Christmas Songs

I like Christmas. And Easter. But it is Christmas now so that is what I’m thinking about. The carols and hymns of Christmas thrill me to my core. The melodies uplift—and the lyrics! O the truth wrapped in a simple Christmas tune. Take one of my favorites What Child is This? that we sang Sonday.

Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you
Hail, hail the Word made flesh
The Babe, the Son of Mary.”

Or God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen which says

Remember, Christ, our Saviour
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy!

(Maybe He wasn't born on Christmas day, December 25, but that doesn't really matter does it?  All that matters is that He was born.)

Then there's We Three Kings of which we tend only to sing the first and last verses.  But it's the middle ones that are the best.  Each verse describes the gifts brought by the wise men and what the meaning of it was.  Gold for the King, Frankincense for the Deity, Myrrh for the Sacrifice.

And what about this verse, rarely seen, from O Come All Ye Faithful

God of God, Light of Light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
Very God, Begotten not created

Christmas songs are more than Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells.  Many of the hymns and carols are rich with theological truths about the God who became man to take away the sins of the world.  Add to that the beauty of the meoldies and you have a marvelous mix.

I wish we would sing Christmas songs all year round. I think we often need the reminder of just what we’ve been given. Christmas reminds us that God came to earth. Easter reminds us of the cost paid for our redemption. I need to recall those awesome facts more than just once a year.

Numbers Paper

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men…” This phrase makes me think not just of the Exodus and how God brought Israel out of Egypt but also of the way God leads His people through the wilderness with the pillars of fire and cloud. Such a thing is hard to miss. God’s power was made clearly visible to all men as He saved Israel from slavery to Egypt. Even forty years after God brought Israel out, the surrounding nations are still talking about the event. I think it is likely that the miraculous way God lead Israel through the wilderness served as a constant reminder of the startling manner in which they had left Egypt. In the same vein, it has been over two thousand years since the greatest example of God’s grace appeared to man—Jesus Christ—and people are still talking about it. On the cross at Calvary where the Son of God paid the price for my sin, the grace of God appeared to all men.

The next phrase in the Titus passage we have been memorizing, “teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,” reminds me of all the laws in Leviticus and Numbers. God’s grace appeared, but He did not leave us with just a terrifying look at His glory. No, He gave more grace and showed His people just how they can live in fellowship with this God who is more powerful than all the gods of Egypt. The laws are not given as a burden, but as a blessing. Other nations had to guess at what their gods wanted of them and hope that they would not get it wrong and be killed for it. Israel had no such problems. God was very clear in detailing the manner whereby they could know Him and remain in favor with Him. Similarly, God did not stop with salvation for us. It was too small a thing to simply save us from sin and make it so one day we can live with Him forever. His grace, the same grace that saves, shows us how we can live with Him now. We have the advantage on the Israelites in that we have the Holy Spirit working in our hearts so that God is teaching us one-on-one how to honor Him in our daily walk. God does not set us adrift with no purpose in how we live our lives. Instead, He takes great pains with us so that, as we are truly His children, we will deny “ungodliness and worldly lusts” and become more like Him with each passing day.

All Israel looked to the day when they would enter the Promised Land. Many lost heart and gave up, trusting to their own small strength and not to the Mighty God who saved them. These never realized their hope. They never saw the rich land “flowing with milk and honey” where they would live in cities they did not build and harvest crops they did not plant because the nations would be driven out before them even as Egypt was destroyed. The children of that first generation, imperfect though they still were, had a better grasp of what they were looking toward. They lived more eagerly in the hope of the fulfillment of promises made to their fathers. Likewise, we live in a time before the ultimate fulfillment of our salvation. We are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Or we should be. It is the looking to the return of Jesus Christ that gives us hope. The world we live in is not a pretty place. If this world were all there is, there is no point in living. It cannot get better than it is. But with Christ, we can look on this life as a transition, a space of time in which we live ardently for God, knowing that He has prepared more for us. No matter how long the shadows grow, no matter how dark the midnight is, the glorious dawn of His coming is sure. What He has promised will surely come to pass.

One set of laws that God gave to the Israelites was that dealing with the sacrifices. In order to be purified, one must constantly offer sacrifices of blood for the breaking of God’s perfect statutes. It was a costly sacrifice. Only the absolute best animals were accepted. No imperfection could be tolerated. In addition, Israel had to redeem every firstborn with an offering because they rightly belonged to God as He saved them back in Egypt. These sacrifices purified and redeemed Israel, setting them apart as God’s people. Even so, we also have been redeemed and set apart. But it is no mere animal that was offered for us. Rather it was God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ “who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” The price that was paid for our redemption was the Firstborn over all Creation, the Perfect Lamb of God. The animal sacrifices only served to cover the sin. The sacrifice that was Christ was great enough to take away our sin and endow us with God’s righteousness at the same time. Israel’s daily sanctification cost the life of an animal. Our ultimate sanctification cost the life of God.

What makes everything that God has done, is doing, and will yet do for us even more amazing is revealed in Titus 3:5 “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us…” All through Numbers, we see Israel not following the laws that God set forth for them. We can go further back and see that even when God brought them out of Egypt, it was not because of anything good they had done—they were complainers even then. We too have done nothing to warrant the salvation that God gives. In fact, we have done much that would disqualify us from even dreaming of salvation were our God anyone other than what He is. “But God” is one of the most thrilling phrases anyone can hear. We were lost in darkness when He in His great mercy stepped in. He wrought salvation for all to see, teaches us how we should live daily, gives us hope for the future, and paid for it all Himself without regard for our lack of merit. Israel’s journey from Egypt through the wilderness to the Promised Land mirrors our journey from salvation through sanctification to glorification in many ways but the greatest I think is this: It was nothing we have done, are doing, or will do that brought this glory to pass—it was totally and completely by the grace and mercy of God. Halelujah!

Numbers and Titus

Our most recent assignment was to write a three page, double-spaced paper comparing Numbers to the verses we’ve been memorizing in Titus.  Specifically, to Titus 2:11-3:9.  Yesterday (Saturday) I made some rough preliminary notes.  Looking at them, I wondered if I’d be able to fill the required three pages.

I did.


In fact, I only got through Titus 2:14 when I ran out of space.  Just looking at how God worked in saving Israel and how He works in saving us was amazing.  I did touch briefly on 3:5 in my final paragraph but that was because I just couldn’t leave that out.  I didn’t have space to keep going straight through the passage so I jumped to a favorite part.

Some of the verses I didn’t use, particularly Titus 3:1-3, seem to compare to Israel in Numbers as a “Don’t do what they did” type of thing.  “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men,” state verses one and two.  I thought then of the rebellions led by Miriam and Aaron and by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.  Those didn’t turn out to well for the rebels.  Verse three says “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” and I think of Israel at Marah, Kibroth Hattaavah (where God sent manna and quail), Kadesh, and Peor.  If ever a people was given everything and still wanted more, it was Israel.

And me.

I’ve been given everything in Christ.  God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3) and yet I still wander around complaining because not everything is like I want it to be.  I act like a foolish, petulant child refusing to do the work set out by my loving Father.  I refuse to bend my proud will to any other.  I am lazy, not ready to do good works.  I complain and argue when things don’t go my way.  And I seek after that which does not last.

It is as hopeless for me as it was for Israel.  Many times God told Moses to step aside and let Him blast this disobedient people to oblivion and start all over with Moses.  Each time, Moses reminded God of the promises He’d made to undeserving Israel.  And God set aside His wrath for a time, punishing those who rebelled and then turning right around and speaking to those who remained as if His promises were already fulfilled.  I’m thinking mostly of when Israel refused to go into the land and God essentially said “Fine.  You won’t go in.  But your children who you think are going to be killed, they will.  And now kids, when you enter the land…”  (Look at Numbers 14 and 15:1)

So it was that the “the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

How’s that for amazing!

More than I ever dreamed possible this semester, I have seen the glory of God.  And I have seen the blackness of my sin.  Some of my sin has seemed like a great crushing load on my shoulders.  Another sin felt like a sinister shadow wrapping itself around my very being.  Yet another, which I only recently became aware of, makes me feel like I’ve been dipped in sticky black goo that clings to me and just feels disgusting.  Before this semester, when I bothered to look at me, I didn’t see much to worry about.  O!  How that has changed.  I don’t like looking at myself because it isn’t a pretty sight.

So let me look elsewhere, to the Light of the World who burns away the shadow.  To the Almighty God who can lift the heaviest burden.  To the Lamb of God whose blood can make the foulest clean.  O friends!  If we could but see the wonder of what God has done for us!  If I could but grasp the smallest fraction of what He has saved me from and saved me for!  Not for mindless drudgery in servitude to a heartless god who does not care for the minions he chose.  No, for joyous service in honor of the God who gave everything so that I might have fellowship with Him.

I hardly know how to express what I feel when I glimpse what God has done.  It’s like the crescendo of a great symphony that you can feel in your very bones.  It’s like the moment when the sun first reaches over the horizon and its rays shoot across the land.  It’s like seeing the myriads of stars filling the dark vault of the heavens.  It’s like being wrapped in a tight embrace from one you love.  It’s like curling up on the couch with a blanket and a book and family all around.  And all this knowing how very unworthy you are for such richness.

I want this to change the way I live.  I want to live fully and freely for God’s glory.  I don’t know yet how it works but I know that He is working in me “both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)  Pray that I will yield to His leadings and not be prideful and think I know best.

God be with you all!

(I’ll post my Numbers paper tomorrow for your viewing.  I was going to add it to this but the post got rather longer than I originally anticipated.)