“Silent Night, Holy Night”

Rev. Dr. David E. Gray

Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church

Christmas Eve 2009

Luke 2: 1-20

So you were dreaming of a white Christmas? They say Christmas is a time when the impossible can become possible. Like nearly two feet of snow to begin Christmas week in Washington? A friend blamed last weekend’s snow fall on the Giant down the street that apparently played a continual “muzak” loop of Let it Snow earlier last week. A few years ago I cross country skied to church after a bad storm. But when my family moved to Bethesda in October I gave away my skies thinking “it doesn’t really snow all that much around D.C. does it?” Last weekend our family took our three year old out in the snow but as my wife said, “It takes 30 minutes to get the kids ready and 3 minutes for them to decide they “don’t like the cold” and we were back inside.

The storm was obviously challenging, but it brought folks together. And if you didn’t have to travel, it quite peaceful as well; almost holy. There was incredible silence and stillness in watching the snow fall on Saturday. No cars were on the road and none of the usual distractions were in the air. It changed our schedules. It provided unscheduled space. It gave us forced relaxation. Norman Vincent Peale once said that “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” Last Saturday was one of the softest and most beautiful days I have experienced.

The storm was an equalizing and unifying event. Who wasn’t impacted by the snow? I noticed a couple of my neighbors going outside in two hour increments to shovel and I decided to join them. A connection developed between us as we shoveled and marveled and talked. In my two months of living at our new home I had only met four of my neighbors. In two hours of shoveling snow I had met neighbors from seven different houses. At one point, people who had gotten stuck were helped out, as neighbors shoveled for neighbors. Writers from Robert Putman to Faith Popcorn have lamented the breakdown in community among busy Americans. Last weekend’s snowstorm brought the people on my block together. It drew us out.

The storm reminded us that there are forces greater than us out there. In twenty-four hours, the world around us was, for a time, transformed. As we watched in awe as the snow fell, we were reminded that the majestic can descend to earth this time of year. For its done that before.

At Christmas, we celebrate how God came to us. How the majesty of God descended to earth in the form of a baby. A baby born of a woman, born in a stable, born for you and for me.

We come to the stable seeking the Lord on Christmas. We come to meet God in word and worship, in song and spirit. God comes for us, and in return, God asks us to put our faith in God.

Biblical scholar Marcus Borg once wrote about Christmas that “God will not change the world without our participation.” We have to find a way to identify with the Christmas story and to make the faith of that story our own. Fortunately, Christmas is all about diverse people finding their place in the story. The first Christmas was a tale of different people coming from different circumstances for different reasons to a stable. There were Mary and Joseph. The young woman, engaged to be married, pregnant, riding on a donkey. Mary and Joseph came from Galilee to Bethlehem to register for the census as was required by the decree of the Emperor. We have the magi, the wise men, whom Matthew writes prominently about in his gospel. Intelligent men and part time astronomers, they figure out how to follow a star to Bethlehem. We have the shepherds, who in many ways are key figures in the passage from Luke that we just heard - they get the most ink. The shepherds responded to an inspirational visit of angels and full of passion they traveled to Bethlehem to see the Christ child. A young couple who were doing what they were required to do. A band of wise folk who used their heads and figured out how to find Jesus. A group of shepherds who followed their hearts. The beauty of the Christmas story is that it takes in all of us. Those who are doing their best to follow the path laid out for them, those who believe they have life all figured out, and those who don’t have any answers, but are taking a chance on fate.

And we? I’m sure we come here tonight for a variety of reasons. Some of you came here because someone brought you - church is what good Christians do on Christmas Eve. Some of you come with a heavy heart hoping this may be a place where you meet God. Some of you have come because you know there is something special about Christmas Eve that helps us make the faith of God’s story our own.

Now we don’t want to make the faith of the story entirely our own. It’s not all about us, after all. One of the best selling religious books of this fall was Greg Epstein’s Good Without God, which argues that the fastest growing “faith” groups in the nation are those who claim to find meaning apart from God. There are enough influences in life that tell us to replace God and put the individual at the center of what we believe. There was a church that reported a problem a few years ago with using Microsoft Word’s “find and replace” feature to create a funeral bulletin. The pastor had used the feature regularly on Sunday worship bulletins to find and replace key prayers or dates from the week before with the new ones. In preparing a funeral bulletin for a woman named Edna, the pastor used the “find and replace” feature to update the funeral bulletin from the last time. The last funeral at the church was for a woman named Mary. So the pastor changed all the “Mary’s” to “Edna’s” in the bulletin. That worked well on the greeting and the prayers, but when they got to the Apostle’s Creed the congregation read, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord. Who was conceived by the holy Ghost, born of the virgin Edna.”

Don’t try to replace God. We shouldn’t be at the center of all we believe in. Don’t make the season all about you. Christmas is about God. But it is also partly about you. This evening, and each week during Advent this year at Bradley Hills, we have been reading a different statement of faith, including the Apostles Creed the first Sunday and from the Brief Statement of Faith a few moments ago, because I’d like each of us to think about what it is that we believe at Christmas. Who is this baby born for us? Do we dare follow where he leads? How does his birth change your life? For whatever reason you decided to come here tonight, consider making the faith of the Christmas story your own.

On that first Christmas, very different people, a carpenter and his wife, wise men, and shepherds, were drawn out together to a stable and made the faith of the Christmas story their own. For a brief time, they experienced the joy that only God can bring. For a brief time, that baby, that man, lived on earth bringing peace. For a brief time, he gave the people a foretaste of what God will deliver someday.

For a brief time last weekend, we were reminded that the world does not move according to our schedules. For a brief moment this evening, think about how God came to us in the most unlikely way. Consider that because of Christmas, the impossible becomes possible. Consider that on this silent and holy night, peace and joy can come in the most unlikely ways. Even as a baby born in a stable.

One of the most powerful examples of what Christmas can bring happened on Christmas Eve in 1914. It was World War I, the western front. British and German soldiers were pitted in mortal combat. They had dug great trenches, each side only 50 or 75 yards apart from their enemy. There were snipers ready to shoot the other side if anyone got up from the trenches. They threw bullets, grenades, and wire, whatever they had to throw out of the trenches. The trenches were close enough that each side could hear their enemies’ voices. It is reported that at times the British would yell out, “Hey Fritz,” and the Germans would shout back, “Englander.”

Both sides were aware that it was Christmas Eve because their governments had sent care packages to the troops at the front. As the sun began to go down, something unusual happened. The shouting and shooting began to slow down. Finally it stopped. The German government had sent Christmas trees to the front to cheer up the German soldiers so far from home. As the gun smoke cleared, the British soldiers looked forward and saw that the Germans had lined their trenches with Christmas trees that they lit up.

A German yelled out, “in coming.” The British troops ducked as they had before when things were being lobbed. But what the German soldiers were throwing this time were packages of sausages and chocolate that their government and families had sent to the front. The British were stunned. Some British troops began putting together packages of their own with plum pudding in them and threw those back.

And then one side began singing songs. National anthems and military songs at first. Think of the scene from the movie Casablanca when the Germans are singing their national anthem and Victor Lazlo rises to lead the crowd in the bar in singing the French National anthem. But then the German troops began to sing, “Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht.” All up and down the trenches the Germans sang, “Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht.”  The British troops were amazed. And then they began to sing back in tune the English translation singing, “Silent Night, Holy Night.” Up and down the trenches, both sides sent not missiles but messages, “Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm, All is bright.” They had made the faith of the Christmas story their own.

Some brave soldiers emerged from the trenches on each side. They walked slowly up to the “no man’s land” in the middle and shook hands. A truce was called. Over the next week the troops shared gifts and they even played soccer. It didn’t end the war, but for a brief moment the Christmas Truce replaced anguish with peace. The guns were silent. The words and the reality of “Silent Night, Holy Night,” matched up.

Tonight we celebrate how the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

This Christmas, set aside the meal prep, the tree, the greeting cards and even the presents for a moment, and realize that God cares enough about us to come to our world as a vulnerable baby.

For if there is any thought that can give us peace, perhaps it’s that God came to us and for us. If there is any thought that can draw us out of our emotional and spiritual cocoons it’s that the divine entered our world and took on a human face. If there is any thought that can allow us to make the faith of the Christmas story our own, it’s that God came to our world so that we would know that God loves us and always will.

Thanks be to God, Amen.