Christmas Songs.
Music has the ability to transport you anywhere, into any time, evoking memories both full of joy, and the rawest of pains. At Christmas time, there’s always one song that gets me. It’s a song that sends chills down my spine, gives me a sense of joy, fills me with awe, and creates a deep sense of stillness if only I take 10 seconds to indulge in my wandering imagination.
Mark Lowry’s “Mary, did you know?” is the song that does this. It takes me back in time to when the Roman census was being instructed and families were being scattered across the Empire. As I close my eyes and imagine Mary having given birth, I imagine the sites and the smells in the low-lit environment. I imagine Mary’s gaze as she looks down on her new-born, and the racing contrasting thoughts of both a new mother, entwined with the foreknowledge of what her new-born was to become.
Listen to Pentatonix version of “Mary did you know?” here.
As I tentatively look on within my imagination, I’m transported back 9 years within my own life to St. Helier’s Hospital in Sutton, London. Down the halls and into the delivery suite as my own son is born. I hear him yawn, see him open his eyes, and start to take in the world around him within a mere few minutes of his earthly life. A captivating look as his eyes look into mine, I wrap him up and hold him tight, I feel his fingers and see his tiny toenails, and wonder what his life will become. The silence, the peace, proudness you feel as a parent; but overall, the fierce protectiveness you feel over this tiny bundle of fragility that has been born of your flesh is a moment that is unexplainable.
Flashback into the present and there is one line within Mark Lowry’s song that sticks out to me more than any other. It’s the final reprise.
“Did you know that your baby boy was Heaven’s perfect Lamb,
And the sleeping child you’re holding Is the great, the Great I AM?
The shear depth of the phrase “Great I AM” refers to Moses and Israel in the book of Exodus in the Bible. A time when the nation of Israel were held captive under an oppressive regime of Egypt. It was a time they would long for a great warrior that would free them from the violent, bloody, torturous slavery they were under. It was a time when the phrase I AM, referred to God himself, and anyone who bore that name signified hope for the entire nation. Throughout history there were Kings who pointed to the Great I AM, that tried to personify the Great I AM, but no one who fulfilled the metaphorical boots of claiming to be them. And in the arms of a 16yr old teenager called Mary, the GREAT I AM lay. The saviour to all who are enslaved. The hope of the oppressed. The peace bringing, demon-overthrowing, restoration giving, scar taking, soul saving, miracle providing babe.
The point is, regardless of whether Israel really accepted Jesus in his time, or whether Mary really knew the extent of what Jesus was to become, we all need a saving Great I AM. This Christmas, whatever we think we do or do not have, or what meal you may choose to eat this Christmas lunch time, my prayer for us is that Jesus would be the present we enjoy receiving this day.
Please join me in praying for:
- Families who are missing a loved one from around their table this Christmas. Pray that they would find peace amidst grief.
- Those who are struggling between heating an eating this Christmas. Pray that they would be able to find a place to keep warm and be sustained this time.
- For children and young people who are going through anxieties this Christmas time. Pray for scars to be healed and lives to be restored.
- For those who don’t know Jesus, that they may hear the reason for the season and come to know the Great I am.
Written by Dave Clarke, Director for Swindon Youth for Christ