Singing in Both Keys

Advent: Day 24— Sunday December 24, 2023

Mt. 1:18-25

’Twas the Day before Christmas, and all through our houses…

Why wait to speak of the night before Christmas when all day long creatures will be stirring in anticipation of the eve’s grand arrival?  But who is it that we expect to arrive? For most of us it will be that jolly old elf of Clement Moore’s imagination. Since its publication in 1823, his poetic characterization of the rotund, red-suited, reindeer-steering figure who magically and unbelievably breaks into all of our houses, chimneyed or not, has transformed  our understanding of Christmas.  Not only that, Santa Claus has helped reshaped our approach to retail commerce, while adding an element of wish fulfillment in much of our popular theology.  Others, however, will be more eager to revisit   Middle Eastern landscapes to rehear sacred stories of nameless shepherds, mysterious gift-bearing magi, a paranoid king looking for blood, an army of angels heralding good tidings from on high, and an intimate gathering of stable beasts reverently sharing their feeding trough with two itinerants and their newborn. For all of us, Christmas Eve marks the grand finale of the season whose ending we’ve been counting down for months, and which has spurred us into a frenzy of planning and decorating, shopping and partying, concert-going and school program attending, card writing and over-indulging.     Hallelujah!

Christmas Eve also signals that we’ve reached the last day of Advent.  For the past twenty-two days we’ve been invited to take a spiritual journey, reflecting upon who we are, and when we are, not only in calendrical reckoning, but in the sweep of God’s self-revealing. This year we will awaken to the somewhat rare coincidence (occurring only four times every 28 years) of Christmas Eve falling on a Sunday. That being said, I wonder how many of us will treat this as a different kind of Sunday, one in which we forego our usual habits of sleeping in, going to the golf course, heading to Walmart, or doing whatever we normally do to pass the time on this coveted day of rest? Since this
Sunday happens to be Christmas Eve, I can well imagine there will be lots of scurrying around in our homes. So many last minute preoccupations before midnight’s stroke signals the official, once and done arrival, of Christmas Day. That isn’t likely to deter those who live for their weekly fix of wall-to-wall football games, although I suspect many of them will nonetheless be shamed into joining in the frenzy of getting ready. After all, houses must be cleaned, family favorite Christmas culinary dishes must be prepared, tables must be set, presents not yet wrapped must be properly papered, ribboned and labeled—all items on our To Do list that we will be sure to check twice.  No doubt something will still fall through the cracks, sending us to the mall or bakery or card shop just ahead of the company that’s coming, the children and grandchildren stopping by, and in time for that nocturnal visitor of religious and nonreligious sainthood, one Nicholas of the far north. Could it be that the Christ child also will show up and stay awhile?  Perhaps, if there is room for him in our hearts and homes.

A Sunday Christmas Eve poses a dilemma for those of us who are Christians:   should we go to church in the morning, or in one of the late afternoon to midnight services, or to both? Or dare we stay home to attend to those matters of more practical spirituality, like getting ourselves ready to receive the friends and family who will be joining us?   For even the most devout among us, going multiple times to church can seem a bit much. Yet the allure of Silent Night sung in a darkened, candle-lit sanctuary has unspeakable power to touch the heart, offering us a most precious, and rare moment of solemnity and grace that for millions is a must-be-there ritual. All is calm, all is bright.  There is something compelling about hearing our voice in chorus with so many others—friends and strangers alike—singing in a darkened church, whether those voices are properly in tune, or just flirting with tunefulness.    Is there  any other time or place that  envelops us in such serene unity,  joined as we are,  in body and in spirit. with our neighbors and with God.  It may well be the closest we’ll ever come to obeying that most difficult of Jesus’ commands: loving God and neighbor as we love ourselves.  Look how those radiant beams from Thy holy face  find lively illumination, if only for a fleeting instant, in the faces of the children around us who seem so transfixed by candle flame. How many who  gather in our churches on Christmas Eve will see what I’m describing, and how many will be deeply touched, only God can say. It makes me wonder, though, how many of us caught up in that moment— parents and grandparents, singles and marrieds, the righteous or wayward, the whole and the broken—will leave those sanctuaries renewed in the blessed hope that peace and good will may yet shine in this world where darkness seems to always have the final word.  Sleep in heavenly peace.

It dawned on me a number of years ago that some of our most beloved carols were composed in the most ominous, foreboding, and darkest of times. These are among my favorites, casting as they do a different mood, a more somber light on the season. In the Bleak Midwinter, I Wonder as I Wander, O Little Town of Bethlehem, What Child Is This? None suggests the ecstasy of angelic hosts singing on high,  or the tidiness of manger scenes where shepherds, wise men and livestock pose as set-pieces in our imagination. The inspiration for these songs seems to come from the more foreboding themes in Matthew’s and Luke’s stories of Jesus’ birth,  foreshadowing his ultimate fate in passages we fear might break the spell of Christmas magic that we work so hard to create. When we sing these carols in their minor keys, we find ourselves engulfed in the shadowy world in which Jesus actually came to life, and sense how powerfully those shadows engulf us still. Power lusting politicians, soldiers killing innocents who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, harrowing migratory escapes to far-away lands in pursuit of asylum: the world we often gloss over in retelling the biblical nativity is so like the world we wish to ignore today. It is therefore good that we sing these songs, especially on this night of nights, for their minor keys resonate with how real life is, life as we know it, life in which we have our best chance to find God. 

But that isn’t all that we will sing on Christmas this year, for life is more than darkness and shadows always betray a shining sun behind them. It is with gladness, then, that we accept the invitation to Come, All Ye Faithful  as it welcomes us into the presence of the One who embodies all that is good and true and everlasting. We will eagerly join our voices with those who harken to Herald Angels yet announcing, even to our unbelieving ears, that peace, mercy, and reconciliation remain woven into the very fabric of God’s design for this world. And to the degree that we can reawaken our inner child’s belief that all of this is true, we will  not hold back our exuberance when we sing  Joy to the World ,  for on this night in our hearing, our singing, our believing, the Lord is Come!.

I expect to be among those seeking God’s presence in story and song this Christmas Eve. I look forward to singing of the miracle of God’s revelation in those triumphant carols composed in major keys that inspire our hope and bolster our courage. I also look forward to be deeply moved by those introspective, soul-searching carols set in minor keys, for they remind me how God seems most present when we are most in need. I trust that you will be in good voice this Christmas, willing and able to sing in both of the keys in which the dear Christ enters in to souls, even in our day, open to  receive Him still.  

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

and mild and sweet, the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth," I said; 


"For hate is strong,
 and mocks the song


Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"



Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:


"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; 


The Wrong shall fail,
 The Right prevail,


With peace on earth, good-will to men." Amen.

______________________

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, composed in 1863

during the darkest days of America’s Civil War