Volume 4

Hear the Angel Voices

Last Sunday, my routine drive to church turned out to be anything but routine. Janneke, our talkative, handicapped daughter usually rides with me but she had gone early with her sister instead. I was unusually alone and was looking forward to some quiet. I pushed a CD into the player on the dash and a beautiful instrumental rendition of “O Holy Night” came on. The beautiful music surrounded me so much that I began to sing the words of that familiar hymn. “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth”. I stopped at a stoplight. A man in an SUV pulled up next to me with a happy family inside and a Christmas tree on top of his car.

As I turned a corner and drove up a hill, several bikers dressed in their leathers pulled up to an intersection along the way. They had colorfully decorated their bikes for the bikers’ parade downtown being held to support the Marine Corps Toys for Tots. The last biker pulled a red metallic trailer full of toys.

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ‘till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.” I was at peace as I watched the hectic world move about outside my window. I saw the reality but I was strangely distanced from it. As I continued my journey, I passed a couple exercising. They were breathing hard and straining to reach the top of the hill. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoicing for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

When I arrived at the freeway ramp, I sped up and entered into the traffic. The highway was packed! On the opposite side of the road, the bumper-to-bumper traffic was at a standstill. There had been an accident. On my side of the road, the traffic was heavy but moving well. People sped by toward their many important destinations and appointments. At the exit for Costco, a long, double line of cars formed on the exit ramp. These exuberant shoppers were beginning a delightful morning of standing in long lines and looking for empty parking spaces. At Home Depot, “early birds” were already pushing carts overflowing with their purchases. The parking lot there was filled to capacity, too. “Fall on your knees, o hear the angel voices. O night divine, o night when Christ was born!”

Those words challenged me. “How?” I asked myself, “How can we hear angel voices when our spirits are so captivated by the demands of the material, the pressures of the immediate, and the Christmas rush to respond to expectations that have so little to do with the baby born in a manger? Can we hear those sweet voices above the clamor of cash registers and angry horns? Can we fall down before a newborn king when we don’t even notice Him?”

That’s when I heard angel voices. The Spirit of God reminded me what Christmas is really all about: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” And every creature, which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, I heard saying: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Sarah Gleason