Go Tell It on the Mountain - December 28, 2021

 

Go Tell It on the Mountain - December 28, 2021

 

Isaiah 40:6-9 - A voice says, “Cry out.”

    And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,

    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,

    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

    Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,

    but the word of our God endures forever.”

You who bring good news to Zion,

    go up on a high mountain.

You who bring good news to Jerusalem,

    lift up your voice with a shout,

lift it up, do not be afraid;

    say to the towns of Judah,

    “Here is your God!”

 

John Wesley Work Jr. was the son of two music/choir directors.  His son, John Wesley Work III, also became a music director.  Music was obviously the language and passion of the Work family.  Work Jr. took a special interest in African American Spirituals.  He loved them so much he began to collect them and publish them.  It was difficult work because most of the spirituals were never written down.  They were passed down by singing them from generation to generation and plantation to plantation.  Nevertheless, Work Jr. would find people who knew the songs, have them sing them to him and he would write down the music.  “Go Tell It on the Mountain” was in his second published collection of spirituals.

 

I try to imagine what it would be like to sing this song as a slave.  Of course, I can do no such thing but just the exercise in trying leads me to marvel at the faith of African people who have been enslaved, brutalized, and dehumanized by white people and somehow, they are able to hear good news in the faith that those same white people proclaimed to them.  There is something about the “news” itself that transcends and is untainted by the evil tendencies of those who proclaim it.  The slaves that sung this song somehow knew that 1800+ years after it happened, Jesus’s birth was good news for them that needed to be told “on the mountain.”  I am in awe of the power of that and I think about it every time I sing this song.  If makes me think of Paul speaking to the church at Philippi:

 

“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.  The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.  The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.  Yes, and I will continue to rejoice . . .”  (Phil 1:15-18) 

 

The truth is that the only way Christ is ever preached today is through flawed human beings.

 

Questions: How have you heard the good news even through deeply flawed individuals?  How have others heard the good news from you?

 

Prayer:  Lord, forgive us for our sins.  Help us be better in the future than we are now.  But Lord, use us even now to tell others about the good news that Jesus is born. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for oppressed and enslaved people all over the world.

 

Song:  Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Taylor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEEioq76_JM