Silent Night, Unsilent Life

 Christmas Eve 2011

On this quiet, country Christmas Eve, I invite us to imaginatively travel back in time.  Yet not too far back, not all the way back to a birthing barn scene in ancient Bethlehem.    Let’s first briefly visit a battlefield of human history where several incredibly powerful, peaceful moments of sacred silence and serenity were once born.

The date was Christmas Eve 1914 and the deeply meaningful moments happened at various locations along the Western front during WWI.   This month’s issue of Presbyterians Today magazine recounts that a good many German soldiers lit candles and raised them up on small poles and bayonettes.   They did so while singing “Silent Night” in their native tongue, ninety-six years to that night after this beloved Christmas hymn was written in Austria.  Both of these actions quite clearly revealed their strategic positions and made them vulnerable to attack. Amazingly, and beautifully, however, the British not only held their fire … they also joined in the singing.  Then they scrawled the words “Merry Christmas” on boards and lifted them up.  The gesture was returned.    Next, a great many soldiers from both sides voluntarily set aside their weapons and one by one climbed out of bunkers and met together at a small central patch of bombed out earth.   There, enemies otherwise engaged in the heart and heat of combat shared a campfire and exchanged small gifts of chocolate bars, badges, and tins of beef.   

Although the calm candle fire was soon enough replaced with deadly fire power once again, I imagine those brief moments of comforting, holy peace were an incredible gift to the frightened, exhausted soldiers.   What a wondrous in-breaking of our Emmanuel, the Prince of Peace, this historic moment was!  What a shining of the sacred, radiant beams of His holy face upon this wounded world seemingly always at war with itself.   

This story, this word of witness, reminds us of the deep, true meaning of this silent, holy night we have gathered to experience.   


Here, nestled in the pews cradling us, we remember and cherish Christ’s unique arrival to the course of all history.   


Here, we have hope reborn and are exhorted to be positively changed by the great gift of God in the flesh.    


In the midst of all of the holiday hubbub and the often complicated emotions at this time of year, we pause in sacred silence and serenity to honor the One born to bring about peaceful reconciliation between heaven and earth and all of humanity with itself.    Tonight, you and I share an open invitation to freshly realize how very much we need the holy calm and radiant Good News of Jesus’ all powerful, forever reconciling love.    We need it to settle conflicts within ourselves, with loved ones, and wherever there is enmity between children of God across the globe.    

Rejoicing in the greatest holy gift of all time, we have gathered in this absolutely heart-warming sanctuary space; this space so resplendent with symbolic reminders and rituals of all that is central to our faith and full of nostalgic nods to our congregational traditions.   

We gaze upon the manger scene nestled in the heart of our communion table, now complete with the Christ child after our Advent waiting.   

We take in colors of evergreen, white and red to festively, faithfully dress our hearts and minds.  

We sing our praises alongside the alleluias of the heavenly host. 

We speak affirmations of our faithful convictions and offer up prayers of thanksgiving and intercession.  

We look with loving, all-encompassing welcome upon one another. 

           

And we light our candles to sing Silent Night, Holy Night in blessed solidarity with the Prince of

Peace whose living presence seeks the heart of all humanity.

However, we will not be able to stay in this comforting, cradling space of silence and serenity.   We will return to our homes and soon enough, to our regularly scheduled daily living.   When we do, what will become of all this faithful centering, holy calling, and harmonious feeling?

I pray we all abide in it every day of our lives.    Like a prayer shawl, let us wear the silence and serenity and sacredness of this night as we move back into the various frays of our days.    Pastor and artist Jan Richardson, whose inspirations have guided me through this year’s Advent season, reminds us that “Christmas offers a microcosm of what we are called to in the Christian life.”     She then asks of herself, and by extension, asks us, “In the days, weeks, months to come, how will I bear witness to, point toward, open myself to, embody the God who came as life and as light?”[i]     Let us do so by not only holding fast to the memory of tonight, but even more importantly by turning our attention to what the child we are here celebrating had to say in word and deed when he fully grew into his holy purpose.     His was not a silent life.    His was a life that repeatedly exhorted – “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!”  (Mark 4:9)

Now I don’t know if you’ve spend much time thinking about it, but Jesus started out like any human babe –crying and gurgling, sometimes with contentment and other times out of consternation.   Language to further express Himself had to be learned.  This language took form to definitively teach us all about the sacred life our Creator calls us to live.   At the very core of it all is the message of eternal peace – peace upon the mind, peace upon the heart, peace upon the earth.   

True enough … his words did often stir-up controversy.  But this was not to create conflict for conflict’s sake … it was for the purpose of clarity.    Again and again, through straight talking interpretations of the Old Testament as well as through curiously relevant parables, Jesus delivered a potent message about all that was happening to fulfill long-held holy promises.    He practiced what He preached without even the slightest hint of hypocrisy.    By word and deed, He repeatedly heralded the economy of mercy, where justice is the radical common currency.   In doing so, true joy and deep peace and sacred security were reborn in very many sinfully broken minds, bodies and spirits.    

So as we celebrate the birthing scene of our Savior in a barn in ancient Bethlehem through this beautifully silent and serene night, let us also recommit ourselves to listening to and living out the words he later rather loudly said. 

Recognize and rejoice in Him as the Word of God, in the flesh.  

Be inspired to become more vulnerable as you seek heavenly peace and loves pure light in your heart. 

Rejoice in this dawn of redeeming grace.  

Go share it with all humanity.    

This child, Jesus, so tender and mild, who grew to speak of and embody true sacrificial love, calls us to the constant common ground of faith and hope.   

No wonder, and what great joy there is knowing, that people sing Silent Night, Holy Night on every continent and in countless native languages.    By candle light and in the Light of Christ, we shall sing it again this quiet, country eve to the glory of our gracious God.    Amen.   

           

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[i] Through the Advent Door by Jan L. Richardson