Do You Hear What I Hear? Series

(Open with Tim Hawkins – “Do You Hear What I Hear” from YouTube)

It is a bit of a strange song, don’t you think? Now… the difference for me… between this week and last week is… I like this song… even though it’s a little strange.

Spencer was telling me that this song was actually written as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Husband and wife team Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne wrote this because they wanted to write an allegorical song to soothe people’s souls.

The song retells the Nativity story through the eyes of a little lamb, but its deeper message is a call to prayer against war, urging people to listen for a divine message of hope in the midst of global threats.

This songwriting couple also wanted to write this song as a way to emphasize how important it is to spread the message. The night wind told the lamb, the lamb told the shepherd boy, the shepherd boy told the king, and the king told the people.

So when you hear the song like this… it’s not as messed up as Tim Hawkins makes it out to be… even though I think his take is hilarious.

But what can we learn from it? Well… I’m sure there are more than what I have chosen to hit on. But there are four things that I think this song can teach us today.

I think what God often does, is… takes something that was intended for one particular purpose and uses it for something that we never even thought of.

This is what I think this classic Christmas song can teach us… as we wrap up this series, “What Did I Just Sing – Christmas Edition”.

What I want to do is take four different lines from the song and see what biblical truth we can draw from it. Here we go. The first line.

1. Said the night wind to the little lamb.

Sometimes, God whispers truth in unlikely places.

Now this is a pretty poetic thing to say really. The night wind, says to a little lamb. But it’s actually a lot deeper than that if you think about.

Romans 8:19 says… For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

The Christmas story in Luke 2 tells us the heavens erupted with angels. Psalm 19 says creation declares the glory of God.

Christmas isn’t just about a baby in a manger.

It’s about all of creation celebrating the arrival of the Creator Himself.

And the “night wind” and the “little lamb” remind us of something very important that we don’t often think about.

Sometimes God speaks in places that we aren’t necessarily thinking He would speak. I love how God chose to announce the birth of His son first.

It wasn’t in palaces. It wasn’t to kings first. It wasn’t to the powerful. God chose to reveal the birth of His son, to a bunch of shepherds on a hillside.

He revealed it to the humble. To the quiet. To the ones that the rest of society thought wasn’t worthy of anything important. They were considered the lowest rung on the ladder.

Yet… in a way that only God could do… He chose to reveal the birth of His Son… through a host of angels appearing in the sky to some shepherds in the field.

Maybe God has been speaking to you in the “night wind”—in the stillness, the discomfort, the unanswered questions… and you haven’t recognized His voice yet.

The question isn’t “Is God speaking?”

The question is “Are we paying attention?”

Max Lucado in his book, “A Gentle Thunder” writes about this very topic. He writes…

Once there was a man who dared God to speak.

Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God. And I will follow.

Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God. And I will fight.

Still the waves like you did on Galilee, God. And I will listen.

And so the man sat by a bush, near a wall, close to the sea and waited for God to speak.

And God heard the man, so God answered.

He sent fire, not for a bush, but for a church.

He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.

He stilled the storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.

And God waited for man to respond.

And he waited. . .

And he waited. . .

And waited.

But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts; bricks and not lives, seas and not souls, he decided that God had done nothing.

Finally he looked to God and asked, ‘Have you lost your power?’

And God looked at him and said, ‘Have you lost your hearing?’