Hark The Herald Angels Sing #4
Christmas Eve
INTRODUCTION:
Here we are. Christmas Eve. We come to celebrate the birth of
Christ. And as the great old hymn says: “Christ Is Born In Bethlehem.” And here
we stand, ready to celebrate His birth. This is the night of a story that is so
new, so fresh that it seems to electrify the air with anticipation and
expectation.
And yet it is a story and message which is so old that it is
hard to hear it without slipping into automatic response mode. And yet,
somewhere along the way, usually when we least expect it, this story is born
again in our hearts; Faith and Hope are birthed once more in our spirit. And
with Faith and Hope filling our spirits, the world may not make sense, but our
place in the world begins to.
With Faith and Hope we can face anything because the baby born
tonight, Emmanuel, God with us, means we are not alone. The universe is not
some black hole sucking the life out of us, it is home to God the Creator who
loves us dearly, so dearly that he sent His only Son in the most vulnerable way
possible, as a baby born into a family just like ours and a world just like
ours. He became one of us and walked where we walk.
He came to break down walls. He came to break down social and
political and religious barriers. He came to free us from sin and death. He
came to be our Savior. This babe, this
child of Mary.
I. NATIVITY:
A. A Church in a County Seat town put on a live nativity every year
about two weeks before Christmas. They had the perfect location downtown on the
square across from the clock tower. Everyone who drove into the business
district went right by the front lawn of the church. There were slums, and
street people who slept in the park a few blocks away, but you couldn’t see
them from the church.
They set the nativity up on the lawn on the designated evening
after dark and flooded it with carefully placed spotlights. For anyone driving
around the square it was a dazzling sight, a Christmas card come to life. When
word got out people came from miles around, from all over the city and the
suburbs.
The first one was very simple, just a few bales of hay stacked
up to give some semblance of a stable, a couple of sheep and two sets of
parents with small babies who took turns portraying the holy family. But it was
a huge success and they continued the next year and the year after that.
As the crowds grew each year the nativity became a bigger and
bigger production with Shepherds, wise men, an inn keeper, King Herod, a small
flock of sheep with lambs for the children to pet, a donkey for Mary to ride,
cows with calves, chickens, ducks, and geese. Thanks to special arrangements
made through the local Shriners, there were even three genuine two-hump camels
to carry the wise men as they followed the star.
The star? It rolled along on a track which had been laid out
across the roof line of the church. They rented doves one year to perch on top
of the stable and coo, but they couldn’t get them to coo on cue and they
discovered that the pigeons that flew down from the clock tower could play the
part just as well, and they were free, so that was the end of rented doves.
The latest addition had been a 40-voice
angel choir with the choir director playing the part of the archangel Gabriel.
The choir director loved to dress up in his flowing white robes and magnificent
wings with gold glitter on the tips. He suggested that he carry a flaming sword
when he made the announcement to the Shepherds, but the director thought that
would be too much.
However, they did give him a special halo with soft blue light
which made him stand out from the others whose halos were a much dimmer white.
One of the guys in the tenor section said he looked like he was announcing a
K-Mart special.
The angel choir sang from an elevated stage erected on the far
edge of the lawn in front of the church’s three large air conditioning units.
Surrounded by clouds painted on cardboard, and raised and lowered
hydraulically, it made for a wonderful dramatic moment when their lights came
on and they appeared out of the darkness singing “It Came Upon The
Midnight Clear.”
For the grand finale at the end of each half-hour performance
they formed themselves into a giant living Christmas tree and sang “Joy To
The World.”
One year, at their late summer planning meeting, the director
announced that they needed a sign, a big billboard somewhere downtown, perhaps
visible from the freeway, with a picture of the nativity and an invitation for
everyone to come and see it at the Church. He said it would be a good way of
expanding their ministry and it would be great publicity for the church.
The senior pastor said that she knew a retired sign painter in
the congregation and offered to ask him to paint the sign. Someone else offered
to make arrangements to rent a billboard and to talk to some of the wealthier
members about paying for it. Everyone thought it was a wonderful idea.
At their next meeting in mid-October it was
reported that plans were well under way and the sign would be ready just after
Thanksgiving. The retired sign painter had responded with great enthusiasm to
the idea of painting the nativity on a billboard for all of the city to see. He
said it had been a life-long dream to paint a sign that would be a witness to
his faith.
The sign painter asked for only one consideration: “a free hand in painting the nativity
as the Holy Spirit led,” was the way he put it. Of course, they were
glad to agree. They had seen his work and they knew there was no one better in
the sign painting business. They also agreed that no one was to see the sign
until the unveiling on the first Sunday of Advent.
As Advent approached there was an air of excitement in the church
like they had never experienced before. It was the same in all the meetings in
preparation for the Nativity. When word got around about the billboard everyone
wanted to be in the nativity. They had to create several more roles: Shepherd
boys and Shepherd girls, the innkeeper was to have children hanging on his arm
this year and a wife doing chores in the background, there would be a dozen
more angels and the wise men would have servants following along behind the
camels. They rented several more animals including a goat and a flock of
peacocks. It would add more atmosphere, they said.
The unveiling was scheduled for noon, after the last worship
service, on the first Sunday of Advent. The church was packed and, after the
benediction, the choir, dressed in their nativity costumes, led the whole
congregation out the door, around the square and down a couple of blocks to
where the billboard was located near the downtown off ramp next to the freeway.
It was one of the best advertising locations in the city. Two hundred thousand
people would see the sign every week.
The mayor of the city was to assist the pastor and the nativity
director in the unveiling. The retired sign painter was standing by. It would
be his moment of triumph. A newspaper photographer was to take his picture
standing in front of the sign after it was unveiled. One of the television
stations had even sent a reporter and a camera crew, and of course, several
people in the congregation had brought video cameras. Everybody had a sense
that this was to be an historic moment.
The ceremonies started with a brief speech by the nativity
director, followed by a few words of greeting from the mayor and a prayer of
consecration led by the pastor. Then came the moment they had all been waiting
for. The choir began to sing “Away In A Manger” softly in the
background. The director signaled for the cloth that was covering the sign to
be raised. They all craned their necks upwards and waited.
And then they saw it. At first there was a kind of quiet murmur
that rippled through the crowd, then gasps, followed by a din of wonderment
which grew into what sounded like a roar of disapproval. They couldn’t believe
what they were seeing! It looked nothing at all like their beautiful nativity.
The sign painter had painted a simple cardboard shack with a
contemporary Joseph and Mary who looked very much like the street people who
lived in the park a few blocks from the church. Baby Jesus was wrapped in rags
and lying in a tattered disposable diaper box.
There were no Shepherds or Wise Men, no angels with gold-tipped
wings. There was only a bag lady and a cop who had come by on his horse. They
were both kneeling in front of the diaper box and the babe appeared to be
smiling at them. Underneath the picture were painted the words:
“This will be a sign for you:
you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
Of course, everyone put the best face on
things that they could. The director said something about the church’s ministry
to the poor. What else were they going to say? They couldn’t say that it was a
mistake. They were on live television, in front of the mayor and the whole
city. But it was difficult to hide their disappointment.
Everyone was gone within five minutes of the unveiling. The
retired sign painter was left alone with the television reporter to try to
explain his modern rendering of the nativity. But even he was beginning to
wonder if he had made a mistake.
His wife, his children and his grandchildren had all left with
everyone else. He stood there and wondered if they’d ever forgive him for this
embarrassment to the family. Perhaps they would never go to church with him
again.
It was on Monday morning, just after the church secretary came
to work, about eight o’clock, that the phone started to ring. There were not
only calls from within the city, there were calls from all over the country,
newspaper reporters, disc jockeys, talk show hosts; everyone wanted to hear
more about the sign. And the calls kept coming all week. It seemed like everyone
in the nation knew about the Church’s unusual sign.
The retired sign painter became an overnight celebrity. By
Thursday he had been on two national talk shows and was scheduled for Oprah the
next week.
The following Sunday the church was packed to overflowing at
both services. The pastor was so taken aback that by the second service she had
discarded her sermon notes and was talking about the miracle that God had
worked among them.
She suggested that while the nativity was a wonderful ministry,
perhaps God was calling them to a new ministry with the poor and homeless.
Perhaps they could start a shelter in the basement of the church and maybe they
could help the Habitat folks build and renovate houses in the slums of their
city. When she was finished preaching, the choir sang “Joy To The
World” as they led the congregation out the door, around the square, and
down the two blocks to the sign. There they stopped and looked again at the
child who smiled out at them from the rags and cardboard shack.
From somewhere near the front of the congregation there came the
soft sound of a single voice. It was the choir director, and he was singing:
“What child is this
who laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?’
Whom angels greet with
anthems sweet, while Shepherds watch are keeping?”
And then the choir and the whole congregation joined with
him, singing with all of their might:
“This,
this is Christ the King, whom Shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring
him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.”
CONCLUSION:
This “babe, the son of Mary” WAS and IS the Son of God, the King of
Kings.
He wasn’t born into royalty.
There was no fancy castle or crown. He was born to parents who would soon be
homeless and running for their lives. He was born in a stable and laid in a
manger because there was no crib. There were no royal attendants, no crown, no
servants, just a few shepherds and some stargazers from the east. There were no
royal robes, just swaddling clothes.
Yet, this IS Christ the
King, Emmanuel, God with us. There was No Room At The Inn that night but there
is more than enough room in our hearts. Christ Is Born In Bethlehem.
He came for us; as one of us; to deliver us and that’s what makes this
night so holy.
This is the Word of the Lord
for this day.
________________________________
Bibliography
1. John E. Sumwalt