In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I have noticed over the last few years that the closer we get to any major feast day my mind increasingly drifts towards the music – both sacred and secular.
About three days before The Epiphany, I can’t get “We Three Kings” out of my head. It just pops in there. A few days before Easter Day, I get this weird combo where I’m alternating lines between “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” and “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” Trust me, you don’t want to analyze everything going on in my head.
And, since Christmas Eve is tomorrow, I don’t mind telling you my head and heart are filled with song: “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and that great Alabama favorite, “Grandma Got Runover By a Reindeer.”
Some people say Christmas music gets prematurely stuck in our heads because we’ve been hearing it at Publix since Halloween.
But I’m convinced that something much more profound is happening.
As a side note, I believe we do a really good job at Redeemer of making Christmas music even richer by having Advent music all the way through today. At Redeemer you get the “full Monty,” as they say.
And as part of the “full Monty” we’ll be singing “Silent Night” tomorrow night on Christmas Eve – at that particular moment after we’ve received Communion, when the lights are dimmed and we’re all on knees giving thanks.
As another side note, I’m convinced we dim the lights so we don’t see each other crying – some of us crying tears of joyful thanksgiving, while others of us shed a few tears as we miss loved ones from years past.
An article in Smithsonian Magazine caught my eye this week. The author, Jason Daily, writes:
“Silent Night” is such an iconic Christmas song that it’s hard to imagine it’s not some ancient folk tune that wafted out of the mist one wintery night. But the song did not spring from some holly-and-ivy-lined fairy glade; instead the origin…comes [exactly] 200 years ago during a turbulent time in Europe. The continent was reeling in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Financial scarcity and insecurity abounded, further stoked by fires, floods and famine.”
Josef Mohr, a priest from Salzburg, wrote “Stille Nacht” [pronounced sch-till-a knocked], “Silent Night,” to pray for the coming of peace.
This was news to me. I always imagined “Silent Night” was written on a quaint Christmas Eve somewhere in the Cotswolds, while some cashmere-wearing poet smoked a pipe after dinner and read Dickens by the fire!
But, not at all: it was born in the midst of incredible uncertainty – uncertainties of a thousand kind.
Just this week I had two remarkable conversations with two separate friends back home in Alabama. This is the time of year I always cave to the guilt of not keeping up with old friends, so every evening I try to call someone I feel like I’ve neglected. Do you ever do that?
Anyway, Tuesday I spoke with a former work colleague. She’s my age, and she informed me that she’s battling a very tough cancer, and more than once she said, “There is just so much uncertainty in my future.” It wasn’t one of those conversations where she was soliciting counsel; my job was just to listen. And, for once in my life, I just listened, and we shed a few tears together.
On Wednesday evening I called to check-in on another friend; he’s the best joke-teller I’ve ever known, so I was hoping to get some fresh material. He’s a recently retired banker, and he’s turned into one of these guys who watches CNBC all day and tries to time the stock market. Well, as you might expect, he’s not a happy camper this month. He’s lost most of his retirement by betting on all the wrong horses. He told me, and I quote, “I have so much financial uncertainty.”
200 years ago: uncertainty. Last week: uncertainty. Guess what’s in the forecast next week: you got it – 100% chance of uncertainty.
It was no different 2,000 years ago – loads of uncertainty, and yet a song of faith about the certainty of God, Mary’s song of praise.
And just like “Silent Night,” Mary’s song “did not spring from some holly-and-ivy-lined fairy glade.” I fear we often overly-glamorize and sentimentalize the events and the setting of Mary’s song.
The actual setting describes a terrible situation: a poor, teenage girl, has rushed off alone “in haste” to see her pregnant cousin – no doubt to find comfort.
Surely, on her way to the “hill country” to see Elizabeth there were many troubling uncertainties – questions like would it be safe to return to Nazareth? Would Joseph go through with the marriage as planned? What would the community think about her pregnancy? Would her family and friends abandon her? If they fancied her a harlot, she could be beaten, mocked and forced to wear rags in public.
Her circumstances look terribly uncertain to me. If anyone ever had just cause to worry, it is she.
Yet, we see in Our Lady what Oswald Chambers called the “graciousness of uncertainty.”
“Certainty,” he writes, “is the mark of the common-sense life; gracious uncertainty the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what the day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God.” (My Utmost for His Highest)
Advent is a time of “breathless expectation,” because, in the midst of every uncertainty, we remain certain of God – certain that Jesus is the Son of God, “love’s pure light,” as we will sing in “Silent Night.”
So, Christians remain confident – completely certain – of His victory over sin and death. And that’s the real reason I have Christmas songs stuck in my head and, more importantly, in my heart.
And even should I die, before He returns in great power and might to rule the earth, don’t you dare worry about me at my grave, because I’ll still be singing of the certainty and sufficiency of His grace! Because, “all we go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” (Book of Common Prayer).
Sermon preached by Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
Advent 4
23 December 2018