Sometimes we hear a word so often it loses its power. In our culture today the words love and hate are flung around for everything. I hate peas. I hate that movie. I hate that place. I love candy. I love to shop. I love that commercial.
At
Christmas time, singing carols is one of the joys of the season. I learned the
words to them as a first grader. We were given little pink sheets of paper with
the words to all the carols and we strolled through my hometown singing at
every door.
We
all know the words, but often we sing them without thinking about what they really
say. After many years at odds with God, he drew me back. That first Christmas
after I rededicated my life to Him, I sang the same old carols with the same
old words, but this time they were backlit with an awareness, and a knowledge
that had been absent before.
Phrases like:
God and sinners reconciled
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead seePlease with man as man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel
Light and life to all he brings
Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die
Born to give them second birth
That year those words and verses
resonated with me in a way they never had before. I wasn’t just singing nice
words to a song. I was ‘seeing’ them and ‘hearing’ them and ‘understanding’
them in a way I never had before. My Christmas Carol Epiphany.
This
year when you sing the carols in church or around the piano with your family,
or hear them on your radio or ipod, listen to them carefully, let them sink into
your spirit and comfort you this Christmas season.
Words
are important to a writer. But these words are important to everyone in this fallen
world.
