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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Unto Us A Child Is Born

The annual Chapel Christmas Concert is scheduled for tomorrow evening. I have been involved in Christmas concerts since I was five years old. Our church Sunday school held one yearly as did the elementary school that I attended. I have no idea how many times I played a shepherd or a wise man in the required and much welcomed nativity play. Mother was usually responsible for putting the costumes together. Belted bath robes and the creative use of kerchiefs were commonly used to take the audience back to the first century. Most years Santa Claus also showed up at the end of the evening to hand out bags of very specialized Christmas candy.

When I became a teacher, I learned how much work went into the yearly production. Hours and hours of preparation and rehearsal were rewarded by the sound of applause on the appointed evening. As a principal, my function became that of master of ceremonies. Each segment of the concert required introduction and positive comments after their performance. The younger performers always drew the most applause. Even when they broke ranks and forgot weeks of practice, their performance was considered flawless by all, including their exhausted teacher. From my position on the stage, I was able to observe parents and grandparents scrambling for an improved vantage point to better see their personal favourite performer. Photographers choked the front aisle to get the perfect picture. I have even witnessed a mother going through the motions required of the song for her child to mimic on stage. Of course the teacher’s back was turned and she never saw the mother’s help. Maintaining the attention of a concert audience is a very substantial public speaking challenge. Their attention is fully on the reason or reasons they came to the concert in the first place. As a school board administrator, I attended an untold number of Christmas concerts. As an objective observer on the floor and in the audience, I really came to understand that a concert audience is almost a distinctive living organism. There was continual movement in and out of the room and constant chatter about the children on the stage. They are focussed totally on the children in the performance and their excitement is palpable.

Throughout my career every school concert included Christian content. Of course there were secular songs and drama, but somewhere in the program there was a segment celebrating the arrival of the Baby Jesus. One of the more well known lines spoken in nativity plays is “For unto us a Child is born”. Countless narrators have mouthed those words probably not realizing that they were actually written seven hundred and fifty years before Jesus was born. We read two astounding prophetic verses in Isaiah 9: 6-7

6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given…” is the only part of these two verses that relates to the celebration of the birth of Christ. The remaining words refer to what is yet to come when Jesus returns to this world. I love the powerful words used to describe Him. I also find it so reassuring that that part one of the prophecy has already happened. We are now in a period of Grace awaiting part two which is our Saviour’s return.

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