Transcript

When I was thinking about the Incarnation and a Christmas song that meant a lot to me, I was thinking back to when I was expecting our second daughter and she was due mid January and we knew she had Down syndrome and would need a major open heart surgery shortly after she was born. And I think the weightiness of that Christmas, I was a few weeks away from delivery, and there was so much anticipation of what it was going to be like, and this awareness of bringing a child into the world who was going to suffer, and at the same time might not be welcomed and cherished by the world in a way a mother wants. And I think I felt a tiny glimpse of what that must've been like for Mary, and just living on this pins and needles. But at the same time, it was so meaningful because Immanuel, God With Us gives so much peace to us during that time as we were waiting.

I've probably never paid attention to the words to “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” but it says:

Oh, 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.
Oh, rest beside the weary road
and hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on
by prophets seen of old,
when the ever-circling years
shall come, the time foretold.
When the new heaven and earth shall own,
the Prince of peace their King,
and the whole world send back the song,
which now the angels sing.

As I think of that song and look back on that Christmas, I think each year I feel this tension between the joy and of the already that Christ came and offered redemption and came into this broken world. And I still feel the crushing load of the world and this longing and anticipation for when it's made right when He returns and our Prince of Peace or King lifts that load and we get to go home. So I think that is probably the most meaningful song in Christmas.