Hear The Angels Sing

I-pods. Zune Tunes. MP3 players. Ya gotta admit it. Americans love their music. Not since the days of the transistor R-A-D-I-O has music so filled our lives. And at this time of year, it's everywhere. Carolers. Elevator music. Stores want to attract a younger, more care-free spender? Pipe in Red Hot Chili Peppers. Want a classy, sophisticated clientele that can dump tens of thousands on a new European SUV without flinching? Rod Stewart's "An American Songbook." Scarily, I once entered an assisted living place that was playing the Eagles' Hotel California, but I think that was a mix-up. You get the point. The sound track of our life is not the top of the hour news or the traffic at 11 reports. It's music. Always has been, always will.

How fitting that the Lord introduced the Savior of the world, the new born Jesus, to the world, by music, the best of music, the angel choirs to the lowly shepherds outside Bethlehem.


So put aside the I-pods for a moment. Eject the Dixie Chick CD. Turn off the satellite radio and your new V-cast phone, come sit by me and
Hear the Angels Sing.
1. Glory to God.
2. Goodwill to men.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill to men.
That's what they said. The events which had just transpired in Bethlehem were a cause to give glory to God.

Glory. I don't know if you've thought about it much, but glory is more something that's given to you than what you have in and of yourself. A singer has glory because he finally has found the words and music no one has ever found before, the words and music to that one song which everyone is singing, that one song which redeems his empty life, because from now on everybody will know, "that's the guy who sang�." And no one can take that from him.
The glory the angels were giving to God (and were encouraging us to give God) was the praise for his plan of salvation, the praise for his gift of his Son to our race. Jesus was born! He was the Savior long expected, truly God from all eternity and truly human, born of the Virgin Mary. His nature, God and man, was grounds enough to give God glory, to give God praise, to think highly of God and tell others about how wonderful a God he is. But the real wonder was that God had come to us, had become one of us.

What makes a great song? You can identify with it. It puts into words what you feel. Even after all those years it can still bring a tear to your eye or make you want to get into that little sports coupe and head for the beach. It speaks to us and becomes one with us.

That's what makes our God glorious. He isn't that remote Other. He isn't some impersonal force, like gravity, that (we hope) holds everything together and keeps the apples falling out of trees on top of people's heads. He isn't aloof, like a movie star who really could care less about her audience and has forgotten that she, once upon a time, was an awkward teenager from Tulsa, waiting on tables in Hollywood, hoping to get a break with her used car commercial. He identified with us. He speaks to us. He became one of us.
In that manger at Bethlehem lay a baby, a holy child, in whom all the hopes and fears of all the world stood. He came to be our Savior. Like a songwriter looking for those words and music no one has ever come up with before, the baby Jesus came to do what no one had ever done before. He came to lead the perfectly holy life. He came to fulfill God's will completely. To do that, he had to be true God, the Son of God. He came to die for our sins. He came to live under the same rules you and I live under. To do that, he had to be true Man, the son of the Virgin Mary. God identified with us so much that he sent his Son to this earth, not for a weekend, not for a season, but for an entire lifetime, making his home among us that we might, one day, make our home with him in heaven.

Someone who would do that should enjoy a good reputation. That is what glory is all about. God did just that. He is the one who is greater than us all. He is the one who has done something none of us, even if we were all pulling together, could do. Give him glory the angels sing. Glory to God in the highest.
For now there is goodwill to men.

And on earth, peace, goodwill to men.

Suspicious minds can tear people apart. Even Elvis Presley knew that. It can also tear us apart from God. Ever since man fell into sin, we've felt that God was out to get us, that he had a hidden agenda, that no matter what he was saying, in the end, we were going to get clobbered. I had a friend who had a T-shirt that read, "Jesus is coming back and boy, is he going to be ticked off!"
Like a child whose mother has told him, "Just you wait until your father gets home," because our pre-Christmas behavior was so outlandish she didn't dare deal with us ourselves, we are not exactly eager to have our heavenly Father get around to our home. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they ran away and hid when they heard God coming. They expected to be clobbered by him. When Cain killed his brother, Abel, he lies to God, because he expects no favors from God. Throughout this world's history people have pictured God as a vengeful judge, a ruthless ruler, a bloodthirsty tyrant out to get us. Hard to feel warm and fuzzy about a God like that! And so, when we are on the naughty side of that naught or nice line, we naturally tend to lie, squirm, wriggle and lie in an attempt to get ourselves out of trouble. We will move heaven's and earth rather than tell the truth, as so many sitcoms on TV, as five generations of sitcoms, from "I Love Lucy" to "Jake and Josh" show us.
And why should we apologize to God if it is just going to hasten judgment? Why turn ourselves in if there is only a certain expectation of condemnation? Better to live without him. Better to focus on the trimmings of Christmas than the real meaning of Christmas, because if we don't believe in a loving God, Christmas doesn't make any sense to us.

God the Father didn't need Christmas to soothe his anger over sin. We needed Christmas to get that chip off of our shoulder and see that God loved us, always loved us, even when we were bad and deserved a lump of coal in our Christmas stocking he loved us enough to send his best, his Son, to be our Savior. Even when we were painting him in the worst possible light, accusing him of creating evil, calling natural disasters in a world wrecked by sin acts of God, wondering why he didn't miraculously step in when we were sitting on our hands and watching millions starve from our Lazy-Boys groaning under our weight, God loved us. He always has. And with that first music of Christmas he told us he had only goodwill towards us all.

A young mother shows her trust in friends and family when she puts her new son or daughter into grandma's arms the first time, into grandpa's lap for that get-acquainted look, into big, burly uncle's paws and first-cousin Suzie's dainty embrace. I trust you. I love you. You are part of my family. You can hold my baby for a while. That's what that young mother is saying when she shares her bundle of joy with others.

Can't the blessed angels' song break through our suspicious minds and convince us of the same thing? Our God trusted us with the life of his Son. He put that life into the trembling arms of a young woman, the Virgin Mary. He entrusted the safety of his Son to the wisdom and faithful obedience of a humble carpenter from Nazareth, Joseph. I trust you. I love you. You are part of my family.

The goodwill of God toward man is his forgiving love in Christ. And tonight, once again, we have come, not to enjoy the trappings of the season, but to see the reason for the season. God's forgiving love reaches out to you and to me. He has given us a Child, the Savior, Christ the Lord.

And if it is so hard to forget what we have done in the past year, what we have become, what we have lost and only hoped to have won, oh, rest beside that weary road. Hear the angels sing and, oh, look at what we will be.

Glory to God in the highest glory, glory, glory sing glory to God. Peace on earth and goodwill to all!