Go Where I Send Thee

What gets your toes tapping and your body swaying.  This week as I listened to HIS sing Southern Gospel music and the Grace Gospel Choir, I couldn’t help my feet from tapping and my body from moving.  There was such joy and hope in the air.  At this time of year, as Christmas quickly approaches, for many of us the joy and excitement gets stronger and stronger as the day approaches.   You can see it in the faces and bodies of children, by two days before Christmas the children are quivering with the anticipation, they can’t wait, they are ready to burst with the hope of what Christmas Day will bring. 

One of the songs that puts me in the same feeling of toe tapping excitement is Children Go Where I Send Thee.  I am especially partial to the Peter, Paul, and Mary version.   I can’t help dancing in my chair as I sing along. 

Children go Where I Send thee, how shall I send thee?
Well, I'm gonna send thee one by one
One for the little bitty baby
Who was born, born, born in Bethlehem
Said he was born, born, born in Bethlehem
Children go where I send thee:

how shall I send thee?  I’m gonna send thee…
Two for Paul and Silas
three for the Hebrew children
four for the four that stood at the door
five for the five that stayed alive
six for the six that never got fixed
seven for the seven who never got to heav'n
eight for the eight that stood at the gate
nine for the nine that dressed so fine
ten for the ten commandments
He was born, born, born in Bethlehem.

Hearing this music makes me want to get up and dance, to share the good news, to go out and see this Baby in Bethlehem.  I feel full of the joy of the Spirit sending me and teaching me the faith through the words and music of this song.  The joy of Christmas comes in knowing that God is continually birthing something new.  We use these moments at Christmas to share this news of great joy of a God.  The song invites us go out by ones, two, threes, tens, and twelves to share the story and the news of God coming among us, of God birthing joy into the world this year and every year.  We are to be like the characters in the song committing ourselves to sharing the good news far and wide.  Who is sent in this song changes with the person who sings it, which means that we can become part of the song and tell the good news.  We can share our faith with joy like the five gospel preachers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul who kept the story alive.  Are we willing to go out in large and small numbers to live out the message, born in a Baby, born in a manger, born in Bethlehem?  Children, Go Where I Send Thee.