heaven's anthem

Of the things I treasure most about the Christmas season, few surpass its music. Perhaps the songs are special because they are heard only for a short time each year. Or maybe they hold sentimental connections to a simpler time when I was a child and all was well with the world. Yet, while these explanations own a measure of truth, the melodies pervade upon me more deeply than occasion or memory ever could.

 

The carols of Christmas speak of hope and truth that awaken something slumbering within the soul.

 

Among my favorites is It Came upon the Midnight Clear. Its haunting, ethereal melody stirs my heart, and its words are just as poignant:

 

Above its sad and lowly plains,

They bend on hovering wing.

And ever o’er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

 

A heavenly anthem is sung over our world, a prophetic tune of hope and redemption and restoration. It is relentless in its insistence that even the most sorrowful notes of our saddest dirges may yet compose a movement within the divine symphony. It whispers to us that dissonance punctuates the masterpiece. And all the while, heaven harmonizes its golden tones with those darker strains of our existence. Our bleakest valley cannot conceal it; our loudest Babel noises cannot drown it out. With this melody, eternity pierces the human condition.

 

See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God

is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation (Isaiah 12:2, NLT)

 

So we are invited to lay down the burden of being a fallen creature, the weight of our inadequacies and failings to be enough. We are welcomed to rest, to cease our strivings, that we may be renewed. If we will but listen, if we will but believe, our salvation is at hand:

 

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

 

This season, may we listen intently to hear the angelic refrain. May its lovely sound stir our hearts and rouse our souls to look heavenward. May it remind us of the gift that is Christmas, wrapped in skin and swaddling cloth, and placed lovingly beneath the shadow of a tree.