My favorite Christmas song, and one of my favorite songs of all kinds, is “O Holy Night!” In this song is one simple line that captures the essence of the gospel . . . .
Long lay the world, in sin and error pining; ‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
Truly the world is lost in sin, and pining away with no hope or remedy within itself. We need a Savior! We needed someone beyond us to fix what our sin had wasted among us. We were in despair and disillusioned. All attempts to restore our helpless estate only led us deeper into bondage.
Then He appeared!
Not as a King did He appear . . . nor as a warrior riding in on a great white stallion. Not as a mere ambassador for someone else, an emissary of some distant regime. But He appeared as a baby. Humble. Poor. Vulnerable. Calling out for whatever goodness may yet remain within the human heart to care for another. Love.
Yet the greatest love was the catalyst of His own appearing. For God so loved that He gave . . . His own only Son. And as the love of God toward humanity spilled over the precipice of heaven onto this terrestrial sphere the intangible became tangible. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The God who is Spirit became what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and our hands handled . . . 400 years of divine silence was shattered with the cry of an infant.
That wail of the infant may have sounded like mere noise to many, even annoying perhaps. To some it may have sounded like a cry for attention – expressing the desires of their own desperate heart. But to some, the cry of that infant was the Deity crying out “I love you!”
And the soul felt its worth! That soul that had lost all value in the eyes of others. The humanity that was considered worthless in the eyes of Rome, worthless in the eyes of greedy businessmen, murderers, and thieves. Worthless to those who would extort the very life from their fellow man. The soul that was even worthless in its own eyes. That soul, that wretched soul, felt it’s true worth.
The worthiness of being made in God’s image. The worthiness of communion with the divine. The worthiness of being assigned dominion over the earth. The worthiness of being restored. The soul for whom the Creator of the Universe thought it worthwhile to lay His glory aside . . . empty Himself, take the form of a bond-servant, and be made in the likeness of men. The worthiness of God humbling Himself to the point of death on a cross. The soul felt its worth!
The thrill of Hope, The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morning!
Fall . . . on your knees!
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. . . if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overpower it!
Indeed! The Light of Life has pierced the darkness of the human heart so that those who were living in darkness shall see a great light! A new day! A glorious morning!
How can we not fall on our knees and worship Him!