Grace Congregational UCC

“Singing Our Christmas Song”
Isaiah 9:2- 7
Luke 2:1-20

December 24, 2006 (10:30p) - Kim M. Henning

John Buchanon is the well-know pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Buchanon is a prominent preacher. He is verbally elegant. He knows how to tell a story. He is a solid communicator of the Word of God. Last year during the season of Advent, Buchanon announced that on Christmas Day the choir would be singing John Rutter’s “Gloria”

After worship, someone came to Buchanon and said, “I have a question. What time will the choir be singing on Christmas Day?” Well, Buchanon answered, “We have worship at 9:30 a.m. and eleven o’clock.” The choir will be at both services. “No,” the man said to Buchanon. “I don’t want to have to listen to a sermon; I just want the music. What time do they sing?”

And so Buchanon sheepishly gave him a time that would essentially come after the sermon.” Reflecting upon that incident, Buchanon said, “It was sobering. I pondered that conversation in my heart all week. But he had a point, of course.”

Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the great thinkers of the Christian faith echoed the same sentiment. “On Christmas,” Niebuhr said, “my wife and I prefer to go to a church where there is no sermon, where the liturgy and music carried the message, not the preacher. No preacher is up to it,” he said. “Music, art, drama are far better than a sermon on Christmas.”

It is difficult to be a preacher on Christmas. How can the spoken word compare to the sung word? It happened here at Grace Congregational Church last Sunday when our choir and the orchestra performed so majestically. More than one person said after worship, “Now I am ready for Christmas to arrive.” (And I thought to myself, no one said that following the sermon I preached the Sunday before)

Music. Will someone sing to us? Our call to worship was from the Gospel of John. John tells the story of Jesus using metaphors. In John, Jesus said, “Everyone who comes to me will never be thirsty again.” John is always communicating ‘deeper than words.’ You have to feel them. You have to breathe them. You have to digest them, and think about them, and let them swim around inside you. John writes like a musician composes a piece of music .....reaching for the human heart because that is where God wants to take up residence—in the human heart.

In John, Jesus introduces us to Jesus using a beautiful symphony of words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Do you feel the depth with which John speaks of Jesus?

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” And then comes that magnificent line, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

On Monday evening about 15 of us went Christmas caroling. It was about six-thirty. When we walked into Hamilton Home three were watching television. Otherwise the hallways looked most empty, they were dimly lit. Supper was over. Most, I suspect, were already in bed.

We started singing. It was amazing. My preaching has never done what the singing did that evening. Residents, barely moving, walking with walkers came to their doors. And they sang. One of the residents started moving like this.....like something was stirring inside her. This building that felt dark, this building that felt lonely, came alive. What if we hadn’t sung that evening? Darkness would have won again.

And then, there was a woman in the hall way who was in a wheel chair. She did not appear to be cognizant of the world around her. She appeared lost within herself. Her chin against her chest. Her head nearly resting on the arm rest. But when we sang.....

she lifted her head some

she tapped her fingers–like this

and then she started moving her lips

and then you could even hear singing.

Where did that come from? Where had those words been hidden?

Well, you’ve probably heard enough talking for one evening. You needn’t worry. I’m almost through.

But tonight.....listen to the angels sing. Isn’t it glorious—angels singing the glory of God. Listen to the angels.

Listen to the shepherds sing. Its been said many times that those shepherds would have been anywhere but in a church choir on a Sunday morning. Listen to their raspy voices that sound angelic.

Listen to Mary who is probably not singing, but is humming as mothers hum. One heart to another heart.

I don’t know if you’re a singer or not. If you’re not a singer, chances are that once upon a time you were teased into not singing. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Because if only tonight, I would just hope that if you feel something inside, maybe you might find yourself tapping.... I know it’s hard, if you’re not a singer. But I would just home for a small voice, from you—maybe some humming, perhaps. And if you could muster just a bit more courage, maybe you might even trying singing.....it doesn’t have to be the loudest voice in the choir, just loud enough for God to hear.