Christmas Eve 2001
University Congregational Church – Wichita, KS
Gary Cox (12/24/01)
People have often observed that life is journey, and as
with any travels, it is the journey itself, and not the ultimate destination,
which bears the rewards. The changing
of the seasons provides a cyclical motion, a steady rhythm, to the passage of
time, and allows us to file away our memories in ways that make them easy to
retrieve.
For example, we have our summer memories—memories of
family vacations from our early years, of baseball games played on a vacant
neighborhood lot, of hopscotch patterns carefully chalked upon a front walk, of
moonlit evenings when the crescendo of the cicadas’ buzz filled our ears, and
the flashing of lightning bugs almost outshone the stars.
Life is a journey of unspeakable beauty, and its rhythms
keep the memories of all those beautiful moments in sync. How many of us have watched our own
children, or grandchildren, playing in the back yard on a hushed summer
evening, and found ourselves transported in time back to the days when we
ourselves were the ones playing without a care in the world, being watched by
those who loved us most, and who would guide us through the early years of
life? And how often, in the quiet
reverie of such moments, have we recalled loved ones who have passed beyond our
reach, and found them so present in our memories we could almost reach out and
touch them?
Every
season--every holiday, birthday and special anniversary—has a special place
within us where its unique memories are filed away. But for all those beautiful memories, there is no place within as
important and as treasured as that little room where we store our memories of
Christmas.
These
are our most powerful memories. We more
than remember the turkey our mother was cooking in the oven so many decades
ago. Its aroma surrounds us as if it
were only a few feet away, instead of countless years away. We more than remember our father snapping
pictures of us as we tear through the colorful array of gifts under the
tinseled Christmas tree. The residual
spot before our eyes from that camera’s flash is still there, and through the
blur we can still see his smile, his happiness born of witnessing our own
childlike joy.
Nothing
compares to our Christmas memories. And
for many of us, this is the greatest night of the year. This is the night when the journey meets the
destination; when the anticipation of Christmas reaches its zenith, and
Christmas itself, with all it memories and with all its promise, settles into
our hearts yet again.
Because
I am a minister, I get all sorts of material throughout the months of November
and December decrying the secularization of Christmas. These mailings, publications, flyers and
e-mails all lament the way Santa Claus has become more important than Jesus in
the eyes of so many. And they warn that
the warm sentiment of Christmas memories should never overshadow the true
“reason for the season,” which is the birth of Jesus Christ.
I
certainly understand this sentiment.
After all, like many sincere people of faith, I attempt to make the love
of God through Jesus Christ the centerpiece of my life. It is, for me, the ultimate concern against
which everything else is measured. But
I see no reason people of faith cannot hold the religious meaning of Christmas,
and the cultural celebration of Christmas, in harmony.
I
admit that while the arrival of Jesus in this world is a big part of my
childhood memories of Christmas, there are some other vitally important parts
of my holiday memories. The shopping,
the music, the laughter, decorating the tree, waking up to discover all those
gifts that Santa placed under the tree—those memories are not in and of
themselves religious, but they are such a vitally important part of my
spiritual view of the world, I would not sell them for any price.
As
my wife Leigh and I were talking about the Christmas Eve service here at
University Congregational Church, she suggested that I should perhaps talk
about the words to some of the Christmas songs that I find meaningful. This advice came as I was wrestling with
whether to make this evening’s message more religious—this is, after
all, the evening when we remember the coming of Christ into our world; or more
reflective of our heartfelt memories of the celebration of the season.
Leigh’s
suggestion affords me the opportunity to do both. First, we will give some thought to the words of one of our most
familiar Christmas hymns. Most people
do not realize it, but when you pick up the Pilgrim Hymnal we sing from each
and every week, you are holding a book filled with theology. Now, frankly, there is some good theology
and there is some suspect theology in all the old familiar hymnals. But it is undeniable that the words were
crafted with great care, and taken as a whole, they provide a remarkably
detailed theological vision of the Christian faith. If you have never done so, you should open our hymnal sometime
and simply read and ponder the words.
Those hymns were not dashed out in a few quick minutes.
Many
churches have turned away from the traditional hymns. I have attended services where a single line, such as “God loves
us so,” is repeated over and over again to a simple melody, and I admit there
is a certain power in joining voices in a simple and repetitive message. But if the church as a whole ever loses
interest in the old hymns, we will have lost something wonderful. To prove the point, consider the lyrics to a
song we have all sung hundreds of times: Joy to the World.
The
first line goes Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. What a magnificent way to begin this
hymn! That simple little line tells us
that the Lord has come into this world, and our response should be one of joy. Don’t hide, don’t cower, don’t run, don’t
develop intricate theological doctrines to explain away the mystery. The world should be filled with joy,
because the Lord has come. And the
whole earth is to receive the Lord as our king.
When
we think of a king, we think of somebody being placed on some ostentatious
throne and being housed in a great castle.
But the next line is one of the most important in the whole hymn. It tells us where the king--the Lord--is to
live. The line reads, Let every
heart prepare him room. This king
will require no castle, no earthly abode at all. He is to take up residence in our hearts, and will do so if we
grant him room. And the first of the
hymn’s three verses ends with the same line being sung three times: And
heaven and nature sing. What an
image! Heaven—all things beyond our
world, all things beyond our knowing; and nature—all things within our world,
sing together in some divinely perfected harmony. All is now right with the world, as heaven and nature sing.
The
next verse says, Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns. Let men their songs employ. Now we know this king is our
Savior. The lost are found, the hurting
are comforted, the hungry are fed. This
Lord who is our king is our Saving God, and we can only respond to this news
with joyous song. And as we sing with
joy, all of creation is filled to overflowing with the good news as, in the
words of the hymn, fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat the
sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy.
Music
somehow captures the mystery of it all in a way that eludes all other forms of
communication. As the third and final
verse begins, a single line says more than most books of theology can hope to: He
rules the world with truth and grace.
We know how earthly kings rule.
They rule with might, with coercion, with the power of the sword. But this king, this king, he rules the
world with truth and grace. And
that truth and grace prove powerful enough to place all of creation under the
authority of our Lord, because the hymn ends by saying, And makes the nations
prove the glories of his righteousness, and wonders of his love, and wonders of
his love, and wonders of his love.
What
a song! And it’s all the greater for
the knowledge that this Lord who came into the world to live in our hearts, and
to rule with truth and grace…he entered the world just like we all enter this
world, as a helpless little baby, whose only hope for survival was the love of
the people around him.
And
although every generation since that time, in one way or another, has had a
song in their hearts that proclaimed “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come,” two
men are actually responsible for the song as we sing it today. The familiar melody to this most famous of
Christmas hymns was composed in the early eighteenth century by George Frederick
Handel. Handel, of course, is perhaps
most famous for having composed Handel’s Messiah, which contains the
glorious “Hallelujah Chorus.” The
wonderfully inspiring words to Joy to the World were written in 1709 by
Isaac Watts, who wrote hymns in his spare time. For his primary vocation, he served as the pastor of a
Congregational Church in Colonial New England.
I’ll
conclude my reflection this evening by moving to a piece of secular music. It is a simple little Christmas song that is
a favorite of mine and Leigh’s, even though it has no direct mention of Jesus,
or God, or anything else that is readily identifiable as religious. But in my mind, the spirit of God we find in
that incomparable hymn, Joy to the World, is written all over the
season. And like my memories of the
basting Turkey and the tinseled tree, I find great joy, and a beautiful
spirituality within many parts of the Christmas season that are not overtly
religious.
I
won’t analyze this song line by line, because it probably wouldn’t hold up to
such scrutiny. It is short; it is
simple. There is no brilliant
theology. English teachers would tell
us that it’s not even especially good poetry, as the rhymes are sometimes a bit
forced. The words to the song may be
simple, but that’s okay. God’s response
to the troubles of the world was simple—a baby.
The
world has certainly seen its share of troubles over the past months, so perhaps
our response in this Christmas season should be equally simple. Because Leigh and I like this song so much,
we wanted to stand up here and sing it for you. But trust me, any attempt on our part to sing this song would
have a detrimental effect on an otherwise wonderful evening. So I am happy to say that our friend Burt
Tims has agreed to build a bridge from the spoken part of this evening’s
service to the musical part by singing this song, our Christmas wish to all of
you.
Have
yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let
your heart be light.
From
now on our troubles will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry little
Christmas,
Make the yuletide gay.
From now on our troubles will be far
away.
Here
we are as in olden times, happy golden times of yore.
Faithful
friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more.
From now on we all will be together,
if the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest
bow.
And have yourself a merry little
Christmas now.