Can You Hear His Song?

We were out doing some almost last minute running around today, and Bunny and I got separated in the store. So she did what we've found to be extremely helpful - she called my cell phone. It rang and began to play the Charlie Brown Christmas theme song - "Christmastime is here."

I love Charlie Brown, and especially the Charlie Brown Christmas special. So I enjoy hearing that song. What was funny today was that everyone near me in the electronics section at K Mart heard it too. "I love Charlie Brown too," one older woman said.

I walked away thinking about that. It's Christmas. Maybe I should have had a ring tone that explicitly called people to remember the real Christmas, not just cartoons about it. For me, that would be "Joy to the World." When I hear that, I think about Jesus. It's just His Christmas song.

The funny thing about it is that "Joy to the World" also points me to those shepherds I wrote about yesterday. They received the news first when they heard the angels sing. You know in the time of Jesus, sheep would get to know the one who was their shepherd. Sure the lambs would wind up at the temple, but their parents, the ewes and rams, would be with the shepherds for years. I wonder if they were more like pets than we think.

Sometimes the shepherd would sing a song to them as they walked along. Or he would carry a little flute and play a tune over and over until the sheep would know what it was. This is still practiced today. Sheep don't respond well to "hey, you - woolly!" apparently.

Gary Burge writes about it. Gary's a professor at Wheaton College and an expert on the Bible, ancient societies, and wrote an excellent commentary on John which this quote comes from.

In the 1980's, the Israeli government was in conflict with a Palestinian village near
Bethlehem over taxation. The officer in command rounded up all of the village animals
because of this conflict and put them all together in a common pen.

Later on, a woman approached them and explained that she was a widow, and that these
animals were her only means not to starve. They were her only livelihood and she desperately needed them. He said, a little cynically, that there would be no way to locate her sheep, because there was no way he could find the animals that were hers.

She asked, If I could separate them out, could I keep them?

He answered, Sure. You could do that.

Her son was the one who usually watched the sheep. He would have been the "under shepherd" who served the owner. This was common in ancient times also. Her son pulled out a little reed flute and played a simple tune over and over and over. In the pen where all the animals were, there was a group of sheep whose heads started popping up.

Hey, that's our song!

And twenty-five sheep recognized that song, walked out of that pen, and followed the
shepherd.

Jesus said,
My sheep know my voice. (John 10:27)

You can't fool the sheep. They know their shepherd.

As we prepare for Christmas at New Hope, this will be the last devotional I write. We're going to celebrate the coming of Jesus with everything we have to give. We'll certainly sing my favorite.

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Friends the "Joy" is an offer from a loving God. But just like a song, you can choose not to hear it, drown it out with your own voice, or replace it with another of your choosing.

To truly hear the song of Christmas, you have to prepare your heart and surrender your will to the King.

Can you hear His song? Are you listening?

Grace!

David
Lead Pastor, New Hope, Valparaiso

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