“Go Tell It On The Mountain” was my song of choice when invited to pick and preach a carol in a local congregation during December. I like the simple and memorable way it bears witness to the wonderment of Incarnation—the uniquely Christian doctrine that the God of the Bible entered fully into the human experience in the person of His Son, Jesus from Nazareth.

“Go tell it on the mountain

Over the hills and everywhere.

Go tell it on the mountain

That Jesus Christ is born.”

No doubt you could hear the melody, perhaps even humming or singing along as you read the chorus. The tune strikes playful notes, engaging everyone in childlike praise, making the carol even more profound considering its historical context.

Meet John Wesley Work, Jr. Born a free man to former slaves in 1871 (only six years after the American Civil War ended), he taught Latin and history at Fisk University in Nashville, TN. With the help of his wife and brother, John researched and compiled songs written and sung by African slaves in America. Go Tell It On The Mountain was in his collection published in 1907.

The song’s anonymous author had a remarkable grasp of Scripture, echoing not only the words but the setting of Isaiah 52:7-10.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion.

Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem.

The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Israelite exiles who heard Isaiah’s words also knew the experience of being violently torn from their homeland, forcibly relocated and enslaved. Though separated by thousands of years, both communities stand connected by their common human experience, including what I’m calling cognitive dissonance. And, as people of faith, their shared response was to believe and proclaim the good news about God, which I call kingdom resonance.

Cognitive Dissonance

This useful phrase comes from the field of psychology and has developed over time in a variety of directions. At a foundational level, it means a state of mental discomfort or psychological conflict that results when what you believe does not conform to what you see. In these articles, I am employing the concept in specific relation to the Christian life, which engages with reality in a framework of divine revelation governed by the Bible.

A member of our house church was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died within six months. Keith was preparing to sell his successful business and retire in his early sixties. He was a gifted eye doctor, a beloved husband and father, and someone passionate and missionally engaged as a follower of Jesus. If we’re honest, his brutal end left us all in a state of disarray. Each of us, individually and collectively, had to wrestle with cognitive dissonance. You can provide examples of your own.

Cognitive dissonance is a part of being human, and that is an important point. Equally important is that it is amplified by what we believe to be true about God. Cognitive dissonance is not, in and of itself, wrong. It is not unbelief. It is belief getting whacked in the head by circumstances.

We will talk about a biblical approach to handling cognitive dissonance. But first, we must identify when it occurs and accept that it is part of being alive: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? (Ps 22:1, Mtt 27:6). As it was for the Savior, so it is for those he came to save: In the world you will have trouble [dissonance]. But take heart; I have overcome the world [resonance]. (John 16:33)

Mary, Mother of Jesus

Consider afresh what Mary went through in light of our discussion and the stunning entrance of God’s Son into his earth. Though the passages below are very familiar if you use your imagination—put yourself in her sandals and tune into her real-life cognitive dissonance—they will yield fresh insights.

Gabriel – Luke 1:31-34

The angel Gabriel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, 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.”

The disconnect is obvious. The implications are serious.

Struggling to understand, Mary doesn’t resist this change in her circumstances. She looks the angel (by implication, the God who spoke through Gabriel) in the face with wide-eyed honesty: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Keeping herself connected to the idea that God’s purposes are higher than hers, she came to terms with the dissonance, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Granted, we won’t hear angels, but every follower of Jesus knows the voice of the Spirit and how the instruction often runs counter to our senses. Like the urging to forgive when you are the offended party and the relationship looks broken beyond repair. Or the “You need to trust me” when cancer is killing Keith.

Simeon – Luke 2:34-35

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

The beauty of these words is that they echo the prophets and confirm Mary’s Spirit-born praise: He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. Except for the bracketed phrase and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.

Wait, what? Cognitive dissonance. It will turn out to be a kind word from a good Father that she will draw on repeatedly through the trials which will attend being mother to the Son of God. What bigger disconnect can we experience than when we do our best to follow by acting on divine instruction only to find the result is not what we expected? Relax, we are in good company.

Herod – Matthew 2:16

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.

And so the holy couple, wrestling with their God through a season of cognitive dissonance, fled to Egypt until told otherwise. Later would come the kingdom resonance: Out of Egypt I called my son (Mtt 2:15, Hosea 11:1). But for Joseph and Mary, the murder of the innocents and the pain of their kinfolk went with them, driving them from their homeland and deeper into the bosom of their Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Atrocities violate our humanity. Even if they don’t affect us personally, we feel the weight of them as followers of Jesus. We know this is not the way it is supposed to be. So does our Father. When pain and trouble move us to seek assurances that He is doing something about it, we are encountering more of His heart. From dissonance, we are moving towards resonance. And like Joseph and Mary, we are on the way back home.