By Harris L. Jansen
The songs of Christmas are special, like the first snowflakes of winter. How strange that the day after Christmas we expect its songs -- the carols of the season -- be put away. (We also like a white Christmas, but we are more successful putting the carols away than we are with the snow.)
Have you noticed that the Christmas songs of the Bible are all -- and only -- in Luke's Gospel? The first two chapters by Luke are a marvelous eruption of music, of glad songs of praise.
Elizabeth sings the joy of the Beatitude (
1:42) -- "blessed" (
vv. 42,45), expressing the happy situation of those whom God favors.
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Mary responds with the unmatched Magnificat (
1:46-55). Her song turns on four strophes or themes: 1. Praising God for what He has done including His blessing upon Mary (
vv. 46-48); 2. Declaring the power, holiness, and mercy of God (
vv. 49-50); 3. Affirming God's sovereignty (
vv. 51-53); and 4. Recalling God's mercy to His people Israel (
vv. 54-55).
Zechariah, at the loosing of his tongue, breaks forth with the Benedictus (
1:68-79), praising God for remembering His oath to deliver His people.
What then can compare with the Glorias of the angelic host echoing over the Shepherd's fields (
2:14)?
These are Hebrew psalms, with the characteristic parallel-antiphonal construction. Particularly the song of Zechariah reached back into the Psalms. One might have expected Jewish Matthew to be the gospel writer who would preserve this beautiful Hebrew praise. Instead it is Gentile Luke, Luke who wants to show us how the Christ as the Son of God is truly and equally the Son of Man. Luke takes care to present the Promised One, the Anointed One, the One who comes to redeem humanity, who altogether identifies with humanity.
So it is. In the commonplace of man's everyday, God delights to break through, declare and relate Himself to His creature. No Gospel event shows this more vividly than that which holds the fifth Gospel song, the Nunc Dimittis, the song of Simeon.
Let us remind ourselves of this beautiful song and the story. Let us receive fresh inspiration -- and perhaps fresh insight -- of what God accomplished with Christmas. Consider then:
I. The singer (
vv. 25-26)