Last night, I went into a grocery store. I was almost finished with my search when I became aware of the music sifting over the heads of the shoppers. It was Christmas music. It was the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s well-loved Messiah oratorio.
It was being sung by Neil Diamond.
I stood in the center of the aisle, tired nurses and aggressive grandmothers bashing into me with their carts, unable to move, unable to process what I was hearing.
“And He shall reign forever and ever…”
“And of His Christ…”
“King of Kings and Lord of Lords…”
Back out into the cold mountain air, I drove home in a cloud of self-stun, taking in the enormity of the hypocrisy, of the ability to do literally anything to turn a buck.
I kept thinking of the professing Christians who buy and listen to a CD of a Christ-hating Jew bellowing the precious name of the Savior through his flaccid lips and see nothing odd about it.
I kept trying to imagine myself singing a song (with or without being paid for it!) in praise of Muhammad or Buddha, a song in which the subject is exalted over every being and every ruler in the universe. How could anyone celebrate a Person or a doctrine or a nation representative of the exact opposite of all the singer claims to believe and hold dear?
And then I remembered all the American churches with Israeli flags fluttering outside.
Ah. It made sense.
Holly holy.
~ Wheeler
You got that right brother.