Things Into Which Angels Long to Look

Perhaps the opposite of a promise is a platitude -- the well-intentioned thought/optimistic verbal offering.  Cloaked in kindness, it is empty of substance and devoid of power.

I'm remembering how carefully I chose some words when my children were small.  We said "Biblical accounts" instead of "Bible stories" -- as if the telling, and re-telling through the four-year Sunday School cycle did not render the label irrelevant.  Familiarity may not always breed contempt, but it often breeds carelessness.  And here we are again in this season when unfathomable phrases that should bowl us over with their immensity are tossed around on marquees and in advertising jingles.  Virgin Birth.  Emmanuel.  Incarnation.  Gradually, the words and expressions have blurred from overuse and become more story and less account.

This year I heard a song performed in the middle of "A Rocking Christmas" (a sort of holiday variety show I attended as a guest of my mother) that stopped the frivolity of the auditorium as suddenly as if the lights had gone out.  There was a palpable response of reverence throughout that public center for the arts, and the applause was hesitant -- ashamed to intrude. The hook, at least for me, was that it effectively stripped away the fable lingo that has reduced miraculous happenings to "Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away..." 
Through the lyrics I heard again the enormity of my poverty and hopelessness, and of the great Love that left perfect fellowship and unity and reached down into time, becoming bound up in a human body in order to buy me back for Himself at great cost.
Because I don't need platitudes.  I haven't faith that the well wishes of humanity will bring joy to the world, or peace on earth, or any degree of lasting comfort and joy. 
I require promises.

Mary, did you know
That your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
That your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know
That your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
That your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know
That your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

Mary did you know

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know
That your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
That your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know
That your Baby Boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you're holding is the Great, I AM.