Isaiah 9:6-7 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Great will be his authority, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

The moment I read the words “for unto us a child is born” I begin to sing them in my head, doing my best to capture the sprightly cadence of the 12th part of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah. I do not possess a talent for recounting scripture, but I am confident I can recite Isaiah 9:6—sing it, even. My familiarity with these verses is because my father listened to the entirety of Handel’s Messiah every Christmas Day while we cleaned up from the morning’s activities.

My father also made efforts through the years to attend live performances of Messiah with me, each of which occurred during the days leading up to Christmas. As such, Isaiah’s foretelling of Jesus’s birth and establishment of His kingdom, and the zeal by which the Lord (Jesus’s father!) will perform these feats, is as much a part of the Christmas story for me as the account of Jesus’s actual birth as told in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. With each line, Isaiah’s words impress upon me the love of a father, whether it be my earthly one or my heavenly one.

Prayer: Jesus, during this season of your birth let us remember the love of fathers, as Your father loved You and as You love us as our everlasting Father. Amen.

- Joshua Shelley