142 years ago, the pastor and organist from the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, combined their preaching and singing talents to create a Christmas carol full of simplicity and wonder. For Phillips Brooks, the words to “O Little Town Of Bethlehem” were inspired on his visit to Israel, where on Christmas Eve, he arrived at the village nestled in the Judean hills, near Jerusalem. There Brooks stood in the Church of the Nativity, where tradition says Jesus was born. The church bells rang, and people sang hymns of praise to God. Phillips figured it was time for another one.
Last March, a “Baker’s dozen” from this church visited that spot. Not many ever get the privilege of being physically at the site on Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. But in a spiritual sense, on these Sundays in Advent, I’d like to take us back through Bethlehem, and feature some aspect of the birth place of Jesus -- where “in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.”
We begin with the popular carol, and the prophet's word for our instruction as we inaugurate a new church year. Brooks’ poetry is full of good theology and practical Christianity. Let it speak God's word to us this morning. So you’ll need your hymnal and your Bible today. We will sing each stanza separately. Then I’ll elaborate on them as we proceed. This is how Brooks started out back in 1866.
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the 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
The 1st verse identifies WHERE Christ came. When the Creator came among his creation, he had to arrive someplace. But it wasn’t to Times Square, or bright TV cameras surrounded by screaming admirers. God comes obliquely; off center-stage; without any of the fanfare we’re accustomed to. To the “tiny town of Bethlehem.” Where we least expect it, God slips in unnoticed: back-door-divinity, because small is big enough for God.
Just as the prophet, addressed the town centuries ago: “But thou, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are least among the clans of Judah; from you shall come forth one who’s to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2). Even so, the God who's Son described his kingdom in terms of “a mustard seed” has no problem with little things. Bethlehem suits him just fine. If it had been Jerusalem, Christmas might’ve turned out differently. But it still comes as our annual reminder of how small things matter in a world where bigness is worshiped. Bethlehem stands as an indictment on our jumboism.
Because it was Bethlehem, we can take heart in the sovereignty of the small; and simplicity trumping complexity; “the foolish, confounding the wise.” Because it was Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, the incarnation exposes the irony of scale. “Valleys are exalted and hills are laid low, the crooked places straightened out and rough places sanded down.” Bethlehem is totally in keeping with God choosing a people because of his grace, not their merit. And when Jesus started a church, equally so: he needed only twelve. If nothing else, that should counteract the #1 question we get here almost daily: “How many members does your church have.” Micah the prophet saw it: “Thou, O Bethlehem, who art the least among the tribes of Judah...” Biblical Christmas is totally in character, with Bethlehem. Think of the majestic cities of that time, God could’ve chosen to make his entrance – Rome, Alexandria, Athens, Jerusalem...there is something wild and unpredictable about God coming to the small. Because that's where God still comes.
Now let's sing the 2nd stanza and see to whom he came:
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.
“Christ is born...of Mary,” a teenager who “had to get married.” Well, she didn’t “have to” but the neighbors thought she did. Unlike Moses, who landed with an Egyptian princess, Christ wasn't born of an elegant queen or a noble woman. Not to the mighty, nor the proud. “In the fulness of time, God was born of a woman, under the law...” Women played a critical role in the Christian faith. Without a girl named Mary there would’ve been no incarnation. Without the women, nobody would’ve heard about the resurrection. Women we all God had because the men had run away! Without the women, there’d be no church.
Still, some continue to privately abuse and publicly degrade women for being women, makes no difference if they’re as different as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. It’s been around a mighty long time. Mary was just a peasant girl but good enough for God, who had to endure the Nazareth-gossips and the stern looks of the month-counters. Small-minded people still can’t resist condemning others for the way they were born. But when God needed assistance, he called a woman. Do you find it strange that many churches haven’t got it yet? Brooks got it, and inserted it in his song and we’re still singing it: how God comes through someone few would expect; who even appears to be immoral.
God will gladly shock the self-righteous, because gender is a non-issue with Jesus. So when God selected a place, it was Bethlehem. When he needed a body, Mary’s would do just fine. God doesn’t play our petty power games, or recognize standards of what causes us to be somebody. What God saw in a Nazarene adolescent, was all he needed in a human being to mother-his-son, her willingness to say “Let it be to me according to your word.” God will come to anybody who has the guts to say that: male or female or anything else.
In stanza 3 we learn how he came:
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.
“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!” Silence, not the spectacular. Peace, not the Mardi Gras. God prefers the “still, small voice,” to the “earthquake, wind, and fire.”
Have we forgotten how to stand in awe of something, how to be dumbfounded like Zechariah when he learned he was going to be a daddy in his old age? Christmas Eve some 2000 years ago, there were sounds, to be sure – a baby crying from a feed trough, parents talking, noises from the barnyard animals, cheers from the boistrous, crowded Inn. But the manger scene evoked silence; where pondering was proper, not fireworks. The Child in the crib grew up to become a Man who equated God’s kingdom to a “mustard seed“and exulted over a “widow’s penney,” for whom small was plenty big, and felt right at home coming to the outback. That's how God still comes. And that’s why most of us miss him.
The last stanza is the most important; it tells us why God came:
O holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!
God didn’t send Jesus just for the hell of it. Because that’s all we gave him. God comes to redeem, to “cast our sin out and enter in.” Brooks was right to link the birth of Jesus to our meanness, because we still take pleasure in hurting each other. Christmas has to do with our ugliness; it’s not just about somebody being born, but being born in us! He became what we are, so we can become what he is.
Maybe you saw in the news on “black and blue Friday,” about that Walmart employee who got crushed in the rush to be first; just to have the privilege of buying some Christmas item? So symbolic of our day. Since Thanksgiving, it’s been “Shoppocalypse now,” as we endure our annual bombardment with ads, and I ask myself (WWJB?) “What Would Jesus Buy?” Can any material present be worth stomping somebody to death We go to the mall for the material. But we come to church because of the spiritual, to be reminded that our sins are “the reason for the season.” I don’t know anybody qualified to argue with that. Yeah, there’ll be some who come to worship thinking they don’t sin. But I’m not one of ‘em. Mostly so they can criticize all those other sinners who sin differently. Some come because they’ve been sinned-against, unless they’re sinned against by the church. Otherwise church is the last place they want to be. Christmas is about redeeming us from the evil of greed and pride; our nasty habit of lifting ourselves up by putting somebody else down. That’s Herod’s role in the Christmas story, it leaves Rachel weeping, and the Wise Men, “going back home another way.”
Brooks was ahead of his day in describing this: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Both extreme emotions, embodied in the Christmas story. Out of hope, the shepherds worshiped in joy. But in fear, Herod reacted with force. And that's as good a place as any to leave it as we begin the Advent season – in Bethlehem, the little town, to a common woman, silently bringing redemption--to impact our hopes in the midst of our fears. I also want to leave you with a question: how will we respond to this God who comes to us so strangely; so unexpectedly? We have it in us to be like Mary and the shepherds; or Herod’s paranoia. Maybe our Bethlehem journey will help us all decide that during this Advent. If so, God's purpose in coming will not have been in vain.
Prayer (11/30/08)
God of “Silent Nights and widow’s mites,” we enter yet another Season of Advent, longing to celebrate the impact for good that the coming of Christ made on this old world, stricken with deep confusion, brought on mostly by our greed and meanness. Grant us the wisdom to use the weeks to come as a time of reflection on how we can be better than that.
We pray that our faith will be neither ornamental nor automatic, but one that proves its worth by how we treat others. Fill us with the trusting faith of Joseph. Renew us with the reflective faith of Mary. Guide us with the alert faith of the shepherds. May we set aside our priorities to be of service as readily as they did. When we see the Christ in the manger, we sense that a living faith is childlike: fragile, yet confident, ordinary, yet miraculous; wonderful as it is, yet born to grow.
In this “Year of bottomless Bailouts,” and millions for millionaires, we would express along with our frustration, a word of gratitude this season of Thanksgiving for those millions of faithful Americans who steadily pull their own weight, who refuse to abandon thrift, or personal responsibility, in order to continue to contribute to the common good. Often taken-for-granted, yet they serve as a forgotten-counterbalance to our materialistic ways, that have made us into a nation of suers not doers. More concerned with getting our rights, than doing what’s right, even if it’s wrong!
May this hour of worship provide for those of us who have so much to do, benefit from these quiet spaces to hear Thy voice. We who are anxious over many things look forward to one thing: Thy coming among us. We who are blessed in so many ways, hope to be a blessing to somebody else in these difficult days. We whose hearts are heavy, long to have the load lightened by Thy forgiveness, embracing the hope to which the season of Advent points. Give us a gracious spirit toward one another in the place of our competitiveness. Enable us to be encouragers to those in trouble, faithful interpreters of the Word, healers of all who hurt, and bearers of joy to the world. Grant us the goodness to be Advent-people: receptive in spirit, responsive in deed. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
