In part one of the four-part series, Songs for the Not So Holly Jolly, Shane Bennett looks at Christmas through the songs of its key participants.
You know that wonderful feeling you get when you shrug on your winter coat for the first time of the season, put your hands in the pockets and find a $20 bill or your favorite knife you thought you’d lost? This is going to feel like a leap, but Christmas is like that. If you check the pockets, every time you go back to the story you’ll find new facets, new hope, new challenge.
This year, I’m looking at the sermons of Ed Rowell, a pastor in Monument, on the songs some of the key characters wrote and sang. There’s sweet, little Mary and her tune about trust, shifting from anxiety to adoration, along with the overthrow of the rich! There’re the angels, belting out a ballad of peace beyond understanding. And Simeon, dear old Simeon, one of the first to recognize the wriggling little messiah, singing of hope and a reward that is worth the wait.
For starters, though, how about Zechariah? He was a good guy, doing good things, but lacking the main good gift of God in those days: A son to inherit the job, to carry on the line.
Maybe you know the story, he was doing his job as priest when an angel appeared and pretty much scared his pants off! (Don’t believe me? Read it for yourself in the Bible: Luke, chapter 1. If you don’t have a Bible, you can buy them cheap on Amazon or I’ll give you one!) The angel said, “God has heard your prayer. Your very old wife is going to have a baby!” Zechariah responded, asking how he could be sure and reminding the angel of their advanced years. The angel said, essentially, “How’s this for sure? No more talking for you until the boy is born!”
And so, it was. Zechariah was mute for a lot of months. But when the boy was born, did he ever cut loose! His song is addressed not only to the people gathered around, but also so poignantly to the baby,
“And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way of the Lord, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Life feels a bit dark for you these days? Are you living in the shadow of death? Me too. For a time, it looked like our bucolic little valley was also a fortress against covid, but no longer. Death is at the door. And it can seem like God is silent.
He’d been silent for 400 years until the angel showed up and scared Zechariah. Then he imposed silence on him for another few months.
But when the silence broke, the message was hope: The other baby, Jesus, was soon to arrive with the sweet gifts of God.
If you’ve lost someone, if you’re losing someone right now, the last thing I would say to you is, “Cheer up! The baby Jesus is born.” Even so, God’s promise for you, for me, is “rising sun for those living in shadow.” Maybe join some of us somewhere this Sunday morning as we together make our best effort to walk “the path of peace.”
Shane Bennett is associate pastor at Table Mountain Church in Rye. Join them this Christmas season as they look at “Songs for the Not So Holly Jolly.”