Christmas eve 2009

Christmas Eve 2009
Have you ever noticed how many of our major Christmas carols sing about Silence? There is, of course, the ubiquitous Silent Night, which we will sing later in the service. And silence also features heavily in “O Little Town of Bethlehem…”(Say the first verse and then sing the third verse of O Little Town of Bethlehem (78). Silence. It’s fascinating to me, this Christmas carol emphasis on silence, because it is certainly not a characteristic that I would identify with our modern celebration of Christmas. (Any of you with young children or grandchildren can testify with me that this is true.) We are bombarded with Christmas carols in all of our stores, even the grocery store. We are bombarded with expectations (our own and those of others), with food to prepare, family obligations to meet. Silence at Christmas time is possibly one of the most foreign concepts that we as a modern people experience.
I also think that silence was pretty foreign at Jesus’s birth, those many, many years ago. Childbirth is hardly a silent endeavor, and Jesus is born into a stable (or even worse, some scholars think that it was actually a cave…can you imagine how loud livestock sound in a cave?). He is born into an occupied country, with soldiers everywhere and a mad king who is immediately out to get him. There is little silence or peace in any of that. And then the shepherds in the fields who may have had some silence initially, but whose night is spit right open by the overwhelming glory of a blinding light and a multitude of heavenly host proclaiming that God is now present on earth. No. I doubt that there was little silence there either.
So how is it appropriate for us to sing our Silent Night tonight? Where is this silence of which we sing?
Perhaps the silence is part of God’s gift for us this night? Our God who chose to work so unobtrusively those many years ago, by offering the gift of God’s very self, lifting earth to heaven and stooping heaven to earth, the silence is found in the union of God and humanity in a newborn, peasant baby. We come here tonight looking for the assurance that we can have this silent night, holy night, a time when we can leave all our worries and preoccupations behind us and we can believe, just for a few moments, that all is right with the world. That is, I think, what we seek in the silence, and what we sing about this night.
And the good news is this! It is not only for this one night that this gift of Silence and love is offered. It is offered to us every day of our lives. God has been and continues to be present in this world, in humanity, in the person of Jesus Christ, and we receive God’s gift of silence into our hearts and lives every time we pray; every time we receive communion; every time we open our hearts by loving. This silent gift is available to us whenever we choose to receive it, on this holy night and every moment following.
Sing verse three again….