Devotion for the Week...
It's the first week of Advent! Is your tree up yet? Ours isn't, that will be our task next weekend, but I have been listening to lots of Christmas music 😊
This year for our Advent devotions, I'm going to look at four of our Christmas traditions and their origins in the Bible. Today I'm starting with all that Christmas music I've been enjoying. It's usually one of the first signs of Christmas approaching, but in the biblical accounts of Jesus' birth there are no mentions of anyone singing or playing any music. We almost always associate the host of angels who visited the shepherds with singing, but that's not what Luke records. "Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased'" (Luke 2:13-14).
But just because there's no biblical record of music around Jesus' birth doesn't mean we shouldn't have music to celebrate it today! There are plenty of times in the Bible that we are told to sing. These are just a few examples:
Ephesians 5:18-19: "be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts."
Psalm 100:1-2 says, "Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy."
Psalm 147:1 says, "Praise the Lord! How good to sing praises to our God! How delightful and how fitting."
And Psalm 95:1-2 says, "Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him." That's in the New Living Translation, which is what I usually use. In the King James Version, though, those verses say, "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms." That is very appropriate for me since my singing is definitely more on the level of joyful noise than actual music!
This Advent season, I'll be making my joyful noise to Him. There's plenty of Christmas music to sing along with, after all, and He doesn't mind that I can't sing worth beans 😊
What are your favourite Christmas songs? Mary's Boy Child, by Boney M, has been my favourite ever since I was a little girl.