The Sounds of Christmas

I was blessed last night to hear the Christmas Cantada performed by the Grace UMC choir with a wonderful prelude from the handbell choir. I mentioned during worship yesterday and before last night's performance that there are a number of ways that we hear the message of Christmas. We hear it in the reading of scripture. We hear it differently in the words of sermons and devotions about those scriptures. We also hear the message in our traditions. Often, when we look to the root of the traditions surrounding Christmas, we realize that they are ways to retell the story in actions instead of words, or make the message tangible through physical means. (That's what gift-giving is all about.) As I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago, our decorations, in that case the nativity, can be a retelling of the stories without words and a sharing of the message. Many of us most clearly hear the message of Christmas through music. Music has the amazing power of speaking directly to our hearts, helping us to understand something that we can't quite grasp with our heads.

I will never forget, as a young boy, standing outside in the freezing cold of a Western New York winter in front of the United Methodist Church down the street from my home. My oldest sister was singing "Silent Night" as part of what I think was a live nativity. I remember being moved by the sounds I heard, but not knowing why.

Music is one way that we can shed that impulse to think we must understand something for God to be moving in us. As United Methodists, we believe in prevenient grace, that idea that long before we go searching for God, God is reaching out to us, seeking to draw us close, just waiting for us to reach back. As I think about that moment and that music, I sense God's wonder in it and consider how that worked in my heart for decades before I reached back and accepted the love that God had always offered me.

It is a humbling thought as John and I prepare for Christmas services. We will plan and fuss over all the words and what order to put them in. We will consider every last detail, hoping to share the glorious message of Christmas and God will gently whisper through it all reaching out for people in ways we just can't imagine.

peace and Merry Christmas,

will