Do you have a favorite song you listen to when you want to pump yourself up, get yourself motivated, intimidate an opponent perhaps? Some of you might be familiar with the world of mixed martial arts. As if traditional sports like boxing and wrestling weren’t violent enough, there is a somewhat recent amalgamation of some of the most violent of these known as mixed martial arts, sometimes known as cage fighting. Since 2005 fighter Rory MacDonald has been a top-ranked competitor in mixed martial arts.
Professional mixed martial arts fighters like to get into a particular mindset before they compete. They often use their favorite music to get them in the right frame of mind for victory. Every fighter chooses an entrance song that represents them and gets them into the right mindset for the fight. So MacDonald was surprised when the music for his first four fights was not as motivational as it could have been. And he couldn’t figure out who was picking his entrance songs. He only knew they didn’t represent him, and they didn’t give him the fighting spirit he needed to compete.
Then one evening a fight producer named Jason mentioned to MacDonald that the fight venue couldn’t get the licensing rights to play the song MacDonald had chosen for his entrance that night. MacDonald told Jason he hadn’t picked any song that night. Jason showed MacDonald the text requesting that particular song. And suddenly Rory MacDonald realized why his entrance songs were all wrong. The fight producers were texting his old phone number to ask him for his song requests. Whoever had been assigned Rory’s old phone number never corrected them. They never told them that they had the wrong number.
Jason called the old number, and the person who answered admitted that they were a big mixed martial arts fan who had been pretending to be Rory MacDonald so they could choose his entrance song. From that day forward, Rory MacDonald made sure he chose just the right entrance song for all his fights. (1)
I love this idea of a tough, mixed martial arts fighter entering the ring of combat to some totally inappropriate song. Can you imagine being the man or woman who had Rory MacDonald’s old phone number? That’s a lot of power, choosing the entrance music for a big-time athlete.
But that reminds me of a beautiful story of a village in India where mothers create a unique song for each baby at their birth. The village of Kongthong is in the eastern part of India, not far from the border of Bangladesh. Within a week of each baby’s birth, the mother creates a unique melody that identifies her child. No two melodies are alike. Even after a Kongthong resident dies, their melody is never used again. Isn’t that interesting?
This practice dates back centuries among the Kongthong people. As one young man says, “Our forefathers used these tunes when they went hunting. They believed that spirits in the wild couldn’t keep track of us if we called each other by our tune [rather than by our name].” Mothers also use these melodies to call their children to come in from playing. And when an outsider marries into a Kongthong family, the mother-in-law creates a unique melody for the newcomer, so that every child in their small community can be identified by their special song. (2)
Music is powerful, isn’t it? It is the language of joy, of hope, of victory. Author Richard DeHaan tells of an old Jewish legend that after God had created the world, He called the angels together and asked them what they thought of it. One angel said, “The only thing lacking is the sound of praise to the Creator.” So God created music from the sound of the wind and the rain and the waves and the birds and the songs of praise that pour forth from the grateful hearts and minds of God’s people. (3)
That’s why the Christmas Eve service is often filled with music. It is the sound of praise to the Creator. And that’s why I want us to focus on the first Christmas song ever written, unless you count The Magnificat, Mary’s song. The angels’ song is Jesus’ entrance song into the world. It was created specifically for him, and it is the theme song of his life. You’ll find it in our scripture lesson for this evening, from Luke 2: 1-14: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’
“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’”
Can you imagine those shepherds’ faces when “a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel” in the sky and began singing Jesus’ entrance song, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests”? Theologians say that a heavenly host would be like a heavenly army of angels sent to announce Jesus’ birth.
A man tells of sitting in a cafeteria next to a woman who was engrossed in her newspaper. One of the headlines read: “12 Brazilian Soldiers Killed.” She shook her head at the news. “Oh, how sad!”
Then, turning to the man sitting next to her, she asked, “How many is a Brazilian?” (4)
No one is sure how many angels make up a heavenly army, but I’d say it looked like a bazillion angels in the sky. And the song they sang to the shepherds that night encapsulates the meaning of Christmas, of God taking on human form, becoming our Lord and Savior. And it is the song written on every believer’s heart until the day we see him face-to-face in eternity, when we will be given a new song of praise.
The song of Christmas is a song of glory to God. “Glory” simply means honor or exaltation or praise to God. To experience Christmas in its fullness, to experience the gift and the promise of Immanuel, God with us, we start with giving honor and praise to God. Read through the Bible, and you’ll see that every instance of God appearing to humans was met with tremendous fear.
When God appeared to Moses in the book of Exodus, “Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exodus 3:6).
When God appeared to Job, he said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5, 6).
When God appeared to Isaiah, Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me for I am undone!” (Isaiah 6:5).
When God appeared to Daniel with visions and revelations, he said, “As for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming me, and my face grew pale” (Daniel 7:28).
When Christ was transfigured in glory before Peter, James, and John, “they fell on their faces and were terrified” (Matthew 17:6).
When Christ appeared to Peter after his resurrection, “he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’” (Luke 5:8).
When Christ appeared to John as recorded in the Book of the Revelation, he said, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead” (Revelation 1:17). (5)
The glory of God is an awesome and terrifying thing. Until God wrapped Himself in the flesh of a helpless, newborn baby and revealed Himself, not to prophets, but to shepherds, common working men, to show that God was willing to set aside His glory and enter into our lives in the most humble and accessible way. The birth of Jesus is a glimpse of God’s overwhelming love for us, God’s joy in knowing us and in being known by us.
Dr. Paul Farmer died in February of this year. He founded the global nonprofit Partners in Health, which was known around the world for providing health care for the poorest people in Haiti and Rwanda, and in parts of Eastern Europe and Latin America. Dr. Farmer was an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He could have had a comfortable and lucrative medical career anywhere in the world. Instead, he and his family chose to live for long periods of time in Haiti and Rwanda, where Dr. Farmer often traveled to his patients’ homes to deliver life-saving medical treatment.
When the World Health Organization resisted providing HIV treatments to illiterate patients in Haiti because they wouldn’t be able to follow a strict treatment regimen, Dr. Farmer created a chart based on the sun’s position to show people when to take their medications. Then he trained folks to explain the chart, and to take medicine, food and water into the poorest rural areas so that HIV patients could be successfully treated for their disease.
Laurie Nuell, a board member with Partners in Health, said, “He had a very tender heart. Seeing pain and suffering was very hard for him. It just hurt him . . . He wasn’t detached from anyone. That’s the beauty of it.” (6)
In the birth of Jesus, we see that God isn’t detached from anyone. He entered into our weakness and pain and suffering to show us how much He loves us. This is why followers of Jesus gather regularly to sing praises to God. The song of Christmas is a song of glory to God.
And the song of Christmas is also a song of peace for humanity. Look at the second part of the phrase the angels sang: “. . . and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” That word “peace” means “to join together or tie together into a whole.” In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, humanity is joined together again with God. We are made whole again in knowing Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.
Father Pedro Arrupe was a Jesuit priest who served as a missionary in Japan during World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Father Arrupe was arrested on charges of espionage by the Japanese security forces. He was held in solitary confinement in a Japanese prison. I can only imagine how alone and frightened he must have been.
On Christmas Eve, he heard the sound of numerous footsteps outside the door of his prison cell. He assumed the soldiers were coming to execute him. Instead, he heard the sound of a small choir singing a Christmas hymn. Arrupe recognized the voices as Japanese members of his own congregation, and they were singing a song that he had taught them. He wrote, “They were my Christians who, heedless of the danger of being themselves imprisoned, had come to console me.”
As they sang, Father Arrupe writes that he experienced the presence of Jesus in the prison cell with him. He said, “I felt that he also descended into my heart, and that night I made the best spiritual communion of all my life.” (7)
I hope that this Christmas you will experience the glory and the peace of God. I hope that you will see in Jesus’ birth the love of God for humanity, the joy that God has in sharing His life with us. In giving His life for us. It is that hope and joy and love and peace that have inspired people all over the world for the past 2,000 years to sing songs of praise to God. I pray that you will experience the reality of Immanuel, God with us, with such conviction that you can’t help but sing a song of praise to the glory of God.
1. “This Isn't His Fight Song” Now I Know! by Dan Lewis February 12, 2020.
2. “The Indian Village Where Every Person’s Name Is a Unique Song” by Zinara Rathnayake Atlasobscura.com., April 24, 2020, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-indian-villagers-have-musical-names.
3. Richard DeHaan in Bless the Lord, O My Soul: 365 Devotions for Prayer and Worship (p. 29). Our Daily Bread Publishing. Kindle Edition.
4. William Tolar, Reader’s Digest, September 2005, p. 134.
5. Mary Sutherland.
6.“Paul Farmer, Pioneer of Global Health, Dies at 62” by Ellen Barry and Alex Traub, The New York Times, Published Feb. 21, 2022. Catherine Porter and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/obituaries/paul-farmer-dead.html.
7. Pedro Arrupe: Essential Writings, Kevin Burke, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2004, p. 57, 58. Cited by Jim Campbell Marquette.edu, http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-voices/20th-century-ignatian-voices/pedro-arrupe-sj/