SOMEWHERE in the realms of Heaven two thousand years ago, the angel with the beautiful voice heard the gong struck thrice. “That’s the choir practice bell!” she cried excitedly to her friends, flapping her beautiful wings and running down the heavenly corridor to the choral hall, where the heavenly choir was getting ready to rehearse.
They all smiled at her, happy they were blessed with an angel with such a heavenly voice that when she sang, even stern Moses, rough Peter and strict Paul, stopped what they were doing, and listened to her, tears of joy streaming down their faces. They smiled at her, as she asked the choirmaster of the angelic throng, he with stern face, yet kindly smile, “Where are we going to sing this time?”
“We sing on earth!” said the conductor. “On earth,” said the angel with the divine voice, “Why should we waste our time, singing for people who would not appreciate us? Oh I know…” “Yes dear angel what do you know?” “We go to sing in some Philharmonic concert on earth, isn’t it, where our voices will rise in such harmony that those same earthly singers will stand amazed and know what real singing is?”
“No,” said the conductor of the heavenly choir. “Then where will we sing, and to whom?” “To shepherds, looking after their sheep in the fields of Bethlehem!” The angel with the beautiful voice put down her head and a tear escaped her lovely eyes, “We sing to lowly shepherds?” she cried aghast, “To men who wouldn’t know the difference between a sharp and a flat, or the filthiness of their lives and the glory of our music?”
The choir master smiled broadly as he said, “To mankind who through our song, will thereafter know that these glories of heaven belong to them! Who in hearing every note, every voice rising in crescendo from our lips, will marvel that what they see and hear is the Heaven they are invited to: A heaven opening her skies through us, to reveal it’s awesomeness, it’s magnificence and splendour! To tell them that if they believe in the little Baby who’s birth we are to announce, this Heaven is theirs!”
That Christmas Eve two thousand years ago, as the heavenly choir sang to the lowly shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem, one little angel sang forth with joy and happiness. “God’s perfect kingdom is yours,” she sang in descant, “Exchange your earthly sadness for heavenly joy. Your worries for divine peace! Just believe in the Babe born in yon manger..!”
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