Heralding the Christmas season are sounds: there's the chatter, verbal and scripted, of approaching craft sales; schools, service organizations, local business groups as well individual entrepreneurs post signs, print ads and broadcast their events. Radio announcers promote upcoming sales and shopping.
         Even the unusually chilly weather, at least unusually chilly for us thin-skinned West Coast residents, has produced a harmony of Christmas sounds: the multi-part harmony of crunch under shoes on the asphalt track; the rhythmic drip of rain drops on the back deck and the smash of waves on the shore during a winter storm.
         Last week I heard strains of music in our local mall. Music proclaiming the season had arrived. Music declaring the news of the long-ago arrival of a baby boy. Music reminding me that He is still the basis of my strength and hope. The music of Christmas and our much anticipated annual Carols by Candlelight gala. Ah the beauty of the sounds of the season.
         Harking back to Bethlehem, angels first announced his birth. They mouthed words of peace when the shepherds were greatly afraid. They provided responses to unspoken questions and reassurance in terrifying confusion. After all, it isn't everyday a despised shepherd gets to welcome a Messiah; that privilege reputedly belongs to the learned and the mighty.
         It was after those keepers of the flock heard gentle words of a promise fulfilled that the explosion was released for it was then that a lone messenger-angel was joined by a multitude of angelic envoys. "Glory to God in the highest," they belted out. "Glory to God!". And if that wasn't enough, to a conflict-weary world, the words were added: "And upon earth peace, among men -- good will." (Luke 2:14-Young's Literal Translation).
         How desperately we need God's intended sounds for Christmas: songs of praise intermingled with demonstrated peace.Â
