Do You Hear What I Hear

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Genesis 49:10
The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor.

Micah 5:2
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah.
Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.

God makes a big promise to the smallest of places.

“When He acts this way we can't boast in the merits or achievements of men but only in the glorious mercy of God. We can't say, ‘Well, of course He set his favor on Bethlehem, look at the human glory Bethlehem has achieved!’ All we can say is, ‘God is wonderfully free; He is not impressed by our bigness; He does nothing in order to attract attention to our accomplishments; He does everything to magnify his glorious freedom and mercy.’"
–John Piper

For Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above,

While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love.

Isaiah 7:14
All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

Luke 2:26-35
²⁶In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. ²⁸Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” ²⁹Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ³⁰“Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! ³¹You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³²He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” ³⁴Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” ³⁵The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.

God makes a big promise to the smallest of people.

No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

Isaiah 53:3-5
³We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. ⁴Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! ⁵But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

Isaiah 59:14-16
¹⁴Our courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found. Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty has been outlawed. ¹⁵Yes, truth is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked. The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice. ¹⁶He was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed. So he himself stepped in to save them with his strong arm, and his justice sustained him.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel;
That mourns in lowly exile here
Until the son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.*

Colossians 1:19-20
¹⁹For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, ²⁰and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Colossians 2:9 
For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.

Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the Virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see;
Hail, the incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!*

O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel.*

Isaiah 45:21-22
²¹Consult together, argue your case. Get together and decide what to say. Who made these things known so long ago? What idol ever told you they would happen? Was it not I, the Lord?  For there is no other God but me, a righteous God and Savior. There is none but me. ²²Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other.

Isaiah 45:23-25 
²³I have sworn by my own name; I have spoken the truth, and I will never go back on my word: Every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will declare allegiance to me.” ²⁴The people will declare, “The Lord is the source of all my righteousness and strength.” And all who were angry with him will come to him and be ashamed. ²⁵In the Lord all the generations of Israel will be justified, and in him they will boast.

O come Thou, Dayspring, Come and Cheer,
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice, Rejoice Emmanuel will ransom captive Israel.*

Luke 1:76-79 
⁷⁶And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way for the Lord. ⁷⁷You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins. ⁷⁸Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, ⁷⁹to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.

Malachi 4:2 
But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.

*O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
John Mason Neale & Thomas Helmore | Public Domain

Luke 1:5-7 
⁵When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. ⁶Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. ⁷They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old.

What do you hear in this passage?

Luke 1:11-14
¹¹While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. ¹²Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. ¹³But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John. ¹⁴You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.”

What do you hear in this passage?

Luke 1:23-25
²³When Zechariah’s week of service in the Temple was over, he returned home. ²⁴Soon afterward his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months. ²⁵“How kind the Lord is!” she exclaimed. “He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.”

What do you hear in this passage? Relief and Resolve, Joy

Matthew 2:13-15
¹³After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” ¹⁴That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, ¹⁵and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”

Matthew 2:16-18
¹⁶Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. ¹⁷Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸“A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”

Jesus comes in the context of evil and suffering in the world.

Psalm 13

¹O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?

    How long will you look the other way?

²How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,

    with sorrow in my heart every day?

    How long will my enemy have the upper hand?

³Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!

    Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.

⁴Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”

    Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.

⁵But I trust in your unfailing love.

    I will rejoice because you have rescued me.

⁶I will sing to the Lord

    because he is good to me.