Sunday Evening Worship

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:16

Last weekend, some friends and I went to a performance of Handel's Messiah. Scripture set to music has got to be one of the most beautiful things in the world. As I listened to the choir sing the Isaiah 9:16 passage, I found myself meditating on what it meant for the goverment to be on Jesus's shoulders. At first, I thought about the oppersion of the earthly government - the paranoid one that tried to have him killed as a baby and the apathetic, placating one that sentenced him to death. But that just didn't seem to complete fit. I have also been meditating on Colossians 1: 15-20:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,

visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;

all things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body, the church;

he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,

so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

and through him to reconcile to himself all things,

whether things on earth or things in heaven,

by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

I am not a theologian by any stretch of the imagination, but as the choir sang the words proclaiming the birth of the Son of God, I was overwhelmed in praise that He is above all.

So, if you have a chance to hear a performance of the Messiah this Christmas or Easter, which will be here before you know it, take your Bible with a good concordance and a notebook and prepare yourself to have a really good Bible Study and quiet time with God.