Epiphany B
“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” was first published in the Christian Register, on December 29, 1849.
It is the first American Christmas carol and was written by the Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears, who trained at Harvard and practiced as a Unitarian minister in Massachusetts.
It is one of the first hymn/carols to emphasize the social implications of the angels’ message –that of achieving peace on earth and good will to all – that is peace and good will toward our fellow humanity in the midst of social difficulty.
“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” was written at a point in American history that was characterized by unrest –Americans were “beneath the crushing load”: there was escalating tension between the North and South erupting a decade later in the Civil War; New England was experiencing growing pains and social upheaval as a result of the local industrial revolution; and the frantic “forty-niner” gold rush to California was underway. This carol addresses this context– and it urges Americans in 1849 to slow down and listen once again to the singing of the angels.
The final stanza is the great verse of hopeful optimism, spoken through prophets and angels for centuries – a hope-filled image of God’s vision for creation, for humanity... the promised picture is beautiful...“the time foretold, when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendours fling, and all the world give back the song, which now the angels sing.”
The Gospel reading that we read today is set a couple years after Jesus’ birth. The wise arrive from distant lands to pay homage to Jesus, bringing with them gifts fit for royalty. The land in which they arrive is rift with tension: the occupying Roman regime vs. the occupied Judeans –both with political hierarchies in which people are killing for power; there are separate laws, various religious ordinances; lobbying parties; zealots taking matters into their own hands; unsafe roads as the dispossessed turn to robbery; major centres are seeing and trading with strange peoples from outside their lands.
King Herod is scared of losing his position and the story continues from where we ended reading today, with Herod seeking to kill “this One” whom foreigners have deemed a King. Joseph takes Mary and Jesus and they flee to Egypt. Cue the music... ”And you, beneath the crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps; and slow”.
Fast forward from Jesus’ time, through 1849 America, to Jan.1st, 2012.
“beneath the crushing load”...a statement that needs no further explanation as to how it accurately describes the present day. The Rev. Sears’ carol invites us: “look now...rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!”
Most of us did that very thing over Christmas in the singing of Christmas carols, in the coming and hearing the nativity story again. We entered into the mystery of God becoming incarnate –human –choosing to love in a new radical way. We revisited the simplicity of love and relationship through the story of the birth of a baby. Hope and joy was once again birthed into the world. Most of us get it...love...hope...joy...when it comes packaged in a baby, every baby. ...but in particular, this baby...God
“It Came upon the Midnight Clear”....and that changes everything.
My oldest once told me that I do the things I do because I am paid to do them. If I wasn’t a pastor I would speak, act, and live differently. I wouldn’t care so much for other people, animals, or the planet. I wouldn’t send time worrying, praying, helping, supporting, sewing, collecting, organizing, delivering, calling, writing, tithing...et cetera. You know, this is simply not true, and I was saddened - because my job hinders her from seeing and believing that the angels’ song, has changed everything: it has changed me.
Growing up, I remember seeing how the angels’ song affected by parents –it meant tithing although they made less than they would have on welfare; it meant going out of the way to help neighbours without payment; it meant recycling, reusing, repurposing; it meant significant attention to creation and resources; it meant not having what everyone else seemed to have; it meant talking respectfully and not about others in a negative way; it meant trips to church, concerts, art galleries, museums, parks, ancient relatives –places where one might hear, learn, or gain a new perspective; it meant praying and learning to read via the King James Bible; my dad wore bells on his boots to “make a joyful noise to the Lord”; the village ladies met from house to house for Bible Study; hours were spent volunteering in the community. ...but do you know how the angels’ song was most seen...it was lived in attitude; ...love...with immense and continual hope...and underlying both was a simple joy in being.
In Jan. 2012, “lo, the days are hastening on” –they’ve been hastened by prophets through the years, by those working for justice, by those who share love in a plethora of ways, by those who have paused to hear the angels and picked up their song of Good News.
The trouble is, it seems at times, that the hastening has slowed and in some places is close to stopping. Darkness seems to be growing, spreading, and poisoning. And the reality of this falls on our shoulders. Not only do we have to live in such a world, we, through baptism, have been commissioned to be the light that fights the spread of darkness. That means that the continuing of the song so that all will hear, all will learn to sing it, is our responsibility. At this change of year, when our minds turn to reflection and rethinking our actions for coming days, let us pause to reflect on those who in our own lives have sung the song, who have taught and lived the song –and then go and do likewise.
For 2012 be resolute in singing the angels’ song. Have a Good News attitude. Love....with immense and continual hope...encouraged by an underlying simple joy in being.
-----------for only then is there a chance that darkness will be dispelled and days will quickly hasten to “the time foretold, when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendours fling, and all the world give back the song which now the angels sing.”
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