Friday, December 12, 2003
Luke 3:3:6

"And all flesh, and all flesh, and all flesh shall see, shall see..." What person, having heard Handel's Messiah, can read these words without hearing that music? Today that music exists as fact. We forget that it was once a faint synaptical spark in the mind of a gifted composer. And the same is true of the words. Once an unsettled composition-in-progress, it is now prose carved into memory.

The Biblical words and Handel's music help fill the valleys, level the high places and straighten the crooked. For they made God's word memorable, and ministered the Word to humanity.

Few of us will leave on this world the imprint made by this phrasing or by this music. Yet each of us, somewhere, makes a print no more erasable. Ordinarily, we do not know when, where, or how we have done it, but each day it happens. Someone takes a lesson from our conduct. The student learns. Once learned, our conduct straightens or twists that learner's path toward God. The road is leveled or made steeper. The world is made better or worse and the change occurs because we have passed through.

The question is not whether we sing in a strange land. We are in a strange land, for this is not our home. We sing because we can do no other; to live is to sing a song others hear. The vital question is whether our song is God's song.

John Wesley, in his Rules for Singing, urges us to be no more afraid of our voices now than we were when we sang the songs of Satan. He bravely assumed that we no longer sing the songs of Satan. But that quibble aside, this rule is as good for daily living as it is for Sunday morning hymn-singing.

Did Handel know the full power of his composition? Did Luke expect his words to endure two millennia? Probably not. But they struck out boldly, singing God's song, and that shapes people to this day. Let us join that song, and give voice with strength and conviction.

Mark Bromley

All contents copyright 2003 by the Wisconsin Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action. Permission is granted to United Methodist congregations, individuals and groups to reproduce and distribute this devotional without charge. All other use requires the advance permission of the editor.