Child of the Song!

 

When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else. When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child's song to him or her.

Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child's song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song. Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person's bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life. (Internet)

This is the season of lessons and carols, hymns, chants, songs, and silences. Today we celebrate the incarnation of our God as the Child of the Song. We all have sung his song throughout our lives walking from darkness to light, from doubt to faith, from fear to courage, from resistance to surrender.

John sings that Jesus is the Word of God become flesh who from all eternity was with God and is God. Jesus is God’s love incarnate. He is God’s love song, singing life into the world with compassion, mercy, healing, forgiveness, inclusivity, and liberation. 

Our God has put on human flesh and has pitched his tent among us.  One author writes: “It is the day God disappears into our flesh, sinking deep inside our human nature and beginning the transformation of each and all of us and all creation by his intimate presence among us.” (M. Mekenna)

John begins his Gospel with “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” The Light was to be incarnate and dwelling among humanity. Truly, we remember, we celebrate, and we believe that our God has moved in with us!  God is present in Jesus and God’s face is revealed to us and to all creation through, with, and in Jesus.  He is to be understood as the “revealed” of God . . . all that Jesus says and does in the Gospels reveals something of the Mystery and the glory of God, and this Mystery challenges us to believe in the One whom God has sent.

In Jesus, God’s song of love is sung to those who need healing, who need  forgiveness; he sings to the outcasts so as to welcome them into God’s embrace, and sings to those who suffer pain and loss that they may be restored to hope.

We are invited to stand still; to be still and to listen deep within our hearts to the song that God has always been softly singing within us. Then within our spirits we will be awakened and free so that we can become -

a singer to the songless,


a befriender of the friendless;


an assurance for the doubting,


a reconciler for the separated;


a comforter for the sorrowing,


a friend for the forgotten;


a sweetness for the soured,


a gentleness for the angry,


wholeness for the broken,


and peace for the frightened and violent of the earth.


So today, with the choir of angels, we too, can sing and proclaim God’s love song, Jesus incarnate! For how can we keep from singing that our God is committed to companion us in all the joyful and sorrowful mysteries of our lives.  Christmas is the feast of the God who loves us so much as to take upon our human nature so that God might in the human nature impart to us God-self and thus a share in unending life.

I close with a few verses from the writings of John Shea who poetically creates the image of the child embracing his humanity . . .

 

“Then

At a homeless time of forced travel

In a stable on the edge of the world

A child who has nowhere to lay his head

Is swaddled in the rags of the poor

And warmed with the straw of beasts.

Shepherds coaxed by a night of voices

And wise men dragged by as dancing star

Watch newborn arms beat the air,

Conducting angels only children see.

Beneath the skies that sing

The virgin mother holds the child of the song.”

From: Stories of Faith