One of the most important features of this season of preparation for Christmas is the music. We love Christmas music – at least at the beginning of the Advent season. By the time we get to December 25, we might be tired of hearing, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” in the grocery store.
What are some of your favorite Christmas songs? What Christmas carols do you love? What music do you look forward to hearing this season? Will you be listening to Handel’s “Messiah”? Or “Grandma got run over by a reindeer”? “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”?
As we think about the Magnificat, we notice that it is referred to as the ‘song’ of Mary. The canticle of Mary. Something that is sung. Music. Not just a poem or a spoken prayer. I think that’s interesting. It is as if the magnificent thing God is doing, sending Jesus to the world, through Mary, is so powerful and amazing, that is can’t be captured in words alone. Something so radical and revolutionary needs more than words. It needs music. A song.
This is a season to cultivate joy in response to the unconditional, universal love made manifest in Jesus through Mary. So how do you cultivate joy? Joy that needs more than words to be expressed? Maybe another list? A list of things to do this season that bring you joy so that you might resonate with the joy God sent Jesus to bring into this world.
Prayer: Amidst the busy-ness and hustle and bustle of this season, may I pause, for joy. May I even sing out my praises for the wonders of Divine Love! Amen.
Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells
Lakewood United Church of Christ 