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We have heard a LOT of Christmas music lately. I’m sure you are feeling the same way. I do still love it, but it’s definitely getting close to time to shelve it for another eleven months or so.
It’s not all bad, though. One song off of Steven Curtis Chapman’s second Christmas album, All I Want For Christmas, caught my attention this week.
It wasn’t so much a lyric, as the way it was sung.
I believe the song was It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. It was sung with a nice gentle feel to it. And, at one point, Steven sings just lightly, “Hear the angels sing Hallelujah, Christ the Savior is born.” Those are words you usually associate with giant booming voices and big, majestic fanfare. But in this song, the words were sung almost at a whisper, almost as a lullaby for the newborn baby.
It got me thinking. Maybe that’s how it was? We think it should be fanfare and trumpets and “kingly”. But if you’ll recall, the King of the universe stepped into our lives as a baby, born to ordinary folk, in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. He was born in a stable. He was… born, period. He didn’t have to go through that, either.
But he did.
The simplicity of the first Christmas is a clue that God does not do things the way we think he should. And we’re (way) better off for it.
Enjoy your gifts today, giving and receiving. Enjoy time with family and friends. Enjoy the great food. Enjoy the Christmas cookies! But most of all, enjoy knowing that you are so completely loved by the One who has everything. He didn’t just become a man so he could die the death of a criminal… he wanted to live like us, so he could know us even better. All the way from birth. As a commoner.
That’s what you mean to him. That first Christmas day, and this one.
Merry Christmas. 🙂