As you listen to her words, listen to her words not just as a peasant girl, but a girl growing up under the political oppression of the Roman Empire, a girl whose grandparents and parents longed for the freeing of Israel and for the coming Messiah, the King who would rightfully restore Israel.[viii] Mary’s song is the song of a humble, righteous young woman, yes! But it is also the song of a prophetess, of a woman whose heart is set on her people and set on the Kingdom of God.

Advent is here! Isn’t Christmas great? Anyone who loves Christmas loves Christmas music. Even if Christmas isn’t your favorite holiday, you have to concede it has the best music.
God loves music. In fact, God sings over you (Zeph. 3:17)! How remarkable is that? And God’s people have always sung. Moses and Miriam sang when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea.[i] Deborah and Barak sang.[ii] And the largest book of the Bible (Psalms) is a song book, an entire book devoted to praises sung to our faithful God: praises of thanksgiving and praises of lament. Music has always been a part of God’s people and will always be – we know that in heaven we’ll still be singing.[iii]
It’s not surprising, then, that God’s coming to earth is celebrated with singing. In this advent series, I am going to share some of the songs that accompanied the first Christmas alongside some of my favorite Christmas songs today.
The first song is perhaps the most famous song of Christmas: Mary’s song of praise. But it is a song with a wallop that is missed by many a contemporary reader.
Let’s set the scene: a young Jewish woman, likely a teenager, living in the Galilean town of Nazareth, is met by the angel Gabriel, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
Like so many others do when they meet angels, Mary’s heart is not put at ease by this terrifying creature’s words. I love the understated words of Luke that describe her reaction, she “tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.”[iv] What type of greeting was this, indeed!
“Do not be afraid, Mary,” Gabriel responds, “for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”[v]
Mary has a few questions that must have sprung to her mind at this news. The first one she asks would have been the most natural one to ask, “How will this be, since I am a virgin.”[vi]
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A caution, though, is in order.  Economic vocations can easily change, and sometimes people in one line of work, which they find frustrating, can be called to another line of work.  Some vocations, though, such as the family callings and the calling of the Gospel, are permanent.

Dealing with the COVID epidemic has been taking a toll on nurses and other health care professionals.  The overtime shifts, the staffing shortages, the triage of patients, the grief at losing so many, exasperation with the healthcare establishment, and firings due to the vaccine mandate are leaving frontline medical workers frustrated, exhausted, and emotionally drained.

It has gotten so bad that two-thirds of America’s nurses say that the COVID epidemic has made them consider leaving their profession.

So reports The Wall Street Journal in an article on burnout among nurses that turns into a reflection on vocation. Rachel Feintzeig has written the feature story When You’re Burned Out at Your Job, But It’s Also Your Calling , with the deck “Overworked nurses are considering less intense and remote jobs due to Covid-19, but stepping away is hard when you’ve dedicated your life to caring for others.”
The term “calling,” along with the Latinate form “vocation,” of course, has become commonplace even in secular circles.  But it derives from the Christian doctrine of vocation, a preoccupation of my recent writing (see  the links below) and of this blog.

Though the Wall Street Journal doesn’t discuss “calling” in terms of the One who calls us to love and serve our neighbors in all of our stations in life into which He has brought us, it raises some important issues that are worth thinking through theologically.

The problem of burning out in one’s calling is not, of course, limited to nurses.  Nor is vocation limited to our economic callings, what we do to make a living.  We also have callings in our families (as spouses, parents, and children), in the church (as pastors, other church workers, and laypeople), and in the state (as citizens, officials, voters, etc.).  We can burnout in our work and we can burn out in those vocations, as well.
In the course of her discussion of the plight of nurses, Feintzeig says,
In recent months, as I’ve written about burnout, I’ve heard from overwhelmed teachers and social workers who say they too struggle with toxic bosses and unsustainable workloads, but wrestle with the guilt of abandoning people they pledged to help.
The question they face: How to leave a job that feels like a calling?
“When you do really feel called to your profession it becomes intertwined with your identity,” says Delaney Barsamian, a 31-year-old in the Bay Area who left her emergency-room nursing role last year for a remote job helping patients make end-of-life plans. “It was almost like a breakup. I was in love with emergency medicine.”

Of course, all callings have as their purpose, in different ways, to help people.  And the constellation of our multiple callings, given to us uniquely and personally, constitutes our identity.  So frustrations with our callings and leaving our callings can be traumatic.  The article gives a useful term for why that can happen:

“Nurses are so angry,” she says. “I’m seeing and hearing this incredible sense of malaise and hopelessness.”
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The Bible tells us, “So teach us to number our days … that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12 ESV), and Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” Numbering our days is much more than keeping track of how many days we have lived or counting our birthdays. It is the reality of life’s shortness.

On Monday, January2, 2023, I started to watch the NFL game between Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills. In the first quarter a Buffalo player, defensive back Damar Hamlin, made a tackle and got right up afterwards. He immediately fell down again. There was nothing obvious in the tackle to cause an injury. For a while after that, according to the commentator, the medical people had to give him CPR to restore his heart beat. Today the Bills are saying he suffered a cardiac arrest on the field after making a tackle. Damar is just 24 years old.
Both teams were devastated and silence reigned in the stadium. Neither team wanted to continue the game and it was suspended. They were in shock.
The Commentator made a statement something to the effect that this incident was not about football, or a player being hurt, or, to some extent, even about Damar Hamlin. It was about life and death. He said it well. His statement is extremely true.
Here was a 24-year-old man – in the prime of life and doing just what he wanted to be doing – playing Professional Football. Then he was lying on the ground having CPR to revive him and keep him alive. I am sure that while all of the players and officials were concerned for Daman, they suddenly realized that it could be them in that situation. That realization brought about by the event that just happened is sure to cause most of us to face our own humanity and face the fact that we won’t live forever, in fact, we may not live a minute longer. That is a staggering thought.
Humanly speaking, death is final. Just what is after death? We can’t comprehend or fathom it. That realization brings us to a sudden stop. It’s no wonder that those on the field were unable to continue playing.
The Bible tells us, “So teach us to number our days … that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12 ESV), and Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” Numbering our days is much more than keeping track of how many days we have lived or counting our birthdays. It is the reality of life’s shortness. As a youngster, we look at life and think, “I’ve got a long life ahead of me yet. I don’t need to think about death yet.” Actually, we have no idea of how many days we have to live. People die at different ages. Some are very young when they die Others live for many years. But what does 80 or 90 years look like when you consider the earth has been around for at least 4,000 years. What claim on life do we have for tomorrow. Even if all those at the Stadium in Cincinnati never outwardly considered the shortness of life and our lack of control over what may happen to us in just a few minutes, the knowledge of the shortness of our life span is built into us. Confrontation with death (or even near death) of ourselves or those near to us is absolutely overwhelming. It brings us face to face with the great fear that we have of dying. That is what happened last night.
We are called upon to number or consider our life span, the lack of control we have over our own life. We are told that “numbering” our days will “get us a heart of wisdom.” Wisdom tells us how to use whatever days we have in the proper way.
But what is wisdom? It is more than being knowledgeable. Many men of great knowledge lack wisdom. Some very unlearned people have great wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 tells us what the very beginning of wisdom is – the fear of the Lord. While fear includes being afraid, it is much more. The idea of fear includes holding that person as being so far beyond us that we are in utter awe of them. Such awe leads us to revere and worship that Person. And that reverence and awe leads us to desire to be like him or her. So, we seek Him/her.
Now, since God is a Spirit, and not flesh and blood as we are, He is impossible to know from our stand point. God had to make Himself known to us. He did that through His Word, the Bible that He caused to be written revealing himself to those whom He inspired to write it – and through taking on a flesh and blood body and living among us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Since we cannot know Him in any other way, God had to reveal Himself first through the Prophets and their writing. But that wasn’t all he did. He also lived and experienced all that is man – including death.
That is the “beginning of wisdom.” Once God shows himself to us and convicts us of our need of salvation, he brings us into his presence and continues to teach us and to make us more and more like Him over the course of whatever length of life He gives us.
As part of that He removes the fear of death from our lives. After all, If Jesus was raised from the dead, and he promises us that He will not let death keep us from him, what do we have to fear?
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:28-39 ESV
Perhaps God has used the events of last night to show you your need of salvation. God has promised that everyone who calls upon His name shall be saved through Christ Jesus. Find an evangelical believer or pastor and talk with them about salvation.
Also, take to heart and believe each of these verses taken from Romans . They are from God’s Word and are God’s way to Salvation – your first step in wisdom (Look up the passage in the Bible and read the verses in context All passages are quoted from the English Standard Version (ESV)):

Romans 3:9-12:

What then? Are we Jews[a] any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”

Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5:8:

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 10:9:

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:13:

for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 5:1:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:39-30:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
William A Robfogel is a retired missionary living in Sebring, Fla.
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