Mysteries…Can’t Get Enough of Them!

Really…it’s my favorite genre when it comes to recreational reading…a really great mystery! There’s something about trying to compile clues, untangle unknowns, and solve the situation that just reels me in. Maybe that’s why some of my favorite Christmas carols are sung in a minor key. (For the non musical, those are the songs that have a softer, sometimes sadder, but definitely mysterious sound in the melody.)

Some of my favorites from that category are ‘God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen’, What Child is This?’, ‘Mary, Did You Know’, and ‘O Come, O Come, Immanuel’. Hum a few bars of any of these songs and you will recognize the haunting, questioning sounds of the minor keys.

Take a look at some of the words and we begin to uncover an intriguing mystery.

What child is this? Let nothing you dismay. Mary did you know that when you kiss your baby’s face you kiss the face of God? Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

Everything about the birth of Jesus is a wonderful, joyful mystery…from the startling visit by an angel to a young girl, Joseph reeling in shock over the unprecedented circumstance in which he finds himself, an impossible journey with a pregnant mother that lands this drama birth event right where prophecy had said it would be, as foretold so many generations before.

So as you listen and touch and taste and read all the sights and sounds of this season, don’t miss the mystery…resolved by the birth of a child…the Child.

1 John 4:14 wraps the mystery up with these words: “…the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.” Mystery solved!