“And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round them: and they were sore afraid.” (Luke 2:9, KJV)
I was reading an article recently about how Hollywood is responding to the explosion of original content online, specifically on YouTube. Here’s an excerpt: “Noting that most popular material on YouTube is between two and seven minutes long, Ynon Kreiz, the president of Maker Studios–a leading multichannel network, or M.C.N., which aggregates channels to increase their ad revenues–told me, ‘I’m not sure the millennial generation has the patience to watch twelve, thirteen episodes of an hour-long show–even a half-hour show.’” (“The New Yorker,” Dec. 15, 2014). People who create advertisements and content online are vying our eyes and they’re assuming you’re not going to let them fall somewhere very long.
In preparing my sermon last Sunday, I was reading through the King James Version of Luke 2:1-20–the Christmas story. I was struck by a word that’s not in my everyday vernacular: “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them…” You don’t hear or see the word “lo” much any more. It’s not surprising that the KJV used it as it’s a Middle English word (an imperative of the word “loken,” for you linguist fans). It means look or see.
The King James translation of this text wants us to stop for a second. Lo! Look! See what’s about to take place! Stopping and paying attention is a common theme of this blog, but it’s come up in my life again recently in some of the activities my church has done in light of the Ferguson and New York verdicts. When millions of people write and proclaim that black lives matter, that has forced me to stop, look, and see why people are saying this as well as to stop, look, and see my own prejudices and, yes, racism. In addition, folks from one of our church’s sites were out on the street last Sunday and a police officer engaged with one member by saying, “I’m a gay police officer–what about me?” This also was a lo moment: stop, pay attention, look, see.
Is God creating some lo moments for you this season? What makes you do a double take, whether it’s natural beauty (like this tree I saw while on retreat last summer) or whether it’s a statement or relationship that’s making you do some deep looking at your own life and soul?
It’s helpful to know the next verse to know what we’re looking (or lo-ing) for: “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”
Good tidings await, friends, for all of us. Lo.