The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.
Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.
We should have known… ONLY women would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.
I love the music of Christmas. It isn’t Christmas until I’ve sung, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” that beautiful text by Charles Wesley set to the music of Mendelsohn. And of course, “Silent Night.” That Christmas hymn was written almost 200 years ago in 1818. The newly established parish of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, Germany, was facing the prospect of Christmas without music. Can you imagine a church named St. Nicholas being without music on Christmas? The organ had broken down.
The assistant priest, Joseph Mohr, hastily wrote the text of what has come to be known in the English-speaking world as Silent Night and took it to the organist, Franz Gruber, for him to compose music to go with it. That night at the Christmas Eve mass Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber, with Franz playing the guitar, sang the hymn for the first time. Out of adversity sometimes comes great good. I suspect if the organ had not broken down in that parish church, we would not be blessed with that beautiful hymn “Silent Night.”
But the hymn that I keep coming back to over and over again for its deep personal meaning is “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” by Phillips Brooks. It was the year 1865. Brooks was the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Copley Square, in Boston. He was on a year-long sabbatical, travelling, and on Christmas Eve he attended service at Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem from 10 o’clock in the evening until 3 AM on Christmas Day. After that moving experience, he began to write the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which he did not complete until three years later in 1868. Having just experienced the Civil War, when he penned “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light,” the metaphorical dark streets of this greatly divided country at that time must have been in his mind.
When I sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” I often have a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. That hymn has become sacramental for me, for it conveys something of the very essence of Christmas for me. The description of Bethlehem in that carol could be used to describe Berlin today, or Aleppo, or Sarasota—“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” In the darkness of our human condition the light of Christ has shined and continues to shine, and it shines most brightly in the deepest darkness.
The birth of the Savior of the world took place when things were dark indeed for the people of God. Mary and Joseph had to leave their home in Nazareth to be registered in Joseph’s ancestral home town, Bethlehem, because the occupying Roman government had required a census to be taken for the purposes of taxation. Bethlehem was exceedingly crowded, and by the time Joseph and Mary arrived, the only inn in town was full to overflowing. You know the story, enshrined in our crèche. They had to stay in a stable and when the baby Jesus was born, his bed was a feeding trough. While his birth was heralded by angels, the announcement was made to poor shepherds, watching their flocks by night. It was an ignoble setting for the beginning of the earthly life of the Son of God. But his was not to be an easy life. Soon after he was born, Herod sought to have him killed, so the Holy Family fled and were refugees in Egypt for several years until that danger was past and they could return home to Nazareth.
Yet it was fitting that the Savior should be born in such a way. He is God with us, Emmanuel. Thomas Merton said of Christmas, “Today, eternity enters into time, and time, sanctified, is caught up in eternity. Today, Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, who was in the beginning with the Father, in whom all things were made, by whom all things consist, enters into the world which he created in order to reclaim souls who had forgotten their identity.” That’s you and me. Therefore, he doesn’t remain aloof from the difficulties of human life, but wants to be involved in every part of our lives. There is no corner too dark, no sin too great, no challenge too difficult, that he would choose not to be involved, if we let him in. “Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters it.” There are no dark corners that Jesus does not want to illumine, yet he always gives us the choice; we must issue the invitation.
May our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires to be intimately involved in our lives, grant us grace to invite him. May this Christmas be so much more than the simple giving and receiving of gifts, but the receiving of the dear Christ himself.
“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Emmanuel.”
Sermon preached by The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
The Nativity of our Lord
25 December 2016