I thought I heard a baby crying as I carefully descended the stairs. “Do you hear what I hear?”
Lori must have read the question in my eyes as I glanced back at her. Pausing, I turned and stared at the doorknob in front of me.
We were all in Harrogate, Tennessee, to celebrate Christmas. By “all,” I mean all three of our grown children, their spouses, and six grandkids. And, oh yes, one dog.
Cutting my eyes again to Lori as if to say, “Are you ready?” I put my hand on the doorknob, twisted it, and opened the door.
Our little family was up and wide open, much to our surprise, for Lori and I had slept later than usual. Yes, I had heard a baby crying, but not just one. David, Jr., was holding one of their two-month-old twins, Vera, while his wife, Kayla, was coddling the other, Addie. Our daughter, Madi, was chasing her daughter, Noah Kate, who was motorizing across the room, the one-year-old testing her recently acquired walking skills. Madi and John’s other daughter, six-year-old Emmie, was experimenting with a child’s make-up kit while Emmie’s older brother, Eli, played with Sadie—David, and Kayla’s dog, a blue heeler mix. John was putting together a race car set for Eli while David and Kayla’s two-year-old daughter, Stella, entertained her Aunt Mary by climbing up and down a children’s indoor plastic slide, her giggles reverberating across the room.
Had I stepped into a daycare?
No, I was hearing the sounds of Christmas; it was Christmas Alive: kids chattering, babies crying, parents cautioning, grandparents laughing.
The shepherds heard it, too, in their fields near Bethlehem, the epicenter for the first Christmas. The angel initially terrified the shepherds but immediately reassured them, “Don’t be afraid…I proclaim to you good news of joy that will be for all the people.”
The good news of Christmas travels in a thousand different ways: a volunteer ringing a bell outside a grocery store; children singing the “choir special” on Christmas Sunday morning; a homeless man offering a helping hand to another homeless man crumpled on a sidewalk; the glimmer of hope in the smile of the sober one at an alcohol/drug treatment center; the aroma of fresh coffee for that dad who stayed up half the night putting together a train set; the preacher faithfully proclaiming the good news to a mostly empty, sleeping church; the resident, sitting alone in a retirement center, her first year without her husband, tears smearing her wet cheeks, dripping with the joy of Christmas memories long past.
It happened to those shepherds, unlikely recipients of the original message. Having heard it, they dropped their staffs in retreat. But then they ventured out from the sheepfold, traipsing to the little town of Bethlehem.
The Scriptures tell us that having found Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, they “reported the message they were told about this child” (Luke 2:17).
What was the message? What did they hear? “The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!”(Luke 2:11).
To hear it, we must venture out, hesitant though may be. We have to turn the handle and open the door.
As I grow older, I shall never forget walking into the room and hearing the cackles, guffaws, oohs, and ahhs, groans, and giggles of babies, children, mommas and daddies, and aunts and uncles. And I will forever see their faces: the raised eyebrows, half-grins, furrowed brows, and satisfied smiles.
But long after I’m forgotten, what the shepherds heard that night will remain:
“A song, a song
High above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea.”
It’s the sound of the good news.
It echoes through eternity long after the babies have grown into grandparents of grandparents and time has swallowed their laughter and cries.
It’s the Song of Peace the Savior brings, thundering through the universe with healing in his wings.
And it can come to us today.
Simply, quietly, unobtrusively, like in Bethlehem so long ago.
You only have to open the door.
Do you hear what I hear?
You can contact Dr. David Whitlock at drdavid@davidwhitlock.org