, “But you, Bethlehem: though you are small among the
clans of Judah, out of you will come one who will be ruler over Israel, whose
origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Bethlehem was the home town of
the historic King David from whose family the Messiah would come. But more than
that, Bethlehem was a very little place. Bethlehem was to its neighboring city
of Jerusalem as West Milton is to Cincinnati! And that’s a clue of how God
appears among us. God doesn’t make an appearance in the halls of power like the
halls of Congress or the Vatican; but in little, out-of-the way, places where
not much usually happens. The Christ child wasn’t born in Jerusalem, but in the
little town of Bethlehem. When you sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” you might
want to think about that!
We all know
that Jesus was laid in a manger, don’t we? If we know anything at all about the
Christmas story, we know about the manger! And that manger is a symbol of why
Jesus was born at all. He was born to be the Bread of Life, the One who feeds
our deepest needs with his own person! So a feed box for animals was a very
appropriate place for him to take his first night’s sleep on this earth. Just
as the hay nourishes animals, Jesus gives us the nourishment that our souls
crave. I’ll bet that you have never realized the powerful truth that the hymn
“Away in a Manger” expresses!
On Christmas
night, a whole choir of angels appeared in the skies over Bethlehem to tell shepherds
that the Messiah had been born. Now, there’s more to those angels than white
robes and halos! In Old Testament tradition, angels were God’s messengers; and
they only appeared to very special people who had been chosen by God. Angels
appeared to Abraham, to Joshua, to Samuel, and to Isaiah. In Luke’s nativity
story, an angel appeared to Zechariah and to Mary. But on the night that Jesus
was born, angels appeared to a bunch of dirty shepherds who hadn’t had a bath
in a month! What’s the symbolism there? Why, if angels could appear to
shepherds, then they can appear to any one of us, clean or dirty, rich or poor,
man or woman! We are all special and
chosen by God! “Peace on earth,” they sang, “and goodwill among all people!” Nothing
separates us any more from God and God’s love; and the angels are proof of it!
Charles Wesley’s great hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is a perfect
reminder of the love that God showed to us by coming to us.
And we can’t
forget the star of Bethlehem. Lots
of people have tried to figure out exactly what that star was. Was it a comet?
A conjunction of planets? Maybe it was a supernova, a distant sun that exploded
just at the right time for its final burst of light to arrive in the skies of
the ancient Middle East. While all those theories are interesting, what I care
about right now is the symbolism behind that star and its light. Is there
any more powerful biblical symbol than light? In the beginning, God’s first
creation was light; and Jesus called himself the Light of the World. God sends
us light to chase away the shadows of ignorance and fear and sorrow and hatred.
Of course a star led the way to the Christ child! The light of that star led to
the Light of the world! That’s what I hope you remember the next time you sing
“We Three Kings” with its familiar refrain, "Oh, star of wonder, star of night..."
Let’s close
our journey through the symbolism of the Christmas story by pondering something
that we all have in our homes at this time of the year: the Christmas tree. The
Christmas tree is loaded with symbolism! It is an evergreen that doesn’t die in
the winter; that symbolizes the eternal life that we have through Christ. We
decorate it with lights, symbolizing the Light of Christ. And its limbs point
to the heavens, towards the God who loves us so much that he refused to stay in
those heavens, but came to us as one of us! “O Christmas tree, O Christmas
tree,” the hymn goes, “you lift our eyes to heaven!” This Christmas, let’s not
only lift our eyes to heaven, but our hearts as well; and let’s join Mary in
singing, “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!”
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