That's What Christmas Is All About, Charlie Brown.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

I can not help but hear this verse in Linus' voice from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Never mind that Christmas will first be celebrated by that name around the year 337, several centuries after Jesus lives, dies, rises from the dead, and ascends into heaven, never mind that it co-opts a great deal of (and even supersedes) a non-Christian holiday. Historically, it helps if you do not smash every vestige of the culture preceding you no matter how offensive it is because you tend to smash the learning and advancement that came with it, see the Library of Alexandria for further details. But before I lose you completely dwelling on the past and what we have likely lost as a result of zealous (is "overzealous" not redundant?), let me let the multitude in Luke chapter two verse fourteen finish.

I wonder if the multitude of the heavenly host identified in verse thirteen was comprised of just angels. Was Enoch from Genesis 5:21-24 who lived three hundred sixty five years and "walked with God" and "God took him" [up into heaven] or Moses from Exodus through Deuteronomy or Elijah from First and Second Kings there too? Moses and Elijah, the living representatives of the [Hebrew, God's Chosen People by His covenant with Abraham per Genesis 15] Law and Prophets, DO make an appearance with Jesus at the Transfiguration three decades later as we see in Matthew 17. Would the shepherds have recognized them among the multitude? Does it matter? It is the message that is important, and that fact God chose a multitude of the heavenly host to deliver it was honor enough.

Glory to God in the highest -- we give thanks to God that He has let the Savior, Christ the Lord, be born and fulfilled His promises! And on earth peace -- not the absence of war, but a change in which every one of us can look on and serve our fellow man because we will not see them through the eyes of God our Father, God our Creator, God our Daddy! (The last is what the Aramaic "Abba" roughly translates to.) Good will toward men -- and women and children too, I'm quoting from the Word of God translated into seventeenth century English; and not just toward those on whom His favor rests as some translations go, but ALL of us. But it is up to you and I, even if a multitude does not announce it to us, to receive and return to the good will and good graces of God!