Heaven and nature sing (Advent Day 6)

“If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers” Luke 19-40
There is a section in Luke’s Gospel where the pharisees try to get Jesus to get His followers to stop proclaiming worship to God because of the  miracles Jesus has performed. And Jesus responds by telling them that if the people don’t praise, the stones of the road would burst out in praise. God is so glorious that creation cannot help but worship Him. And if we do not do it the lesser things of creation will step in where we are lacking to ensure His praises ring out.
There is a Christmas carol, Joy to the World, which has a line about repeating the sounding joy, heaven and nature sing. And it struck me that of course heaven is singing out the joy of touching earth, but if we are praising as we should then nature would not have to sing to make up for our silence. It should be heaven and creation singing, a joyful tune in harmony as we celebrate the amazing moment where heaven and earth met in a manger.
And yet so often we are silent. Our lips that should never cease glorifying God for all He has done for us are so often silent. Or if we are praising we are praising other things. We are so quick to praise our favourite singer, our sports team, the latest gadget we got, anything and everything. Except Christ our servant King. The one who left the throne of heaven to come to earth.
Oh sure we sing along with the praise in church on a Sunday surrounded by our safe Christian friends who won’t judge us for praising God. We join in with the carols at the evening carol service. But we don’t praise Him with our lips the rest of the week. We don’t give Him glory outside the walls of the church building. We don’t tell the world of all He has done for us. Instead our lips tell of how great the movie we saw at the weekend was. We don’t tell our work colleagues or school friends the glad tidings of great joy we are called to share with all the world. We keep silent when we should be shouting it out for all to hear.
So this Christmas let us resolve that we will not keep quiet. The rocks will not have to burst out into cheers for we will be declarting Christ’s praises loud for all to hear of how heaven came to touch earth and offer salvation for all!