This post is from Christmas 2018. We need this coming holiday....and I would not have said that a decade or two earlier:
Merry Christmas....O What A Glorious....Overture
Today we celebrate....all over the world....the birth of a baby....a little over two thousand years ago....a baby who would be a Savior....and a King....in fact the Kings of all Kings....but friends....do not think of a baby in the manger in a crib....for if you were to stand in His presence today you would probably be blinded....and dropped to the ground with no strength to even look up. A baby would be the last thing in your mind. You would not be able to move unless a hand were placed upon you....giving you strength....where you would hear the command not to fear....that is if your soul as of right now has been ripped out of Satan's grasp.
Is Christmas a modern day Saturnalia? Yes....in a way....and a Christmas tree is just a pagan bush....I have one twelve inches from my left elbow right now. Even in better church times....and at 68 years old (70 now) I've seen better church times....the Christmas holiday would seem to be of little value in causing Americans to really contemplate what happened on whatever day in whatever month it was two-thousand and some odd years ago....but today....as America floats like a rotting tree trunk down a muddy raging river....cascading towards a falls....with rebellion to God out in the open everywhere....that same almost pagan Christmas....but with the little light that is in it....shines brightly out of a dense darkness....and its glorious hymns seem to be as when the angels sang out above the shepherds.
So Merry Christmas to you....for a baby was born....that baby grew up....and the same angels who thirty-three years earlier had rejoiced....obediently stood aside....probably in rage....as the God/Man who that baby became....had His flesh ripped apart as demons rejoiced. Then the single biggest event this entire universe has ever experienced....or will ever experience....happened. Christ was risen....and the farthest star away from earth....whether it be billions or trillion of light-years away....and every atom contained within it....every electron charge....somehow acknowledged the event surrounding its Creator.
A baby was born....and the angels rejoiced....it was the overture....to be followed by choruses....and arias....and cantatas....and every imaginable orchestral arrangement....leading up to a grand finale that the angels are preparing for right now!
So yes....Merry Christmas.....for it was a wonderful overture....but the Composer has left the greatest audiological masterpiece for the grand finale.
