The way Luke tells the story makes me think he knew something about music. Maybe he was a singer himself. Maybe he’d been in the choir, maybe played the lute or the drum. He knew how a song can say something mere words cannot. Known for his extraordinary storytelling, Luke knows that some stories can only be told in song.
So Luke tells us about that angel choir, those angel songs that cut through the darkness of night. The one angel calling first, one voice piercing the deep blue star-studded sky. "Do not be afraid,” she tells the frightened shepherds, who are afraid anyway, for who wouldn’t be, when all they were doing was watching their sheep on a regular night with not much happening. Who wouldn’t be frightened when the sky lights up and the voice of the first angel pierces the sky? Do not be afraid, she says, but they are afraid anyway, because the night is dark and danger lingers in the shadows.
I’ve been re-watching Gilmore Girls these past few weeks, as a light-hearted reprieve from the news of the day. In one scene early in the series, 16-year-old Rory has broken up with her boyfriend Dean, because he said “I love you” and she couldn’t say it back. She wanted to, we find out later, but her tongue gets tied, her voice stuck in her throat, and she can’t find the words to tell him how she feels, so she doesn’t say anything. Later, in a town meeting where some conflict arises about the town troubadour, Rory stands up to defend him. "Sometimes you need a song," she says. "Sometimes you can’t find the words to say exactly how you feel, and that’s when you need a song."
