Artwork by He Qi, "Angel and the Shepherds,"
featured here with licensed copyright permission from the artist
This morning’s Scripture takes us right into that night – the night that Jesus is born, the night we sing about in It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.[1] We’ve been in the world of that night for all of Advent – the world of the Gospel of Luke – the world of that song – the world into which Jesus is born.
And we know it is a hard world – a world of layered power where the powerful-few prosper, while the struggling-many eke out a bare subsistence living. It’s a world of imperial occupation, violence, and hierarchy. And in the Gospel of Luke – God enters into that world in the very lowest, humblest places.
Mary and Joseph, like so many in their world, are poor. While Mary is great with child, they are commanded by the Roman Empire – with all the people – to travel to be registered – part of an Imperial census. The powers like to keep track of the people. And that’s no small thing. As one writer points out: In their day, as in our own, “finding oneself on government lists can have consequences: military conscription, investigation by immigration officials, taxation.”[2] In this story, it’s mainly about taxation. The powers want to keep the tax rolls current so that they can keep extracting as much as they can out of the people. In their day, for peasants and artisans (like Joseph), taxes imposed by the several layers of Imperial and local authorities would have consumed more than 50% of their income.[3] And then there were the temple taxes.
So Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem, and as the story goes, there is no room for them “in the inn.” What has traditionally been translated as “an inn” is more like a guest room – an “upper room” – in someone’s house.[4] Priority would have gone to those higher up in the hierarchy – and even Mary’s need as she neared labor would not have dislodged the more powerful from their room.[5] So Mary and Joseph find themselves unhoused. They likely are eventually given shelter in the part of someone’s house that was more like a barn – where the animals were kept. Mary gives birth and lays Jesus in a manger – a feeding trough.
In the world of that night,
God enters into the humblest places
among those who have been held low.
And... there are shepherds – shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. Now these shepherds would have had an even more humble place in the structures of power. They are just about the bottom rung. They would have been “scorned as shiftless, grazing their flocks on other people’s land.”[6] They would have been deemed unclean, living as they do with animals.
We find the shepherds during the night watch – the “bleakest and most dangerous time on the hillsides.”[7] Out there in the fields, they live a life “wrapped in danger,” protecting their flocks from both marauding humans and beasts.[8]
We join them in their night watch – in the hills over Bethlehem. Somewhere in Bethlehem that night – an exhausted new mother lays her newborn in a feeding trough. Throughout the town, parents spend the sleepless night wondering where they will find food the next day to feed their children. Others wake in the night to care and tend the gravely ill. The footsteps of soldier-patrols sound in the streets, the Empire keeping its watchful eye. So many folks who have been displaced to come and participate in the Empire’s census, they sleep wherever they can – streets, alleyways, barns. And out in the fields, the shepherds keep watch over their flocks.
This Scripture brings us into the heart of this night – and so does our song, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, as angels bending near the earth, sing “o’er all the weary world” – above “the sad and lowly plains.” As “the world in solemn stillness lay” ... the angels sing.
The choir sings:
1 It came upon the midnight clear,
that glorious song of old,
from angels bending near the earth,
to touch their harps of gold:
“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.
2 Still through the cloven skies they come,
with peaceful wings unfurled,
and still their heavenly music floats
o’er all the weary world:
above its sad and lowly plains
they bend on hovering wing,
and ever o’er its Babel sounds
the blessed angels sing.
The sermon resumes:
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear brings us into that night long ago. But it doesn’t leave us there. From that night, the carol follows the angel’s song as it continues to resound down through the years – all the way to us. We know the longing and ache of that night in our world too.
In 1849, Edmund Sears wrote It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, in a nation in between wars.[9] The Mexican-American war had just ended – and the injustice and strife that would culminate in the American Civil War was brewing. He wrote during a time when human beings were held as slaves. And, Sears wrote the song in a time of personal struggle – what they called then “deep melancholy.”
He wrote plainly of humanity’s longing and ache –
of “two thousand years of wrong” –
of woes and strife, the world suffering long –
the angels sing, but we at war
hear not the message that they bring.
The ache of that night and our own.
Mary and Joseph are unhoused – no room for them in the inn or in anyone’s guest room. Mary and Joseph and Jesus will soon be refugees – as King Herod hears of this baby born a king – and sets out to kill all the male children – just to make sure – and so this family – and others, I imagine, flee to Egypt – joining displaced peoples down through the generations seeking shelter and a home. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus live in – and struggle to survive in – a world of colonial, imperial power-over.
As we near Christmas Eve this year, in our world, we know that somewhere in the night, folks will be living outside – in alleyways, under bridges.
As we near Christmas Eve this year, we know that somewhere in the night, refugee parents will worry into the wee hours. Having fled oppressive governments, they will worry that another government will come and send them back or split them up in mass deportations. Some of us have been catching Zoom workshops here and there, trying to learn together how we can help those who live in fear of deportation. Did you know – I learned this this week – that most, the majority of folks who are in this country without legal status – or who have temporary status that can be revoked – most of them live with family members who DO have legal status.
So, those who work with refugees tell us that one of the things we can do is to help connect folks with services to help plan – to help families plan what to do when part of a family is detained and deported and part of a family remains – to help plan who will care for the kids if the parents are deported – and what to do if the parents are taken when the kids are at school.
As we near Christmas Eve, we know that, somewhere in the night, parents will spend sleepless nights in worry.
All around the world, really, somewhere in the night,
· in Ukraine, folks will pray that bombs will cease
· in Israel, families will pray that those held hostage will be able to come home
· in Gaza, folks will continue to pray for shelter, and access to food, water, and medical care
· in Syria, those who have been liberated from a tyrant will wonder, “Is this true? Will we actually be able to live free?
And all around the world, somewhere in the night, all of us everywhere – ordinary folks will hold the ordinary, tender cares of our life: we will tend those who are sick; we will mourn those we miss; we will struggle with the challenges of our day.
In the Gospel of Luke, in the stories of that night, God enters into the lowest places, and comes alongside the most vulnerable, and makes God’s home there. God makes God’s home with the poor and the displaced, with the sick and those broken in spirit, with the hungry and the stranger, with the prisoner and the outcast – with “all those whose backs are up against a wall.”[10] Those are the ones who are at the very heart of the Gospel of Luke – at the heart of this good news that these angels bring. It's as if the writer of the Gospel of Luke has Zechariah and Mary and the shepherds sing out to those who are held low –
“Listen, Listen: Those angels are singing for you.”
The choir sings:
3 Yet with the woes of sin and strife
the world has suffered long;
beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;
and we at war on earth hear not
the tidings that they bring;
O, hush the noise and cease the strife
to hear the angels sing!
4 And you, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow,
look now, for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing:
O, rest beside the weary road,and hear the angels sing.
The sermon resumes:
We know the ache of that night. But here’s the thing: The angels sing into that night – and the world is never the same.
Somewhere in that night, Elizabeth is still awake – remember her? – Elizabeth and Zechariah? – she’s still awake, nursing her son. Zechariah – now, Zechariah is sound asleep. And Elizabeth thinks, “Thank God. I mean after that 9 months of silence, the man can’t stop talking. All about angels singing.. the dawn from on high... knowledge of salvation... tender mercy. He just goes on and on and on.”
And somewhere in that night, the baby in the feeding trough stirs, as Joseph snores away, and Mary thinks about strange angel words, shepherds bringing glad tidings, this lovely newborn child – and she ponders all these things in her heart.
You see – all these signs that the angels have been bringing – they are coming to life in that night. God is on the move. Zechariah, you and Elizabeth will have a child in your old age. Mary, you will bear a child who will be called the Son of God. What the angels sing is coming to life.
And now to the shepherds, “Fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy for all the people – for unto you is born this day a Savior, God’s own anointed, Sovereign over all creation – one whose tender mercy is more powerful than all the powers.”
And suddenly, there’s not just one angel, but a multitude of the heavenly host singing – and the shepherds join in too – as all creation gives back the song they hear the angels sing.
All through these Advent stories, angels appear, the people are afraid, the angels bring earth-turning tidings of great joy.
And then, the angel’s message calls for our response. Zechariah, with his priestly privilege, emerges from a holy hush, and defers to his wife. Mary ponders the strange message, and then rises up and proclaims that God is bringing down the powers, lifting up those held down low, filling the hungry with good things – and says, “Yes, God, do all that in me.”
From somewhere in that night, down through the generations, all the way down to this moment, the angels have never stopped singing. And the good news we hear in the ache of our day, calls for our response.
The angels and Zechariah and Mary and these shepherds all sing together: In a world of hurt and ache, God is turning the world rightside up.
Will we join the song?
From our places of relative power and privilege, are we willing to be turned rightside up? Are we willing to get busy in the world so that hurt can find healing, so that wars shall cease, so that all people can live free?
We have had all Advent to sit beside the weary road.
With Mary and Zechariah and Elizabeth and a bunch of scraggly shepherds,
will we now rise up?
With all creation and with all that we are,
will we now give back the song that even now the angels sing?
The choir sings:
5 For lo, the days are hastening on,
by prophets seen of old,
when with the ever-circling years
shall come the time foretold,
when peace shall over all the earth
its ancient splendors fling,
and the whole world give back the song
which now the angels sing.
Sermon © 2024 Scott Clark
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear is in the public domain.
[1] For general background on this text and world of the Gospel of Luke, see R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. ix (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Sharon Ringe, Luke (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).
[2] Ringe, p.41.
[3] Id.
[4] Culpepper, p.63; Ringe, p.41.
[5] Ringe, p.42.
[6] Culpepper, p.65.
[7] Id.
[8] Ringe, p.42.
[9] See https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-it-came-upon-a-midnight-clear ; https://www.sufjanchristmas.com/blog/2021/12/5/it-came-upon-a-midnight-clear
[10] Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited.
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