O Holy Night
I can’t believe Christmas is almost here! As finals wrap up, time gets shorter for buying and wrapping presents and we all eat way too many cookies (my wife is making 10 different kinds this year), it can be easy to get caught up in all the festivities and things that need to get done and forget the whole point of celebrating Christmas.
In this 12 Days of Christmas devotional we’re talking about Christmas through the lens of 12 different Christmas songs. The song O Holy Night has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs for several reasons. There’s something so soothing about this song that makes me want to pause and reflect on Jesus. It also captures such a sense of peaceful adoration and awe of all God did when He sent His Son. Let’s look at a few lines from the first verse.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Do you ever just sit and contemplate what the earth must have been like before Jesus showed up? I imagine life felt pretty dark and bleak. The Israelites had been told that a Messiah would come to deliver the people, but they had been waiting for hundreds of years and still they had no sign of when this promise would be fulfilled.
They were hanging on hope, but they had no idea when this hope would be fulfilled. Their freedoms were restricted because of being under the command of the Roman government. I’m sure for many they were trying to hold onto hope, but didn’t always feel hopeful.
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth
Then God broke into the darkness and all of a sudden the soul could feel again. All of a sudden hope was restored. All of a sudden the creator of life began to demonstrate for us what life could and should look like.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
A world that was once weary had reason to rejoice again. This is the fulfillment of all God’s promises and plans! A Savior who is not just up in heaven, but who would come down and become like us so He would know what it means to be like His created ones. He would experience pain like us. He would experience temptation like us. He would experience the sting of betrayal like us.
And yet, He overcame it all to show us that we can overcome it all too! Through the power of God in us. We can rejoice because we have a Father in heaven who deeply knows what we go through and yet empowers us to live in victory. This is the joy that chases away any weariness we encounter.
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
This explains the significance of what God did in the moment that He sent Jesus to earth as a little baby. When the angels came to declare Jesus’ arrival, they weren’t just proclaiming that a new life had come into the world. They weren’t even just proclaiming that the Son of God had come to earth.
They were proclaiming the beginning of a new morning, a new normal, a new Kingdom that would totally revolutionize the world we live in and continues to revolutionize our world today.
So, as I think about what this world was before Jesus and how much it meant when God broke into our world that night, I find myself in awe. As we start this devotional together, I want to encourage you to pause and reflect on all God gave you in the gift of Jesus and all God has done in your life. This is what Christmas is all about and when I position myself in this way it brings me to my knees in praise.
Fall on your knees, oh, hear the angel voices
Oh, night divine, oh, night, when Christ was born
Oh, night divine, oh, night divine