A Christmas Eve Message in Carols

 

Isaiah 6:2:6-7, John 1:1-5, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-20 Christmas songs are the most eclectic collection of music that exists in the same genre. Streaming Christmas music you’ll bounce through tragic break-ups, saucy hook-ups, light-hearted dust-ups, and adorable mix-ups. You’ll go from anthropomorphized snowmen and catty reindeer to ancient magi, alarming angels, and imagined drummer boys. Whiplashing from glee to longing, wistfulness to punchiness, and superficiality to scripture with ho, ho, hos, fa, la, las, and glory-alleluias, the whole thing becomes backdrop soup that we stop really hearing.   But it’s also true that some of the most poignant and powerful lyrics ever written are sung at Christmas. Christmas songs can preach!   I recently came across all the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Bing Crosby croons a few verses but skip others. I did not know it was a Christmas poem written amidst the horrors of the Civil War.    Listen to what Longfellow wrote:   I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play,  And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom  Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South,  And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;  "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men."   Every year Christmas comes around, interrupting our human stupidity and hatred, whatever current versions of awfulness we are engaged in this year.    Long lay the world in sin and error pining.   (O Holy Night)   Nevertheless, throughout time, when the bells ring Christians gather on this night all over the planet. In the midst of world wars and regional famines, through times of personal loss and communal tragedy, we take up our candles, our silence, and our songs to share again this sacred story, and trust again that the God who comes in will meet us here.   No ear may hear His coming, But in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.    (O Little Town of Bethlehem)    This is a holy act we do this night.  Because if Christmas has any real and lasting meaning, it can’t just be a bubble bath of nostalgia, or a Netflix binge of escapism. But neither can it be positive platitudes or religious head-patting.    Life isn’t messing around. We have 15-year-olds with guns and countries invading each on a dying planet. Right this moment in the very place our little Lord Jesus lay asleep on the hay, people are suffering and dying, their homes and lives destroyed. And in-between our holiday shopping and wrapping, people are logging online to cheer for a murderer,  because we’ve stopped seeing the human in one another, and in the world’s richest country people can’t get the healthcare they need. And millions of our siblings live in poverty because we also happen to live in the country with the greatest wealth inequality. We’re not crushing it, you guys.   We’re angry and lonely, anxious and scared, hurried and stressed, sad and mean. And in an unstable global environment armed with nuclear weapons and massive egos, the future is unknown.    So, if the best of what Christmas has to offer is the warm winter wonderland of fuzzy appreciation for family and friends, and a once-a-year emphasis on kindness, it’s not going to cut it.   For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!     (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)   So, also, it seems if we’re clinging to the delusion that we humans are somehow capable of righting this ship, we are not. Let’s admit it right now. We are not capable of restoring our wrongs. This world is broken, and we cannot fix it. We are hopeless. It is impossible.    But nothing is impossible for God.   And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing: O, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.    (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)   And now, something must happen that we cannot make happen. Something uncontrollable, transformative, and undeserved must break in and change things. It must be both cosmic and personal, universal and particular. We must be met here and now, by something entirely outside of ourselves that embraces our whole selves and everyone else too. We must be found.    The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee to-night.     (O Little Town of Bethlehem)   And so, a voice from the heavens announces to us – to each of us and to all of us ever –FEAR NOT!      Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!    (O Come, All Ye Faithful)   Eternity breaks into time! God comes into this life – not as a mighty force overthrowing evil, as much as we may wish that were so, but as a helpless, displaced child into the arms and care of unprepared people in a broken world.    Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed, Where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.   (Once in David’s Royal City) Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.   (Hark, the Herald Angels Sing)   God comes into this life, this darkness, this impossibility, the one we are living in right now. This, here, is what is being redeemed by love, flooded with the light no darkness can extinguish.    Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings!    (Hark, the Herald Angels Sing)   What we are incapable of achieving on our own, the life of wholeness and connection, belonging to God and all others, is given us in Christ. This world, and everyone in it, is claimed for redemption.   For lo, the days are hastening on by prophets seen of old, when with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold  when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,  and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.  (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)    History on its inevitable course is interrupted and rerouted by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. The whole trajectory now points toward love that will never end.     A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!  (O, Holy Night)   We are not on this spinning ball alone fending for ourselves. The destruction we’ve done and keep doing is not our end. Death, in all its terrifying separation, is not the final word. God has come. There is now nowhere Christ is not actively bringing salvation. The middle of the story is messy, but conclusion has already been written. The world is God’s! The end is love!   Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men."  (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)   Christmas calls us to walk alongside each other in impossibility, to watch for God’s in-breaking. This is God’s world, and every one of us has a particular place. We will see Christ when we welcome each exquisite human being here beside us with reverent care. When we tend the complex, fascinating earth with humble wonder. When we join in God’s ongoing creativity, merciful justice, unwavering forgiveness, and potent healing, by accepting all the small moments of connection as invitations into miracle, given by God’s Spirit in our ordinary days.    So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heaven.  (O Little Town of Bethlehem)    We are loved by God, always and no matter what, here briefly to love one another.  We can’t control most of what happens around us, or even to us, but we can receive our ‘one, wild precious life’ in with the defiant delight of joy. We can live in trust, gratitude, and anticipation for what God will do next.   Let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room.   (Joy to the World!)   Christmas not a happy distraction from the pain and suffering of life and the darkness and brokenness of this world, it’s the main event. God comes into the brokenness, and through the life, death, and resurrection of God-with-us that begins right here, the world will never be the same.  Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise His holy name!       (O,Holy Night)   What we do this night is a holy act. With our glory-alleluia good news songs of great joy for all people, we take up our candles and our calling, to share again this sacred story, so that with confidence and hope, we may go out from this place into the darkness of this night, trusting that the God of light who comes in is indeed redeeming this world, and even now has met us here.   Amen.