What Were the Angels Singing?

Tonight as I was putting my daughter to bed, we read the nativity account from her Jesus Story Book Bible and left off on the account of the shepherds who had a vision of the angelic host of heaven singing on that first Christmas night. After we read the account I sang "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" to her and put her to bed. Every Christmas when I hear that song, it invokes memories of George Bailey holding his baby daughter in his arms and hearing a bell ring, signaling that Clarence the angel has obtained his wings.  Although I love "It's a Wonderful Life" and enjoy the wholesome message of a classic movie, I think many people overlook the classic Christmas carol and the rich theology behind it. When Charles Wesley wrote this song he was thinking of the glorious event of Christmas when God became a man. His words were as theologically sound as can be, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail th’incarnate Deity, Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel." Wesley the evangelist was preaching the gospel even in his music.

But why is Christmas so important? Why do we celebrate this holiday every year? Why do we sing carols like this? Because the night Jesus was born, the single most spectacular and historical event that would even happen- took place. The same God who created the universe and placed all the stars in their place, and who created the earth and all that exists, and who had been making promises to mankind through the descendants of Abraham for generations, had come down to earth and was born to a woman as a human baby boy. The night Jesus was born the unimaginable took place...A Holy, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omni-present God, humbled himself to become like the very people he created... in His image. The concept is so amazing, and so tremendous, that for generations people have denied the incarnation of Christ, from the religious( like the Watchtower Organization), to the intellectual, and scientific community who disregard it as a myth of the old world. But to us who believe, it is no fable, and it is no theological paradox- it is the greatest truth that we hold dear to our hearts- that God loved us so much he gave us his only Son as a gift, to die for our sins, that all who believe in him, would have hope of being forgiven our sins, and living forever with him in all eternity. This is the greatest gift anyone can receive! It is the gift of God, His Son. And as scripture says, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Rom. 8:32. Essentially Christmas is about God giving us everything. You may not have gotten an I-pad this Christmas, or that vacation to Hawaii, but in reality- you have much more if you have Christ.

So what were the angels singing? Luke 2:14 answers the question, "“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

What more can we sing or say on such an occasion, but "Glory to God in the highest."? In no other way is God glorified more than in the reconciliation of his elect back to himself though  the work of His son, who destroyed the works of the devil. And what more can the angels sing but, "Peace to those on earth" That is because when Jesus was born, he was the very one who would make peace, between God and man by becoming our peace offering and bearing our sins on the cross reconciling us back to God. And only through faith in Jesus Christ can there ever be true peace on earth between fellow human beings. Through Jesus, the walls of hostility have been broken down and in Christ there is no east or west, or Jew or Gentile, but all are ONE in Him. There was great reason to sing at the first advent of Christ and great reason to rejoice. And we still have great reason to rejoice.

I pray that the Lord would bless you all this Christmas and that you may truly enjoy this holiday for what its really means and not for the word has turned it into. May God grant us all the grace to behold his wondrous and glorious ways, in comprehending the mystery of the incarnation, and all the implications of that great expression of divine love.