Choir and orchestra

Gimme an "A"!

Okay all you people, it's time to tune up and it's time to do it now!

Line up in there Tenor section! Baritones, stand tall! All of you Altos turn slightly toward the center and Sopranos - we are not going to screech out the notes! Let's keep it nice, round tones - fish lips, if you please!

Bass, lets hear that passage in 'The First Nowell'. . .

Now, orchestra, can we tune the violins please . . .

No. Temporary insanity hasn't set in - yet.

This weekend is the Christmas Program which we have been rehearsing for months. It's time to share our testimony, thoughts and joy of the season in song. This is the first time I have been able to sing with the choir.

The first two years, they needed a percussionist, so I played the tympani and various auxiliary percussion pieces. Which is fine by me. I figure if we are truly exercising our talents this year as our gift to the Savior born in the manger so long ago, then we shouldn't care whether we are the lowly shepherd piping our tune on the quiet hillside to calm the sheep or the majestic king playing a lute as the firelight twinkles in the dunes as they seek to follow the star in their approach the newborn king in a manger.

Sometimes we forget that.

I don't recall the Holy Bible reading of Luke 2 telling how only the really cool or the impressive got the message of the Savior coming into the world. The prophecies of Isaiah and the other Messianic prophets told the world. But only those who were prepared to believe and who were willing to perform the effort were granted the glorious view of the new star and the miracle of Salvation which had come into the world. And that had nothing to do with their station in life. It had EVERYTHING to do with their heart.

When you have a willing heart, you truly believe that Christ was born in a humble stable to a pure and totally prepared virgin. Jesus came to a family that was both simple and complex. He was and is, simply, the Son of God. He was and is, to many a complex notion, just like us - mortal.

But in order for that babe in the manger to become the Anointed One who could indeed atone for us all, He had to grow beyond 'just a baby' and be totally and wholly our Savior. And that meant that he could WILLINGLY lay down his life and pour out his blood for us so that we could live.

I just hope while we sing, the people who come to the presentations over the next three days will feel the spirit of what we are trying to say.

Merry CHRISTmas. For without Christ there is not much to be merry about.