Christmas Eve – George Yandell
I saw this logo in Advent a few years ago, on the sign at Grace Presbyterian Church in Dawsonville- I think it most appropriate for the season: “A long, long time ago in a Galilee far, far away…”
Have you ever had any disruptions at Christmas? Any family mistakes? I can remember when I was 10, my uncle Larry came up missing just as 14 of our family members sat down around the festive dinner table. He always cut the turkey while it was still hot, standing at the head of the table. My aunt said, “Where’s Larry?” My cousin Nancy said, “He’s taking a shower.” Turns out my uncle had had a libation or two, and lost track of time. We all laughed while the turkey got cold and we waited for his shower to end. Any of you have any other mistakes or disruptions at Christmas?
You just heard the story in Luke of how Mary and Joseph had major hurdles and disruptions in getting to Bethlehem. They had to obey the decree of the Roman Emperor to go to the husband’s hometown to be registered in the census. It is @ 70 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, through mountainous territory, and around or through Jerusalem, the major city. Nazareth was up in the hill country, away from culture and high living. We’d call it the sticks, the backwoods. Sort of like Jasper is to Atlanta. Mary was very close to giving birth. When they got to the little suburb of Bethlehem after difficult travel, they had to bed down in a lean-to manger. Mary gave birth in a hay-bed and laid Jesus in a feed trough. Joseph must have been incredibly anxious.
A few things come clear in the story- Mary and Joseph were poor, and they were law-abiding, observant Jews. Roman legions occupied their homeland. They had to camp out where Jesus was born. They had no helpers, no attendants at the birth.
And then shepherds were led to the manger by angels. Shepherds, of all people- looked down on by everyone as ragged, uncouth, and dirty. The angels terrified the shepherds. But they followed the angels’ instructions. They made it to the hay-bed stall and were the first to find Mary, Joseph and Jesus. They babbled to Mary and Joseph what the angels had told them, that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-awaited savior for the world. Their disruption from guarding the sheep and finding their way to Bethlehem made public the news of Jesus. Mary treasured all they’d said, and pondered them.
This is not a story about smooth sailing. It tells us of barely making it, of getting by with nothing. With other poor, cast-off people bearing the incredible news of Jesus’ birth. The days were fulfilled, the gospel says. “To perfect, complete, finish- to reach a goal, be fulfilled, be completed, made perfect.” [From Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance]
There’s more in the story than initially seems. The word fulfilled doesn’t just mean Mary’s time had come to deliver Jesus. It means this event is the perfection of God’s intent. Out of disruption and chaos comes completion- the goal is reached.
I know of another Christmas with disruptions and upset. Maybe you’ve heard the story. It appears that a newly established parish of St. Nicholas-in-Oberndorf, Germany faced having Christmas without music in 1818. The organ had broken down. On December 24, the assistant priest Joseph Mohr brought a text he’d written to Franz Gruber, the acting organist. Mohr asked Gruber to set the text to a tune to be sung as a duet with guitar accompaniment and a chorus of girl’s voices. The new song was sung at the Christmas Eve service that night with the priest playing the guitar. When the repairman came to fix the organ shortly after Christmas, the song was sung to him and he spread the song through the region in the following years.
The song was introduced to the U.S. by the Renner family, a group of folksingers who toured the country in 1827. Silent Night now appears in many languages throughout the world. It has become an essential part of Christmas celebrations everywhere. [Adapted from the Hymnal 1982 Companion, Vol. 3 A, pp. 110-112, Raymond Glover, Editor, 1994, The Church Hymnal Corporation.]
We will sing it at the end of the service, with candles lighted, and recall how Silent Night has become a universal song for Christmas observers.
The mystery of the birth of Jesus, captured in a disrupted moment, with a simple priest and church musician, working to fulfill the worshipers’ needs without their normal resources. Sounds like Mary and Joseph with the shepherds, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s the message for us- Christmas is a disruptive time, in the best sense. From difficulty comes fulfillment. From a hay-bed perfection is born. That might be our prayer this Christmas, mightn’t it? And as we pray it, we can realize we are part of the holy family- we’re witnesses to Jesus’ birth and we’re in his kinship group. Don’t you know that’s why Bp. Judson Child wanted to name our parish Holy Family? Not just to recall Mary, Joseph and Jesus, but to include us as part of that family.
I want to close with a poem: “A Prayer for Christmas Morning”
The day of joy returns, Father in Heaven, and crowns another year with peace and good will.
Help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the wise men.
Close the doors of hate and open the doors of love all over the world.
Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting.
Deliver us from evil, by the blessing that Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clean hearts.
May Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children, and Christmas evening bring us to our bed with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake.
By Robert Louis Stevenson