The Sound of Joy

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas. Really? Kroger parking, Target near-brawls, lines of cars creep along…

The gap between ideal and real is the noise that threatens to drown our joy. Our hearts long for children laughing, people passing meeting smile after smile, and our ears hear children whining, people passing racing past every aisle.

In 1951 the song Silver Bells was written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the movie The Lemon Drop Kid, a Christmas comedy starring Bob Hope, telling a story of betting at the track, gangsters, jail time and making bond at Christmas, all accompanied by the sounds of silver bells. Which, originally, were tinkle bells, until Jay Livingston shared the song with his wife, who wisely shared with him that most people know a slang use of the word tinkle…that might not be the best association for their song. So, it became Silver Bells, Bing Crosby recorded it, and the gap between real and ideal closed.

Let’s be real. This morning, I woke to a sticky den floor – not just a little bit sticky, little sprayed dots of glue-like dried substance that had to be scrubbed before they travelled… but no one spilled anything. I washed the dog, and as soon as he was dry and I stood up, he threw up all over the bathroom floor and rug. The hopes and fears of all the Christmas expectations are being tested, for sure. Our perfect Christmas celebration is as fragile as the antique glass ball on the tree that belonged to…well, we don’t remember who it belonged to, but it’s old.

And so is the journey to Bethlehem. It has been made thousands of times. And yet, the gap continues. Because the ideal became real. God came to earth so that the real could move closer to the ideal. God came to earth so we would know that God is well aware of the gap and is not satisfied to leave it.

In the midst of Roman occupation marching everyone to their ancestral city to be taxed. In the midst of a man who is shamed by the growing belly of his wife-to-be. In the midst of a people who are in need of repentance. Emmanuel comes, God-with-us is born.

Ring-a-ling, hear them ring, soon it will be Christmas day! Soon, joy will be heard over strife.

I have thought a lot about what joy sounds like over the weeks of Advent. It sounds like children giggling…like laughing so hard you can hardly breathe. It sounds like the poetic promises of God that hunger and thirst shall be no more. “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; for the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted.” It sounds like the quiet of contentment. It sounds like the moment a child is born and time seems to stand still. After what seems an eternity, the tiny baby sucks the air of our world into tiny lungs, and suddenly, into the chill of the air a cry bursts forth. A flood of joy erupts for the presence of this one who breaths our air and shares our world.

And on Christmas, we gather, we worship, we eat, we give, we get, seeking to experience joy. Seeking to hear the angels’ song to the shepherds in our hearts, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.”

There is a great German word that many think is untranslatable, “Weinachtsstimmung.” It refers to the mood of Christmas. Weinachten is Christmas Eve, stimmung is not as easily translated. One novelist described it as, “ the ‘something’ which can united an immense assembly of strangers in one bond of enthusiasm, of joy, or of sorrow. It is the longed-for guest at all festivities, the silent companion in every hour of general mourning, and at Christmas – why, at Christmas it is everything, everywhere….” – I.A.R. Wylie

Stimmung – the emotion that is the longed-for guest in times of joy, the silent companion in every hour of mourning, and constant presence at Christmas. Perhaps stimmung is the deep and abiding assurance that God knows the gap between ideal and real in us and comes to us to accompany us across the chasm.

Rev. Rex Knowles tells about a Saturday afternoon just before Christmas when real and ideal swirled around him, and he was assured of Weinachtsstimmung. His wife had gone shopping and left all four children at home with him. Now, different times he has told the story with different slants on his afternoon plans. Sometimes, he has said he was anxiously working on Sunday’s sermon…other times he has portrayed himself on the couch dozing to football. Whatever he was doing, his children interrupted, “Daddy, Daddy, we have a play to put on. Do you want to see it?”

Not particularly. But he knew his responsibility as a father and positioned himself on the living room couch, where he immediately noticed a shoebox on the end of the piano bench containing an illuminated flash light wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Rex, age six, came in wearing his dad’s bathrobe and carrying a mop handle. He sat on the piano bench and looked at the flashlight. Nancy, age ten, draped a sheet over her head, stood behind Rex, and began, “I’m Mary and this boy is Joseph. Usually in this play Joseph stands up and Mary sits down, but Mary sitting down is taller than Joseph standing up so we thought it looked better this way.”

Enter Trudy, age four, at a full run. There were pillowcases over her arms. She spread them wide and said only, “I’m an angel.”

Then came Ann, age eight, in her mother’s high heels and walking like she was a wise man riding a camel. On a pillow she carried three items, undoubtedly gold, frankincense, and myrrh. She walked across the room and announced, “I’m all three wise men. I bring precious gifts: gold, circumstance, and mud.”

This is the sound of joy – that God comes as we offer our gold, our circumstance, and even our mud. God comes. Those words are the sound of joy. God comes. Amen.