Watch the full service (which is lovely, if I do say so myself!) HERE.
Christmas Eve 2022
One of the best things, in my opinion, about being a pastor, is that I get a hefty say in what Christmas carols we sing at our Christmas services. So, we always sing my favorites, and seldom sing my least favorites. And so this year, I was pleased to place Joy to the World, long in my top three Christmas hymns, as the sermon hymn tonight.
Yes, I have always loved this one. But this year I have been thinking of it in a new way, because I have for the past year or two, been doing some deeper reflection on what joy really is. We throw that word around a lot this time of year, but I’m not convinced we really know what it means, or how we get it, or what difference it makes. When we proclaim in a moment, “Joy to the world! The Lord is come!” are those just words? Or what will that really mean for us?
I know what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean, “It’s Christmas and I’m happy about it!” I mean, sort of – but it is more than that. Joy is deeper than that, deeper than happiness. It also doesn’t simply mean, we got all the presents bought and wrapped, dinner didn’t burn, and the cat or the toddler didn’t destroy our Christmas tree. Those are good things, too, but there is certainly more to joy than that!
So, what does it mean? I suspect we might all answer that a little differently, and I think I could preach 10 sermons on this topic and still have more to say. On this Christmas night, though, I’d like to share just a few thoughts on what joy means in the context of Christmas, and what difference it makes for us.
First: joy is intrinsically related to peace. Just look at this climactic moment in Luke’s telling of the story. The angel appears to the shepherds in the field, and declares, “I bring you good news of great joy,” and then in almost the next breath (if angels do, indeed breathe), “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those whom He favors.” You see – the good, joyful news here is that Jesus is born, and because of that, peace. News of great joy --> peace.
Once I recognized that relationship, I began to notice it in my life, too. Maybe you can relate: I sometimes get myself so tied up in a bundle of shoulds and anxiety, especially at this busy time of year, that there is little room left to actually enjoy it. But then, if I let go for a minute, let myself share a belly laugh with my kids, or fall into a good book, or I put my phone down and am fully present to a good friend as she shares something true… then all those tangles fall away for a moment, and I feel more settled, more peaceful. And that feeling of peace enables joy to enter in, and then the joy in turn brings me even more peace. The joy and the peace – they feed off of each other, helping me to go deeper into each. Joy is related to peace.
Second observation about joy: as I have sought to identify the moments in life when I have felt the deepest, most genuine joy, I have noticed again and again that a sure pathway toward joy is through connection. That belly laugh with my kids that I mentioned, or being fully present to a friend in need, or even going for a walk, or taking time for prayer – what all of these share is that they facilitate connection, with another person, or with nature, or with ourselves even, or especially with God. And when we find connection, we don’t necessarily find happiness, but we find joy.
Elliot Kone tells of a night in December of 1944, when he was a young sergeant stationed in France, shortly before the Battle of the Bulge. While they waited for their delayed orders to come through, he and another soldier, a private, went into a nearby village in search of food. The village they found was completely deserted; even the road signs had been taken, probably by retreating German soldiers. The only open building was a church, which they entered to escape the winter chill for a while.
Sergeant Kone could play the organ by ear, and had often been drafted by various army chaplains to play for religious services. He knew quite a lot about the instrument, and so when he saw this church’s organ, he was eager to take a look at it. It was beautiful and well-made, but in poor shape, and no sound could be coaxed from it. He got an idea: “I think we could fix this if we had the tools,” he told his friend. “It would be a wonderful surprise for the villagers when they return.” His friend agreed, and since they had little else to do while they awaited orders, they went back to get the needed tools, and got to work.
It was a labor of love, but soon enough, the instrument was echoing lovely tones through the church as the sun rose. Kone played a Hebrew lullaby from his childhood, then Faith of our Fathers, at his friend’s request, then several carols that he knew from memory. They imagined the faces of the people who would enter the church to see their organ up and running. They wanted to stay so they could witness that moment themselves, but they knew they had to get back to camp. By the time they returned, orders had come, and they were leaving imminently for the front.
Later, Kone wrote that imagining the faces of those villagers upon seeing their restored organ, tempered the dread of battle. He thought of them many times in the years following, thinking of those unknown villagers as his brothers and sisters, a bond he shared with them even in the face of adversity. The experience forever connected him to them, and, he hoped, them to him, though they could never know it was a Jewish sergeant and a Protestant private who had repaired the organ in their Catholic church.
There is joy in connection – the sort of joy that can fend off fear and carry us through battle, that can connect us across nationality, across enemy lines, across time.
And isn’t that joy in connection just exactly what God seeks to accomplish by coming to earth to become one of us, by being fully present with us? To go on walks with us, and to be in the midst of belly laughs, and to sit with us in prayer? Did not God come to us so that we would feel that seemingly impossible connection, and be able to find the resulting joy even in difference and in adversity, even as we face our daily fears and battles?
And that is the last point I want to make tonight about joy: that joy can and does co-exist with pain. In fact, I’d argue that deep pain and deep joy are in many ways not so different from each other: both are vulnerable, both can come upon us when we are not expecting it, both can completely overwhelm us and make us feel out of control, both can change our lives.
Pastor Norman Vincent Peale tells a story of a Christmas Eve early in his ministry. He was feeling happy, just leaving a wonderful visit with some parishioners, when he looked across the street and saw a house with not one, but two wreaths, side by side. One had the traditional red bow, bright and festive. But the other had a ribbon of somber black, the symbol of a death in the family, a funeral wreath. This unexpected juxtaposition of joy and sorrow had a strange impression on him, and he asked his parishioner about it. The parishioner explained that this was a young family with small children, new to the neighborhood, but that was all he knew.
Peale started to leave, but then decided to approach the house, and he knocked on the young family’s door. “It is Christmas Eve,” he thought, “and if there is joy or suffering to be shared, my calling is to share it.” When a young man opened the door, and the pastor introduced himself and offered his sympathy, the man invited him in. The death, he learned, was their 6-year-old daughter, and was quite recent. In fact, her coffin still sat in their parlor, as was the custom then. Peale was so moved he could barely speak. As if reading his thoughts, the father offered, “It’s all right. She’s with the Lord, you know.” He took the young pastor to meet his wife, who was reading to their two younger sons. Her face, he said, was lovely – sad, but serene.
Peale writes of the encounter, “Suddenly I knew why this little family had been able to hang two wreaths on the door, one signifying life, the other death. They had been able to do it because they knew it was all one process, all part of God’s wonderful and merciful and perfect plan for all of us. They heard the great promise that underlies Christmas: ‘Because I live, ye shall live also.’ They had heard it and they believed it. That was why they could move forward together with love and dignity, courage and acceptance.”
I know that many here tonight carry with them two wreaths – your festive outfits and smiles cover up some sorrow or pain that you feel. Hear me when I say, there is room in the Christmas story for both wreaths, both the joy and the sorrow. To sing “joy to the world… and heav’n and nature sing!” is not to deny the sorrow in the world. We know all too well that that still exists. Rather, singing these words is to say, with defiance, that we believe that this sorrow does not get the final word. It is to say that our pain does not have to be hidden or denied, and more, it will not keep God from coming to us this night, even still. Because God knew what he was getting into, that he was coming into a world of pain, a world with two wreaths: a red one looking toward love and joy, and a black one still in pain and sorrow. Christ comes there, into the joy, yes, and also into the darkness of night. And Christ brings to that place the joy that the world cannot give: the joy that brings peace, the joy of meaningful connection, and the joy that can exist even in the pain, shining into the shadows a light that will not, in the end, be overcome.
May we all find true joy – peace, connection, love and light – on this mysterious night, when God comes to us to make his blessings flow, and to rule the world with grace and truth. Joy to the world – the Lord is come!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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