Zephaniah 3:14-20; December 15, 2024; Third Sunday of Advent
“Sing loud,
for on that day it shall be said:
do not fear, do not let your hands grow weak.
For I will bring you home,
and will make you renowned
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes,
says the LORD.” — Zephaniah 3
My all-time favorite Christmas carol is “O Holy Night.” From Nat King Cole’s version to our own here at Grace on Christmas Eve, there is something it does to me whenever I hear it. Maybe it’s the nostalgia. Maybe it’s the melody. Maybe it’s the lyrical and theological content:
“A thrill of hope- the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!”
This idea that hope will come to a weary world. That our fortunes will be restored. And that with it, we will all fall to our knees and hear the angels sing… it takes my breath away. And I bet it does it to you too. And I imagine it’s because it’s relevant. Honest. And a message so desperately needed in this world that at times can feel so hopeless and breathless. So weary and anxious. With the constant drumbeat of news that we hear and read, as drones now hover above our heads from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
What’s that about, huh? Paranoia stalks the land!
It’s probably not surprising then that my second favorite Christmas carol is, sentimentally speaking: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” A night-sky free of machinery. Of drones, of storms, and fears.
“The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing…
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
with painful steps and slow,
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing!
For look now! glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.”
The words to this beautiful carol were written by a man named Edmund Hamilton Sears. Do you know his story? In 1849, after seven years away from home, Sears suffered a mental breakdown and returned to Wayland. Wayland, Massachusetts…Wayland, being as appropriate a name as ever…. And there in Wayland, he wrote “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”
Wikipedia, the source of all sources, cites that Edmund, a part-time preacher, wrote the carol’s lyrics “during a period of personal melancholy and stillness of soul, with news of revolution in Europe and the United States’ war with Mexico fresh in his mind. And so, he portrayed the world as dark, full of “sin and strife”, and struggling to hear the Christmas message.”
And yet, despite that honest struggle, in the end, he hears it. Dare I say, just as we will.
For the message of God’s hope will always break through, one day or another, this life or the next. About a time that was long foretold, where the whole world will hear the blessed Angels sing!
“Sing loud,
for on that day it shall be said:
do not fear, do not let your hands grow weak.
For I will bring you home,
and will make you renowned
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes,
says the LORD.” — Zephaniah 3
Today, my friends, we are promised that the Lord will remember us. That the Lord will restore us. And in so doing will cause us all to fall to our knees, to join the chorus of angels, and sing. After all, that is just what Mary, the mother of Jesus did, all those years ago when that angel first appeared to her.
Mary, a young girl, betrothed to an older man, was approached by a strange being in the stillness of the night, as the world lay quiet; and her first response to this being, perhaps like our own would be, was fear. Fear. But what were the first words that this being, this angel, said to her? Anyone remember? “Do not be afraid, Mary.” Do not be afraid. Do not fear or let your hands grow weak, for soon you will be with child. And not just any child. But God’s own child. God’s son.
Can you imagine her surprise? …Who, me? Little young Mary? The mother of the Son of God!? What excitement she must have felt…maybe… but also, what incredible anxiety! A child she never asked for, and not just any child at that, but the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of God there in her womb. And yet, despite that heavy, wearisome burden she was about to carry, she doesn’t cower, but sings. She sings, my friends! And soaring above the stillness, the anxiety, the solemnity of a life she never imagined, she delivers not just a song but a Magnificat.
For she, like we, have received a promise that through this child the midnight will one day clear. For yonder will break a new and glorious morn, bringing with it a thrill of hope for all to see.
Fall on your knees, my friends, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing!
Alleluia.
Amen.
