What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?
This is one gig I would have loved to have been at!
The angel’s solo, in which the sign of a baby, wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger is given, gives way to a “great company of the heavenly host”: the greatest backing band the world has ever seen! As ever, the angels lead us in the worship of God, giving glory to him for who he is and what he
has done.
But then their message is proclaimed to earth: a blessing of peace on earth, spoken over those “on whom his favour rests”. Here again is evidence that God coming to us in Christ is not something to fear, but something that is wonderful, for our good, for our blessing, for our help. The shepherd’s enthusiastic response, “Let’s go…and see [what] the Lord has told us about”, is the great invitation that echoes through the millennia.
How our world needs to hear the angel’s song in which God promises peace on earth. And that route to peace has always been wrapped up with this baby in a manger.