We all have a Christmas soundtrack. Maybe it’s Carols learned while at school, or singing along to Slade, Wham or the Darkness. The gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, also had a soundtrack in mind when they wrote their accounts of Jesus’ birth, and just as our Christmas season comes to life when we start to hear the music playing, so too their stories light up brighter when we start listening for the echoes of the phrases from their soundtrack, the Tanach, the Torah and the Prophets of the Old Testament.
We’ll look at Luke’s account in just a moment, but first, may I take you back to two tunes from Luke’s soundtrack? The opening section of Genesis, and the song of the prophet Joel.
Genesis opens with an image of a dark and formless void, filled with swirling waters, and God’s Spirit, hovering over them like a bird. Then God speaks, “Let there be light.” God names, and speaks again to set things in place, to create, and to bless his creation, which he then declares to be good. God speaks and creation happens.
Now let this song play in your mind.
Luke’s second song comes from a much later time; the song of the prophet Joel, speaking to a people in another dark place. God appears to be far off. The land has been invaded. There is famine and destruction, but into this chaos, Joel’s song sings of ‘The Day of The Lord’. A day when God will return, in smoke, and fire, and darkness. To judge and to destroy, but also to save and restore. And in the middle of this, there is a promise:
“Then afterwards, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.” Says God. (Joel 2:28-29)
So now we have these two songs playing in our heads. And then there is Luke’s story. A story about an old man and his wife, called Zechariah and Elisabeth, and a young son and a daughter, called Joseph and Mary.
He tells us about dreams, and visions of angels and babies who will bring salvation and restoration. And we hear Joel’s song again. He even tells us about what the slaves will do, but I’ll come on to that in a moment.
So, let’s bring the song from the opening moments of Genesis back to mind now, as we consider Luke’s words. After years of silence, God speaks. At this moment in history, he re-enters ‘his story’, and he speaks again through his angelic messenger. He speaks to Zechariah, then he speaks to Mary. Then Elisabeth speaks to Mary, and Mary sings a song of Praise. Then Elisabeth speaks to name her baby ‘John’, and Zechariah speaks a prophetic word. And then the angels cannot keep it in. They appear to the slaves, the shepherds, and the whole of heaven bursts into song.
Can you hear the soundtrack playing? This is the creation story again. This is the start of Genesis and Joel’s ‘Day of the Lord’. God, bursting into history once again. And the whole thing is orchestrated by God’s Spirit hovering over the scene. Nine times the Spirit is mentioned in these first two chapters of Luke. Just as God spoke the world into existence, he speaks to announce his own coming into that world as a baby.
God’s words are God’s Word, the one who became flesh to live among us, and are what he records in his Bible too. And as we listen to this soundtrack again, we wonder where we fit in. We ask, “Is there a place for us in this story?”
Well, according to Joel and Luke, there is. For the old, the young, the sons and daughters, and even the slaves, there is a space, and a sign that we too have been touched by God’s Spirit.
You see, I think Luke intentionally leaves a place open for us in his story beside the slaves, the shepherds. Who, “When they saw this, (that is the sound of the heavenly Choir praising God and the angel telling them about the birth of Jesus and the sight of Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger), they told everyone they met, what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them”. (Luke 2:17-18)
If ever there was an invitation to add our voices to the soundtrack, this is it.
We may have heard the voice of God speaking to us from and through his word, the Bible. We may have recognised that there is something special about this baby we are invited to see in the manger. But this invitation is much, much bigger, and deeper, and wider than just our hearing and seeing something, however wonderful and life-changing that may be.
This invitation is to allow God’s creating, recreating, and restoring Spirit to live inside us, to change us, and to speak to this dark and chaotic work through us.
This will be the sign that we have ‘heard’ and ‘seen’. This will be the sign that God’s Spirit has been poured out once again on ordinary people like the shepherds. When we ” tell everyone we meet what had been told us about this child!”
Who are you going to tell today, about Jesus?
Be blessed and encouraged!