Thought for December 22

 History:

• 1560: After 3 years of torture in prison for distributing Bibles in Spanish, Julian Hernandez is burned at the stake in Seville
• 1775: Continental Navy formed with 7 ships
• 1808: Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies premier
• 1882: First string of Christmas lights created--Thomas Edison
• 1894: US Golf Association forms
• 1932: "The Mummy" with Boris Karloff released
• 1937: Lincoln Tunnel opens
• 2010: President Obama repeals "Don't ask, don't tell" allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military
• Born: James Oglethorpe, Puccini, Connie Mack, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Billingsley ["Leave it to Beaver"], Gene Rayburn, Steve Carlton, Diane Sawyer, Maurice and Robin Gibb, Jan Stephenson, Ted Cruz
• Died: John Newberry [Medal for Best Children's Book], Rachel Jackson, Barnett Taylor [pastor noted for helping create and preserve Richmond College, now University], Georg Eliot, Dwight L Moody, Beatrix Potter, Darryl F Zanuck [produced The Longest Day, Twelve O'Clock High, Tora, Tora, Tora, The King and I] Butterfly McQueen ["I don't know nothin about birthing babies"] Joe Cocker

Thought:

I would usually think about this Christmas song on Christmas morning. But this year with Christmas on Sunday, I won't be writing a thought. I love the story that goes with this hymn, "Go Tell It on the Mountain." This is an old Negro spiritual introduced to America by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1879. John Wesley Work was a professor of Latin and Greek at Fisk, the son of a church choir director. Because this was a slave song, there were many verses written at different times and some of the verses were obscure. John Work wrote two new stanzas and standardized the verses. He had a custom of gathering Fisk students before sunrise on Christmas to go caroling throughout the campus with these words of good news. 

This song could be our marching song as Christians--go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere that Jesus Christ is born. The greatest news for man--Christ has come to rescue and redeem. What I like about this song is that it was first sung by slaves, people who knew what slavery meant and who yearned for freedom--or maybe just to be owned by a loving and gracious master. As Christians, we have been purchased by the most loving, most gracious, most gentle Savior--free from the power of sin, free from the penalty of sin and one great morning to be free from the presence of sin. The Jubilee singers got it right--Go and Tell!

Blessings

Larry