Christmas music is a staple of the season. And there is no doubt that some of the most beautiful songs of the season are centered around Christ’s birth like Silent Night, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and Away in a Manger. The Bible also offers some songs in the way of Christ’s birth as well. Over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at some of the first songs used to praise Christ on those earliest Christmases.
68"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
69He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us--
72to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace."
Always put God first. Nobody did that better than the “The Baptist” family, or Zechariah, Elizabeth and John. Zechariah and Elizabeth were probably one of those couples in which people who knew them probably couldn’t help but feel sorry for. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer pair of people,” they probably said, you see, Zechariah and Elizabeth were an older couple, but still hadn’t given up praying for a child of their own. In fact, Elizabeth evens states that their condition had disgraced the couple among their peers. We also know that Zechariah and Elizabeth had an ancestry founded in some of the greatest Hebrew priests the world had known and they filled the shoes. Luke tells us that they followed the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.
That’s why He looked on them with favor and sent Gabriel to answer their prayers. Unfortunately Zechariah doubted such a task possible of God in their agedness and so he lost his voice. In fact, he lost it for the remainder of his ministry period and for the entirety of the pregnancy. Upon John’s birth, those celebrating with the pair took it upon themselves to start calling the child Zechariah, but Elizabeth protested the name stating he was to be named John, and in order to fulfill Gabriel’s prophecy, Zechariah confirmed this by writing John on a tablet, to which his mouth was opened up.
Luke tells us he was filled with the Holy Spirit and he delivered us the lyrics of this song. You can see his excitement is not only for that of his child, but for the fact that through these events a savior from sin was to be with them very shortly and that God found favor to use his son, John for that purpose. One can imagine the joy that filled his heart knowing that everything Gabriel told him was going to happen was playing out before his eyes, and through that, very soon, through his own son’s preaching, that people would be opening their hearts back up to their Heavenly Father; something that the Israelites hadn’t been doing as much as they should have back then.
John grew up in the desert and through it he fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah. John’s message lit a fire in their hearts and under their hindquarters, to be so crude. The self-righteous Jews of those times came to hear his message in a way to confirm their status as a chosen people. John told them that nothing they did or who they belonged to brought them favor with God. Instead of getting angry or offended, rather they turned to John with hearts of fear for God and asked what to do, his answers were simple. Do good. Soldiers and tax collectors came to him. What were they to do? Do good. Put God first!
It’s a simple message lost on us isn’t it? What am I to do? Well, as a matter of fact there’s nothing we can do to earn salvation, but how do we reflect our thankfulness and love for Christ? We do good. Aren’t we a little like the people who had yet to know Jesus. “I go to Church,” we claim, or brag about some prestigious organization we are part of. But does it reflect Christ? That’s not to say our churches don’t do Christ-like good, or that we ought to not invite people to our congregations, but simply being part of said organizations do not give us Christ-like manners in and of itself.
The soldiers and tax collectors, two reviled groups of people back then who were more or less thieves wanted to know, “How do they do good?” Well that thing that you do that people don’t like, stop doing it! Now I hope you aren’t a thief in any sort of the word, but are there things we do, that are self-serving, that make others shake their heads at us? Of course, but do we stop? Of course not! A student takes a grade for a project when he couldn’t make it to the group meeting that Saturday, leaving it to his peers to complete. A worker knows that he could really assist this customer if he just went that extra mile, but it’s not in his job description and it’s not like he’d be compensated. There are these little things in our lives that would be that much better for those around us if we just went out of our way. But more often than not we follow the path of least resistance.
But thankfully not the people John spoke to. They were so inspired by his message that Isaiah through prophecy and Luke through history tell us that they made Christ’s path to salvation easy. They paint Christ as a man walking a path in which the people around Him, inspired by what John the Baptist preached went ahead and leveled mountains and hills and filled in trenches and valleys. Any twists and turns were made straight.
How often in our lives in Christ-like love would we be described as leveling a mountain for someone? How often would we be described as taking out the faintest dent to make our neighbor’s path as smooth as possible in getting them to Christ? That’s not to condemn, rather to exemplify the attitudes we should have when working faith and love in others. When that's not our attitude it is rather the laziness that can come from sin.
That said, I hope you’ve also experienced this sort of attitude in worship and evangelizing. There are times when the Holy Spirit enters us and we feel ready to tear down a mountain. These people were preparing their hearts and minds for Jesus’ arrival. He’s coming again, and with it, we prepare our hearts and minds so that we are ready for eternity with Him. John’s message continues to fill our hearts with a Christian attitude. It’s easy, do good. Especially in the Midwest, John’s message can be greatly applied as Christmas comes around and with it winter as he tells us to share a coat if we have two.
The path was prepared for Jesus and He reached his divine destination and now we follow it. His life was like the path prepared for Him, without blemish so that we can follow it, instead of the inclines and craters found if we try to take our own path. We can point to His destination, the cross, as our starting point as we walk homeward toward Heaven.
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