Today is the beginning of Advent. For a number of weeks I have kept Advent in my thoughts, contemplating possible themes and having, honestly, not a lot of inspiration during most of that time. Some themes come quicker than others, but they eventually arrive, although I was beginning to worry not too many days ago if any inspiration for an Advent theme would come to mind. As I was listening to some Christmas music, there was one song in particular that I find very lovely, and I thought, that’s a really nice song for Christmas. As soon as that phrase popped into my mind, I had my Advent theme – A Song for Christmas. Thinking about it a bit more, I decided to do something I have never done before. Each week of Advent that I am preaching, part of my message will be to play a Christmas song on my guitar (no, I will not be singing!) and that song will serve as the theme for that message. This morning I will play Silent Night, one of my favorite Christmas songs and undoubtedly one of the great classics of the season.
Our Scripture text is from the prophet Isaiah, one of the well-known Advent passages, Isaiah 9:2, 6-7. Follow along with me as I read those three verses.
2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Advent, you may know, comes from the Latin word adventus, which means coming or arrival. While Advent is a celebration of the coming of Christ into the world, we cannot overlook the fact that many centuries of waiting had preceded his arrival. Those who were fortunate enough to be alive at the coming of Christ were a very small fraction of those who had heard of the hope of his coming but did not live to see it.
I chose the song Silent Night because it speaks, I believe, to the idea of patience and waiting that by necessity has been a part of faith from the beginning. The word silent represents the strong theme of silence that runs through life, faith, and Scripture. Silence remind us of what I would call the long in-between, from which I take the title of his message. As Isaiah wrote many centuries before the birth of Jesus, it reminds us of how often there is much waiting in between the movements of God in the Scriptures. There is the long in-between of the call of God on the life of Abraham and his eventual arrival in the land God did finally show him. God told Abraham to leave his home and go to the land I will show you (Genesis 12:1-4 – 1The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran). There is the long in-between – over four centuries – of the Hebrew people in captivity in Egypt before they were set free (Exodus 12:40-41 – 40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt). There is the long in-between of their departure from Egypt and their arrival in the Promised Land – forty years (Joshua 5:6 – 6 The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey). There is the long in-between of the Babylonian Exile – over seventy years – when the people were taken from their homes and into exile before their eventual return to their homes (Jeremiah 29:10 – 10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place). There was the long in-between of their arrival home and their rebuilding (Nehemiah 2:17 – 17 Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”). There was the long in-between of the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah and his eventual birth. There was the long in-between of the silencing of the prophets and the beginning of the period of the gospels – what we call the Intertestamental Period – four hundred years. That’s a lot of in-betweens, and they continue. After the ascension of Jesus into heaven began another long in-between of the waiting on the return of Jesus.
And we have our own in-betweens as well. The in-betweens of a prayer and the answer that comes to that prayer. The in-between of hope and the reality, of looking and entreating God for an answer and the eventual answer we receive. The difficulty of the in-betweens is that we don’t wait very well. I certainly do not. It pains me to admit that I am not a very patient person. I just don’t like to wait. Most days I feel very pressed for time and anything that causes me a delay can really get under my skin. My impatience sometimes seeps into my faith, as I struggle to understand why God seems so content to let us wait. I wonder when the kingdom of God will take deeper root among humanity and correct the many wrongs that continue to plague us. I look at the state of the world and wonder why we have to wait so long for justice to come. I wait, and I grow impatient. There is a long in-between when it comes to the really big ways that God intervenes in the world, and it can be hard to live in that in-between. It’s a 24/7 world, so can anything be so anachronistic as waiting? Why can’t faith speed things up? If we can move the Christmas season back into September and October, why can’t our in-between speed up as well? Why do we have to wait? Why?
I want to tie those questions and others up by looking to some of the lyrics to Silent Night.
1. All is calm, all is bright.
I keep my sermon notes with me wherever I go throughout the week. When I stop to eat lunch, I generally take out those notes and use that time to work on my message. Early last week, as I sat in a restaurant in Louisville eating lunch, I was trying to write down the lyrics to Silent Night. I don’t know if you have had this experience, but I have to sing them in order to remember them. To speak them doesn’t work for me; it has to be singing. Unfortunately, I am not a singer. Without realizing I was doing it, I began singing Silent Night out loud, and then writing down the words as I went. I guess I forgot that I was in the middle of a restaurant, but I quickly remembered when I looked up and noticed people were watching me as I sang to myself! I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me to search Google for the lyrics, but I very quickly stopped singing and let Google do the work for me.
Looking at the written lyrics, it jumped out at me that the phrase all is calm, all is brightis used in two different places within the song. Saying it twice is a way of emphasizing I know this is hard to believe, so I’m going to say it again – all is calm, all is bright. A lot of days it is difficult to believe that all is calm, or that all it bright. How can we proclaim that all is calm, all is brightwhen the world seems to be coming apart at the seams around us? Hatred continues to pit people against one another, violence claims countless lives, the sabers of nations rattle daily, and starvation and disease claim so many lives. I’m just asking the questions rhetorically, of course, because I believe that the fundamental assertion of the gospel message is that while it might seem as though the world is anything but calm or bright, the coming of God into the world as a baby in a manger, weak, vulnerable, and dependent on the care and aid of others in those early years of his life, is a reminder of the many in our world who are weak and vulnerable and dependent upon the care and aid of others. That the infant Jesus was vulnerable and requiring of care reminds us that there remain many in our world who are vulnerable and requiring care, and that is why we engage in the many ministry and outreach efforts in which we engage.
2. Holy infant, so tender and mild.
Do you even wonder, how does a tender and mild infant compete in this world with the loud and the tough and the strong? Seems absurd, doesn’t it? If we look around, we can even see how the birth of Jesus has been coopted in so many ways; co-opted by the excesses of capitalism and commerce, co-opted by business and advertisers who depend upon the holiday to balance their financial spread sheets with the end result that Black Friday often outshines – at least in some corners of society – Good Friday.
And can that infant compete with the wonders of science, which surely, some say, has rendered belief in that baby obsolete? And hasn’t the hyper-individualism of our age made that baby’s birth into humility and sacrifice seem absurd? Hasn’t our advanced, technological, modern age made the worship of that baby an anachronism? And how do the millennia old Scriptures that tell of his birth and life compete with the wonder and miracle of a new iPhone, tablet, computer, or other example of electronic wizardry? How does a service that worships him compete with a big, exciting ball game in a flashy arena or stadium with scores of cheering fans and impressive technology? Some would say Dave, you’re working against your point of the importance of that baby by mentioning all the wonders of our age. It sounds like things are actually going very well. And beyond what you have mentioned, you can add more to that list – the stock market is going great guns, the unemployment rate remains at historic lows, and the economy is humming along. What would you say to that? Why would we need to worry about a baby born two millennia ago, especially when things are going so well.
I would say this – it might be true that things are going well for people, but it is not going well for a lot of people. It is not going well for many people economically, socially, or spiritually. And though I don’t always understand how God is content with the way he has chosen to accomplish his will I’ll accept it and yield to his wisdom and ways. It might not be how I would run things if I were in charge, but let’s all agree that it’s a really good thing that I’m not in charge, and that you are not in charge either. And when I think about it a bit more I realize this – for all the sparkle and wonder of our age, for all the technological advances, for all the economic gains; is there anything that brings more joy and wonder to life, more beauty to life, more wealth to life, than a tiny, helpless, defenseless, dependent, but totally beautiful, miraculous baby? There’s not, is there? The God of this vast universe became a baby and entered this world in the humility and fragility of the manger. The Creator entered into the creation. Yes, sometimes there is a long in-between when it comes to the way in which God works, but it is the only way that, in the end, it will work. It seems an odd way to accomplish the divine plan, but that is the way chosen by God, a way that worked through a Silent Night, Holy Night.
Play Silent Night, Holy Nighton guitar (if you would like to listen, you can go to my Facebook profile – David Paul Charlton – and find the streaming video of our worship service from December 1, 2019. The guitar playing begins at 41:30. Here is the link – https://www.facebook.com/david.p.charlton.9/videos/10162653980260298/).
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