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The Worth of a Soul

by Travis Tamerius

Reprinted from Grace Notes, December 1997.

My favorite line from my favorite Christmas carol sings, "Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 'til He appeared and the soul felt its worth" (O Holy Night). Take me to a cathedral sanctuary where a chamber choir is singing this song and I will feel raptured up to the seventh heaven. The song itself, however, transports us back to the first-century soil of Judea, to a tiny, backwoods province of the ever-burgeoning Roman Empire. It was then and there that God came to Judean mailboxes as a human greeting card announcing good news.

Within the span of a few musical measures these words sing the story of redemption. The world was in despair. Sin and error had led the Israelites captive. They were an exiled people. Oh, to be sure, they were allowed to remain in Jerusalem to continue some of their covenant observances. But they didn't have the freedom they expected out of a return from exile. In their recent history, Israel had been tenants to a long list of landlords: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucidan Syria and now the Romans. God's covenant people were looking for the day when the Gentiles would come to Zion to worship on God's holy hill in fulfillment of prophecy. Their present experience, however, told them that the time was not yet here. The nations were not coming to Jerusalem for an end-time songfest; they were governing God's people and picking the tunes. Foreign occupation of Judea seemed to them a daily reminder of exilic conditions.

So what did a remnant of Israelites do? They waited and hoped. They prayed and prepared. They sought for God to vindicate His name and redeem His people.

There is nothing on earth quite like oppression to raise a cry for freedom. There is nothing on earth quite like poverty to sound out the groans of our hunger. We are both oppressed and poor because of our sin. But as "O Holy Night" suggests, human sin and error feed human pining. We long for a day when we will be more than what we are. We long to live in a world that is the way it ought to be. And like Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, we long to get this sin burden off our back.

This holiday season visit again the Gospel accounts that record the fulfillment of the heart's deepest longing. Listen again to the voice of those whose winter despair gave way to Christmas hope. Zacharias, a priest of Israel and father of John the Baptist, overflowed with Holy Spirit inspiration and expressed praise for Jesus, the visitor from God who would accomplish redemption for God's people (Luke 1:67-79). The aged saint, Simeon, waited his whole life to see the "consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25-35). When he finally held the baby Jesus in his arms, he prayed his last prayer. Having seen God's salvation, he was ready to depart in peace. And then there was Anna whose devotion to prayer made her like permanent furniture in the temple. On the day when she saw the baby Jesus, she began to speak of Him to all who "were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:36-38).

In the Christmas story, the soul feels its worth. God became man in order that we might become like God and share in His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Christ was born in a manger to die on a cross in order to reconcile His enemies (Romans 5:10). What a song to sing! What a story to tell!