Christmas Eve

Silent Night. Holy Night.

/ frbrandon / 1 Comment

This homily was delivered to St. Julian’s Episcopal Church, Christmas Eve, 2019

Throughout the season of Advent there have been sacred stories followed by whimsical songs, and remembered lessons echoed by familiar carols that anticipated what was to occur on this most holy and silent of nights. Zechariah was silenced by the angel Gabriel, but soon found his voice again raised in melody announcing the birth of his son, John, who would later welcome the adult Jesus into the waters of his baptism. Gabriel then turned to Zechariah’s cousin-in-law, Mary, announcing that she was pregnant with the one prophet’s poeticized. She too responded to this news with music: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” Tonight’s Gospel (the Gospel of Christmas Eve) follows this pattern of musical response with the shepherds joyfully singing alongside the heavenly chorus, “Glory to God in the highest!” At once we celebrate the songs of angels while pondering the mystery of God within our hearts. We remember the dance of those shepherds while finding God’s treasures in the stillness of the night.

We are further reminded that even in our busy lives, God’s message of love is best heard when we are still; when our ruminating minds are silenced and our tepid hearts awakened. It is those moments when we make ourselves ready to hear songs of the divine. So busy was the government administering a census count that God’s music could not be heard. So busy and closed off was the innkeeper to welcoming the holy family one must wonder if he ever heard Mary’s song at all. We may even imagine Joseph being too nice to argue the point of vacancy with him. Instead, he acquiesced; and like animals made the inn’s stable their lodging for the evening. Meanwhile, the shepherds were entertaining a different set of notes. For them, it was a night like all others with the silence being the pregnant one. Then, all of a sudden new birth sounds out with cacophony. A terrifying startle begins the music of the night, and the shepherds are swept away by its melody sending them from the fields of their own flock to a cramped barn full of others. The band has gotten back together, and they didn’t even know it. New riffs are tried while stock music is remembered. Personalities and personas bleed onto the pages of pencil noted sheet music. There is no rest – until there is. The quarter rest arises as realization. Their music has been inspired by something. It had a muse. The muse was discovered as none other than the Divine – all powerful and all knowing – only more intimate. It is yes/no, both/and, alpha/omega. The muse is all powerful God, and poor helpless baby. It is silent night. It is a cacophony of holiness.

“If music be the food of love, play on.”[1] The food was there lying in a manger that night. Livestock consume mangers when they are full of hay. Tonight, Christians world-wide will consume the muse of love playing as bits of bread in the palms of their hands. It is no laughing matter; and yet, we are filled with joy for tonight we are reminded of hope. Tonight we reminisce on the faith of our great-great-grandparents somehow believing the story – (all of it; at least tonight) – is true. “God,” we may say in the morning, “help me with my un-belief.” “Make me remember the songs of angels. Teach me to be still and truly know you – not as all powerful and all knowing – but as a baby whom I can hold even as I believe you are holding me.”

“So this is Christmas, and what have we done.”[2] I’m sorry, Mr. Lennon, but for once this night is not about you/me/us. It’s about the muse and music of the night: The all-powerful. The all-knowing. The helpless, little Savior (of the world).

[1]                The opening line of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” said by the character, Duke Orsino.

[2]                The opening lines of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s song released in 1971, “So This is Christmas”.

Go

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**Sermon preached at the midnight mass Christmas Eve service at St. Julian’s**

And [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. ~Luke 2:7

 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” ~Luke 9:58

It’s been said that Jesus’ shortest sermons ever can be boiled down to one word, “Go.” “Go, your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52). “Go. Teach all nations. Baptize” (Matt 28:19). “Go. The harvest is plentiful, and the laborers, few” (Luke 10:2). At one point in Jesus’ ministry, he told his disciples, “I am going away. Where I am going you cannot come” (John 8:21). In tonight’s Gospel, the shepherds get a positive reinforcement of the command, “to go”. The angels persuaded them in this regard, and they replied, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” The scripture continues, “So they went with haste… and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.”

Tonight, we go. We travel, making haste with those shepherds the journey to see the Son of Man lying in the manger because there was no room in the inn…because the Son of Man had no place to lay his head. In this regard, the Son of Man slept underneath the stars like a lowly shepherd. No wonder the two related; and the scene of the manger foreshadowed it all for us:  The Son of Man would suffer, die, and be buried in a tomb that was not his own. It is a story of poverty as common as breathing, and as old as the wind; and yet this night shepherds and angels join in a chorus proclaiming holiness. In that manger scene was the man who would one day say to the poor, those that mourn, the meek, hungry, and merciful, “You are blessed, and you will be a blessing.” Not much nostalgia tonight, is there? No reminiscing here. In fact, there are two different reactions/responses we gain from the characters in our story this evening. The shepherds go again, making “known what had been told them about this child.” The scriptures continue, “and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.” Put sequentially: The shepherds were doing the work they had always done. They stopped this work; discerned a word from the Lord; acted upon that word which transformed their lives; and then went and told others about it. This is the call of a convert and disciple – a classic call to repentance: To turn from something to something (all together new) by the power of God. This process of repentance is ongoing. It’s not one moment in time, but a lifetime of giving up oneself for the service of God and a chance to participate in His holy story.

The other reaction/response came from Mary. The scriptures read, “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” I think Mary needed something to hold onto. In the season of Advent, we learned that Mary’s very soul would be pierced. Pierced, possibly by despair as she kept giving more and more of herself, and eventually her son to the world that wanted nothing more than to destroy him. At that moment when lowly shepherds sang out the music of angels, she knew that Jesus was going to be bigger than her. She knew she would have to let go and let God time and time again. As a mother, these selfless acts would be piercing. As a follower of God, she understood them to be necessary. “Where I am going,” said Jesus, “you cannot come,” would later be directed at his disciples, but I wonder if he didn’t have his mother in the back of his mind while commanding this?

Tonight, you will leave. Go to the parking lot. Get in your vehicles, and go. Some of you will go home. Some of you will go to a place that welcomes you, be that another family’s home, or a hotel. In other words, you have a place to lay your head. But if you will, I’d like for you to do something. When you walk outside, and feel the cold brushed up against you, look up. If you don’t do it immediately after church, look to the sky on your drive home. This is the night where angels once gathered in those skies, but it is also the night where the one they proclaimed had no place to lay his head. When thinking on these things, I believe we carry with us the two responses mentioned earlier. We have the response of the shepherds who could relate to this holy family bundled up in a manger. Their response was one of repentance and praise. The other response is treasuring these things in our hearts. Not in some nostalgic, worldly way, but in a Godly way. That is, recognizing the holy in the mundane and being grateful. This Christmas why not be grateful? Return to the manger. Sing with the angels. This Christmas, join Mary, the shepherds, the disciples, and Jesus in his mission and ministry…
and “Go”.