Marvel of the Night

Before the marvel of this night adorning  / fold your wings and bow / then tear the sky apart with light / and with your news the world endow. 

I sat in the pew on Christmas Eve while the choir sang me into the heavenly host.  Let me say that again, it is an astounding statement.  I sat in the pew on Christmas Eve.  Yeah, that part.  That’s what was so astounding.  I sat in the pew, on Christmas Eve.  Do you know how long it has been since I sat in a pew on Christmas Eve?  Tell me, because I don’t.  It seems like forever.  I have been up front, leading the event for more years than I can count.  

OK, there have been years, in Edinburgh in the late 80's for example, when I didn’t lead worship on Christmas Eve, but those are dimly remembered.  I sat in the pew on Christmas Eve in Nashville Tennessee this year.  Two different pews.  I did it twice.  Just because I couldn’t believe I was doing, I guess.

No, I did it twice, partly because we have a couple of churches that we like and so we decided to go to each of them on Christmas Eve.  Plus, for some reason Nashville prefers an early Christmas Eve service.  The vast majority of the services offered were between 4:30 and 6pm.  I love an early service, especially one designed with children in mind.  The wild chaotic, barely holding in the longing hearts of the little ones who are all space shuttles rumbling on the launch pad read to leap into the joy that is Christmas morning.  

Proclaim the birth of Christ and peace / that fear and death and sorrow cease: / sing the gift of peace!

Those early children’s services might speak of peace, but it is a vibrating peace, woven with joy and anticipation and a living hope so real you can taste it, as strong as the peppermint candy canes you hand out knowing it is going to make fingers sticky and lips a bright shiny red.  Now, the earlier of the services was more a family service, not simply for children, so it had a calm about it, a sober embrace of the Christmas joy, with choirs and preacher and candlelight and communion.  It was a beautiful experience, though odd to sit in a pew and observe, participate like the assembled masses, crowded into the pews.  A glorious celebration of the night.

Awake the sleeping world with song / this is the day the Lord has made. / Assemble here, celestial throng / in royal splendor come arrayed.

I do love the early services on Christmas Eve, but precious to my heart and my thirsting soul is the late night service on Christmas Eve.  Our Catholic friends call it Midnight Mass, though it usually starts at 11 to end at midnight.  Here it was ten thirty, the latest we could find in our United Methodist tradition here in Nashville.  And we went early, expecting there to be another crowd, seating limited.  Rhys, who went with us to the early service was fading fast and he decided to stay home and go to bed.  So, La Donna and I went and found a seat and waited.  

Assemble here, celestial throng / in royal splendor come arrayed. / Give earth a glimpse of heavenly bliss / a teasing taste of what they miss: / sing endless bliss!

A taste.  The organ played a full half hour before the service began.  It was glorious, and certainly an invitation into a celestial throng.  The crowd was smaller than I expected, and subdued, leaning in to all that took place, the carols, the anthems, the sermon and the story.  There was a friendly camaraderie in the sanctuary that night, like we all belonged there, together, one family because of the child in a manger.  When we went forward to kneel at the rail for communion, it was as if we knelt on straw and were straining to see the baby.  And the little crumb of bread and tiny thimbleful of juice was a Christmas meal of love and acceptance, of fellowship divine.  And all the strife that seems ready to rend the denomination asunder was pushed aside in the darkness of that vast space.  And we were enfolded into a new hope, and a new possibility. 

The love that we have known / our joy and endless light / now to the loveless world be shown / break upon its night. / Into one song compress the love that rules above: / God is love!

“Before the Marvel of This Night” is the anthem the Chancel and Sanctuary choirs of West End United Methodist Church sang on that late Christmas Eve.  It is indeed an invitation to stand with the angel host who sang Christ’s birth to the shepherds on that lonely Bethlehem hillside.  Carl Schalk wrote the beautiful music for this piece, but the words were penned by Jaroslav Vajda.  Vajda was born in Ohio, despite the Slovak name.  His father was a Lutheran pastor there in the early 1900's when Jaroslav was born.  Jaroslav himself became a Lutheran pastor and served churches in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Alexandria, Indiana.  He wrote over 200 hymns, including a few in the United Methodist Hymnal (#122,  235, 619) before his death in 2008 at the age of 89.  

Now the silence / Now the Peace / Now the empty hands uplifted / Now the kneeling / Now the plea / Now the Father’s arms in welcome / Now the hearing / Now the power / Now the vessel brimmed for pouring / Now the body / Now the blood / Now the joyful celebration / Now the wedding / Now the songs / Now the heart forgiven leaping / Now the Spirit’s visitation / Now the Son’s epiphany / Now the Father’s blessing / Now / Now / Now

That hymn is listed as a communion hymn in our hymnal.  But it could be the promise of Christmas Eve.  It could be the hope of a world in need of peace.  And not willing, not needing to wait.  Now, Vajda and Schalk wrote, Now.  I write this, after mulling it over since Christmas Eve, on New Year’s Eve.  Another threshold into new possibilities and new hope.  Or maybe just another year, another day, another sunrise so much like all the others we have seen.  

Except it isn’t.  The world is new.  God has promised to do a new thing in our midst.  

Isaiah 43:18-19 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Join me in working and watching for the new thing that God is doing in our midst.  And I wish you all the blessings of Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Shalom,

Derek

Wondering Love

“Preaching is the bringing of truth through personality.”  That’s a famous quote I learned many years ago when I began to study preaching in earnest.  It’s not terribly sophisticated, not erudite or wrapped up in incomprehensible theological jargon.  Yet, it always appealed to me as a definition of this thing that I do.  It points to two significant elements in the preaching moment.  The first is something bigger than the individual involved in the task.  Preaching is about reaching beyond the mundane into something of eternity, about grasping hold of the kingdom of God and bringing it into the consciousness of the people.  Admittedly, it fails more often than it succeeds.  At least I failed more often than I succeeded.  But the attempt was made, and perhaps even through my fumbling attempts a glimpse was possible, a hope was kindled.  Truth was experienced.  

That’s the part of the equation that speaks of eternity.  Truth.  Truth through personality.  But Truth disconnected from real life isn’t compelling.  It needs a place to be grounded.  There needs to be a point of contact.  Personality.  The preacher.  The speaker, the witness.  Me.  You.  Anyone who tries to speak of something profound, who tries to share the truth of Christ.  Personality.  The you that is you.  Essentially you.  This preaching thing takes something profoundly personal in order to make it work.  When I teach preaching, I join with lots of other teachers or preaching who say that their task it to help each preacher find their own voice.  We aren’t trying to make clones of ourselves.  We are trying to help the preacher be the most authentic self they can be.  

Which is a lot like faith.  See, preaching is just one aspect of this faith thing.  And we’re all trying to do it.  You may not consider yourself a preacher, but you are.  You preach with your speaking, but also with your doing.  With your being.  Preaching is bringing truth through personality.  The life of faith is living truth through personality.  It’s your call as well as mine.  To live a life that is authentically you but also points to something beyond you, something bigger than you.  A truth that you can’t contain.

And why?  Why are we bringing this truth through personality?  Because that’s what Jesus did.  That’s who Jesus was.  He was the originator of bringing truth through personality.

John 1:1-16 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

It was in a series of lectures on preaching at Yale University in 1877, where the Rev. Phillips Brooks declared that preaching was bringing truth through personality.  Brooks was Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston at the time.  He had accepted that position in 1869, coming from Philadelphia.  A huge man, six feet four inches tall and weighing 300 pounds, personality radiated out from him. Considered by many the finest preacher of the 19th Century, he captivated congregations with his eloquence and optimism.  He was ordained in 1859 and began his ministry at the Church of the Advent in Philadelphia.

After only three years there, he then took a position at Holy Trinity in Philadelphia where he served until his move to Boston.  Shortly after moving to Holy Trinity, he took a year off to travel abroad.  Included in his journey was time in the Holy Land, and he was especially taken by his visit to Bethlehem.  Upon his return, he worked for three years on a poem attempting to capture his experience there.  And in 1868 he wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem” for his congregation.  His organist Louis Redner set the tune to music (after a restless night of struggle, where he claimed an angel whispered the tune in his ear) and it was presented to his church.  Neither of them thought it would last beyond the Christmas of 1868, but it has become a favorite of many, sung year after year.

“O little town of Bethlehem / How still we see thee lie / Above thy deep and dreamless sleep / The silent stars go by / Yet in thy dark streets shineth / The everlasting Light / The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight”  

Junius Dotson, the General Secretary of Discipleship Ministries, spoke this season about the war over Christmas.  But not the one you might have heard about.  He meant the war between our hopes and our fears.  Brooks’ carol speaks of that struggle, and hints at the resolution, of hope winning out over fear.  But it’s only a hint.  There is still a plea sung in the carol.  “O holy Child of Bethlehem / Descend to us, we pray / Cast out our sin and enter in / Be born to us today / We hear the Christmas angels / The great glad tidings tell / O come to us, abide with us / Our Lord Emmanuel.”

We’re still waiting.  But we wait with hope, because of what has already happened.  For the truth that came through personality, for the Spirit that was wrapped in flesh.  We saw His glory, John says, full of grace and truth.  And now we live that truth out in our lives, in our flesh, in our personality. 

And in our hope.  That’s our call this Christmas season.  To keep on hoping. Or, as Phillips Brooks said, to join with the angels in keeping a watch in wondering love.  “For Christ is born of Mary / And gathered all above / While mortals sleep, the angels keep / Their watch of wondering love / O morning stars together / Proclaim the holy birth / And praises sing to God the King / And Peace to men on earth.”

We can either sleep through this season, this time, or we can take our place alongside the heavenly host and watch with wondering love.  Which means continuing to live and work, to serve and give, to believe, in the end, that God is not far, that the “kin-dom” of heaven is among us.  That is the truth that the gospels proclaim.  That is the truth that we proclaim, by being who we are, by living in wondering love.  It is the truth that the world needs.  

Bringing truth through personality is not just for preachers.  It’s for all of us.  It’s for a world where truth is a rare commodity.  We don’t bring this truth with a hammer, crushing those who dare to disagree.  Instead we bring it with wondering love.  Because we believe in Christ who is with us even now.  Because we believe in Christmas.  

Shalom,

Derek