Today’s Scripture Reading (December
24, 2014): Psalm 63
Tonight is
the night for angels. This is the night that we celebrate the angels breaking
the silence in a small village named Bethlehem. It was on this night in 1865
that Pastor Phillips Brooks was half a world away from his congregation in
Philadelphia. He was tired, burned out and discouraged. The American Civil war
had taken its toll on him. He opposed slavery, but the idea of Americans
killing Americans was an idea that Brooks could not understand. And then in
April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to slavery and support for
the black vote resulted in his assassination. Phillips Brooks was eloquent as
he spoke at Lincoln’s funeral, but it was the last straw. Brooks was done. And
by the end of the year, Brooks was in Palestine. He expressed a desire on
Christmas Eve to ride up to Bethlehem - despite the warnings he received that indicated
that thieves made that ride a dangerous one. But Brooks ignored the warnings
and arrived in Bethlehem as the sun was setting. It was Christmas Eve. The town
lay silent and still. And Brooks remembered the events that had taken place in
these Palestinian hills over 1800 years earlier. It would be this memory that
three years later would turn into the Christmas Carol “O Little Town of
Bethlehem” and the line “While mortals sleep, the angels keep, Their
watch of wondering love.”
Angels are such prevalent characters in the Christmas drama. And yet, in
the past I have wanted to play with that image. So I asked a question - Did
angels really sing? The Luke text strongly suggests that the answer to that
question is no. The angels spoke the good news. Oh, it is quite possible that
there was excessive dancing that accompanied the announcement, but no singing.
At least, there was no singing on the part of the angels.
It could even be argued that angels simply do not sing – or, if they do
sing, it is because they are joining in on a song that we are singing. It is
not a hill that I am willing to die on, but I do find it an interesting
proposition. What if the song is our private language with God? What if that is
the reason why music seems to be the universal language, and why we get so attached
to the idea of the song – and why singing has always been part of the way in
which we all get to participate in the community of God. What if our songs are a
language that only we can speak – and angels can only try to imitate the way
that we communicate with our God?
David says he sings in the shadow of God’s wings. His singing was the
automatic reaction of a man who realized that God was his help. His song was
his cry in a language that was reserved for communication between him and his
God. On that hill in Bethlehem a little more than 2000 years ago I think that
there was singing – but it might not have been done by a choir of angels, but
rather by a group of shepherds, communicating with their God under his wings
(and the wings of his angels.)
(Originally Published on December 24, 2012)
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Matthew 1
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