Kneeling in Darkness

The year was 1849. Drawn by the promise of riches, the California Gold Rush had split families and left many living in California worse off than they had been. Drawn by the promise of jobs, industrialization had split families and left many living in cities worse off than they had been. Tensions were rising as the prospect of the Southern states ceding from the Union over slavery nudged closer to reality. Destabilized, frustrated, unsettled all described our nation. The world was dark.

It was almost Christmas as Rev. Edward Sears penned the words, “It Came upon a Midnight Clear…” describing angels bending near the earth singing, “Peace on the earth, good will to all, from heaven’s all-gracious King, the world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing.”

The carol is one of few Christmas carols that does not take us to the manger. Instead, it describes the world as weary, life’s load as crushing with painful, slow steps.

“O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.” In the darkness, stop and listen.

The third verse has been restored in our new hymnals. Most of the time it is left out of the carol. Its words acknowledge that our world has long suffered sin and strife. Almost 2 millennia before Rev. Sears wrote the words to this carol, drawn by the decree of Caesar Augustus, families returned to the home of their ancestry. Roman soldiers, occupying the land, marched in the streets. Census officers collected the taxes. People pushed and shoved their way through the crowded streets throughout the days. And at night, many were left sleeping in them. Destabilized, frustrated, unsettled all described our world. The world was dark.

“O hush the noise and cease the strife to hear the angels sing.” In the darkness, stop and listen.

The year is 2016. Syria, Russia, China, Venezuela, Britain and the European Union, Israel and Palestine, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Korea,…the list goes on. Destabilized, frustrated, unsettled…yes, the world is dark.

“And ever o’er its Babel sounds the blessed angels sing.” In the darkness, stop and listen.

And hear the cries of the oppressed. Hear the hurt of battered women and children. Hear the pleas of victims of war and crime and cruelty. Hear the whispers of the lonely, the elderly, the alienated, the failure. Hear the moans of the millions desperate for water, whose stomachs are empty.

When Rev. Sears sat down to write “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, he pulled out another poem he had written titled, “Calm on the Listening Ear.” The final verse of the poem did not make it into the carol. “This day shall Christian tongues be mute, and Christian hearts be cold?”

In the darkness, stop and listen.

No radio in the background. No television barking from the next room. No Candy Crush or Paper Toss on your phone. No Facebook posts.

Advent is a season for being silent so that we can hear and as we listen, we hear what God has to say to us.

“Come, and he will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths,” calls the prophet Isaiah, “let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

Come, even in the darkness of the world, to kneel at the manger of the Light of the World.

If we are honest with ourselves, sometimes we prefer noise. It distracts us. Hustle and bustle, distractions and noise fill our thoughts so that we don’t have to hear and we don’t have to kneel.

Because when we listen, God teaches us his ways so that we may walk in his paths, the path of love so deep that he humbles himself to be born a vulnerable infant and sacrifices himself to be crucified a disgraced criminal.

William Barclay, in his Commentary on Matthew, writes, “Jesus is the one person who can tell us what God is like, and what God means us to be. In Jesus alone we see what God is like, and we see what [we] ought to be like. Before Jesus came, [people] had only vague and shadowy, and often quite wrong, ideas about God; they could only at best guess and grope; but Jesus could say, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” In Jesus we see the love, the compassion, the mercy, the seeking heart, the purity of God as nowhere else in all the world. With the coming of Jesus the time of guessing is gone, and the time of certainty is come….Jesus came to tell us the truth about God and the truth about ourselves.”

So, come, let us kneel in the darkness of this world and listen. Amen.