My Sermon for tomorrow

Well, here we go again. For yet another year, one Advent service is being cancelled due to a severe snowstorm hitting us, right when we would be having morning service. I really hate cancelling church, yet I think it is better to keep safe, especially considering that it might be blizzard conditions for us.

Anyway, I want to post my sermon for tomorrow. It is part of my "Carols of Christmas" sermon series. I started out with "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," followed by "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and "Joy to the World" (see my last blog).

Tomorrow's sermon is on "O Little Town of Bethlehem," one of my favorites. Here's what I would have said:

If you go to Copley Square, Boston, see one of greatest churches in America: Trinity Episcopal Church. Believe it or not, this big beautiful church was built for the writer of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Phillips Brooks born in 1835 in Boston. He came from established Boston family. He was descended from a long line of Puritans, including many congregational clergy. He was educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard.

After Harvard, Brooks decided to go into ministry, and eventually became an Episcopal priest. He started out in Philadelphia, and developed a huge following, based upon his great preaching skills. The Episcopal Church in Boston wanted him to come back to his native city, so to lure him, they promised to build Trinity Church. Today, you can see his statue as you drive down Boylston street. He’s in a pulpit, with Jesus right behind him with one hand on shoulder. Brooks truly was a “prince of the pulpit.” He became, without doubt, the most famous preacher of his day. When he died in 1893, the whole nation mourned.

Just like “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “O Little Ttown of Bethelehem” was written for a Sunday School. Each year, Trinity’s Sunday School would have a Christmas program and in 1865, he wrote a poem for it. He got his music director to write a tune for it, and the famous carol was born.

The inspiration for poem came three years earlier, while he was on trip to holy land. On Christmas eve, he was in field overlooking Bethlehem in a field reported to be field where shepherd encountered the angels. He could see whole city before him, including Church of the Nativity, where Christ was born.

If you really think about it, the carol has one of most unique takes on the Christmas story. It’s focus is not on the actual event of Christ’s birth, but on the town of Bethlehem, asleep at night time. The carol is about how whole town is sleeping while one of the most significant events in human history is taking place.

This is an astonishing thought: most important event in history of world takes place in tiny little town while everyone is sleeping. While everyone is asleep, the “everlasting light” is shining in “thy dark streets” “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Perhaps my favorite verse is number 3: “how silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.” Within that verse lies one reason why the true Christmas spirit can elude us so easily, despite all our preparations and expectations. Both then and now, the gift of Christ to our world is given in amazing silence. There are no public relations campaign, no press releases.

John says at the start of his gospel, “he was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.” The only ones who knew about this world-changing event were Mary and Joseph and a few shepherds, who were tipped off by angels.

The silence of this wondrous gift speaks of a god who works quietly, silently to work out his plan of salvation for humanity. He does not work this plan through the high and mighty. He goes to a tiny town in rural northern Israel to a common carpenter and a quiet little maiden.

This is a something we need to believe in with even greater faith in these times. While great religious and political leaders make decisions, God’s will is silently, quietly being accomplished beneath it all, hidden from the view of most of us. In world where obvious signs give us no hope, where politicians and leaders are just stuck in old ways, this hymn gives me lots of hope.

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.” It is this pure, holy silence that god gives us his blessing.

When people ask me where god is in their lives, why god has never given them a sign, I often wonder what they expect. Perhaps the parting of the Red Sea, or even a little miracle: something extraordinary, supernatural that reaches from the spiritual world to our world to tell us that we are loved, to hold on, be courageous, for I am with you.

Despite all the stories of miracles we hear about, I agree with Phillips Brooks: God imparts his blessings in a quiet, mysterious silence. We may never notice it. The most important step for those who yearn to sense God’s presence in their lives; and especially in this season, is to heed the advice of the hymn, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.” In other words, slow down, be still, keep silence in heart and mind and spirit.

It seems to me that the only time i can really feel the presence of Christ at Christmas is late on Christmas eve. By then, the presets have been bought, the cards have been sent, the cookies have been baked, the packages have been mailed, the lights are us, the tree is decorated, as is the rest of the house. There is nothing left to “do.” All that’s left is to settle down in utter exhaustion, and just “be” before the wondrous love of god made flesh in the little Christ child.
Although some might not agree with me, i think this is just how god wants us on Christmas eve: tired and exhausted. Exhausted by our efforts to make Christmas a special season for us and the ones we love. Tired of thinking we could do it all and be all things to all people.

Year after year we come before god with this exhaustion, realizing once again, we have missed the Christmas spirit that moves our souls and brings tears to our eyes. On Christmas eve, we realize that we are finite, limited human beings who can only do so much. We finally become the meek souls that Brooks writes about.

We come before God in need of rest, refreshment and a sense of redemption, of salvation from what we have done to ourselves and one another in the rush and crowds, the frustrations and anger of a month of congestion and traffic, horns blaring and tempers flairing.

“No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” By the light of a simple candle, and in the singing of the simplest, most profound carol written, god does come down to the meek soul, tired and humble. When we are quieted, silenced, god finally comes to offer us the rest, the peace and the quiet joy of Christmas.

Once we are quiet enough to sense God’s presence, we can move onto another step: letting God move us to a deeper place of silence than we can ever imagine. Most of us here have been moved to silence at one point in our lives. Perhaps at the birth of a child, perhaps the first glimpse of the Grand Canyon, perhaps at the end of a profound, moving concert, perhaps in a magnificent cathedral with stained glass, perhaps some other time. When we are moved to this level of silence, when we are stopped in our tracts, and invited into an experience that moves beyond the normal to the sublime, that is when god touches us with power and life.

Christmas is an event that should bring us to this depth of silence. When we become aware of the wonder of it all: how god, the creator of all things in heaven and earth, the sustainer of all life, became a tiny, vulnerable little baby: this should move us to utter silence and wonder.

This is where God speaks the most profound word of love to us, where we realize that this God has been within and among us all along. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” speaks of a town that sleeps while God’s greatest gift is given. It also speaks about us, about a supreme irony: that although we are awake and busy doing so much, we are actually asleep to God coming to us and dwelling with us.

My prayer for all of us this Christmastide would be that god give us the gift of healing, nurturing, profound silence - that we could be still enough to let God’s profound silence speak to us, not with words, but with a presence and a love that speaks volumes.

Thanks be to God for this glorious gospel. Amen.