Tonight I am serving at St. Luke's in Worcester. Merry Christmas!
The poet, Edmund Hamilton
Sears, was born in the Berkshires on
I know we just sang it but I
need some help with this sermon and I want to introduce you to what may be a
new tune for some, with Ken’s help. It’s the one found on page 90 in your hymnals. Let’s
just sing the first verse to get used to it:
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 men, From heaven’s all gracious King!”
The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.
Sears suffered from depression, or as it was called in the middle of the nineteenth-century, “melancholy.” At the time he wrote this hymn the world was in a real mess: Europe was at war and the United States was at war with Mexico. Of course that was nothing compared to the deep national divide over slavery and the Civil War lurking on the horizon. Sears was feeling that the world was “dark and full of sin and strife” and that as such, the world was unable to hear the songs of the angels. The way he wrote the poem makes more sense to me than the Hymnal version does. For some inexplicable reason the editors of The Hymnal 1982 inverted the second and third verses. Here is how he wrote them:
Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has
suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled, two thousand years of wrong.
And man, at war with man, hears not, the love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.
Still thro’ 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 key there, I think: yet and still. That’s why that order matters. Yet there is sin and violence
in the world; and still the angels sing. Yet we live in a noisy world of
strife; and still the heavenly music floats o’er all the weary world. If I were
the to give a title to this Christmas Eve sermon it might be yet and still.
Then comes what is for me the most poignant and pastoral stanza, one that was omitted in The Hymnal 1982. I am told however that other hymnals (including the Lutherans) kept it. It is addressed to all who feel personally exhausted and worn out at this time of year—all who feel just plain tired and lost and scared. But you get the sense that like most preachers, Sears is talking first and foremost to himself. Now that you know the new tune, let’s try that verse, found on the back cover of your bulletins:
All ye, 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.
Look now! Rest...and hear. Some have criticized Sears’ poem as being too unscriptural. Others have criticized it for not being Christ-centered enough, pointing out that the Christ-child is not even mentioned. (Insert eye-roll emoji here!) I’m about halfway through this sermon and in choosing to focus on this hymn I could be accused of the same. But I’m not too worried. For one, there are other hymns and shortly we will gather at the Table and break the bread. And second, we all know who’s birth we are here to celebrate on this holy night.
But for the record, Sears was very Christ-centered. While nineteenth-century Unitarians challenged the doctrine of the Trinity, they still saw themselves as deeply loyal to Jesus and to the Incarnation. “The word of Jesus opens the heart,” Sears told his congregations, “and touches the place of tears.” As for scripture, the story as Luke tells it features angels from beginning to end. Angels are all around this story.
Literally angels are God’s messengers: they deliver a word from heaven to earth. And so an angel comes to Elizabeth and Zechariah to announce that she will bear a son in her old age. And the angel Gabriel comes in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy to Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to man named Joseph, announcing to Mary that she is pregnant. And of course as we heard tonight, the angel speaks to the shepherds, announcing the birth of the Savior and sending them to Bethlehem to see for themselves. And then there is a multitude of angels praising God and singing: “Gloria in exgelsis deo…” Glory to God in the highest!
I confess to you that I don’t tend to see angels in my mind’s eye like they are portrayed by Renaissance artists with the big wings. I tend to be much more of the Frank Capra (Clarence-in-“It’s-a-Wonderful-Life”) school. But however you see God’s messengers, Sears is claiming that it is their song that we must listen for. That the angels’ song goes on and on throughout the ages, but mostly that it goes unnoticed. Unheard. It goes unheard because the drumbeat of war and strife drowns out the song of peace on earth and good will to all. Hush the noise, the poet says: hush the noise ye men (and women) of strife to hear the angels sing.
Our job, not only on this holy night but in our daily lives is to be still enough to hear the angels singing, so that we do not lose hope. On this Christmas at least as much as as in 1849, we need hope. We need to know that God is still at work in the world and in our lives. From there we can take it one day at a time. This poem is addressed to the Church—to you and me as people of faith. That is what hymns are for. Whether you were here every week of Advent or not, we are challenged tonight to listen, for it is in the quiet that we enter into the mystery of the Incarnation in decidedly new ways.
Living at this moment in human history, I think it’s very normal to feel the melancholy and even despair that Sears felt when he wrote this hymn. It’s easy to feel that we don’t quite measure up or that the world is falling apart. It’s easy to feel discouraged and then in response to try to numb it all. But the word from heaven to earth on this holy night is that a child is born, a Son is given. The good news—the gospel—that the angels sing of is of Emmanuel, God-with-us right in the midst of all that other stuff.
The angels sing “Gloria” and then we are invited to join their song. The Church’s mission is to keep singing Gloria because that word truly does have the power to heal and transform us, a word that can sustain and equip us for the work of ministry in the year ahead. We who may well be feeling that life’s crushing load is too much, and our forms are bending low as we toil along the climbing way – this hymn speaks to us across the decades to stop. Listen. Hear the angels singing Gloria in excelsios:
Glory to God in the highest heaven. And on earth, peace among those who God favors.
And then join the song. It’s ok if you aren’t much of a singer – the angels have got the melody line covered. Ultimately Sears imagines all of creation joining the song – people from every tribe and language and people and nation. In the meantime, our work is to keep practicing, like any good choir.
Sing Gloria, in word and in deed, in this place and where you live and work. Sing glory to God in the highest. Sing and imagine peace on earth, peace among the nations, peace at our tables, peace in our neighborhoods. And then let it begin with us.
Let’s sing the last verse of Hymn 90 together, before we confess our faith:
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 all the world give back the song which now the angels sing.
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