Crying Baby Jesus: A Christmas Eve Sermon

Like many of you here tonight in person and on-line, I grew up singing “Away in a Manger.” And I pretty much assumed that the angels must have taught those very words and that very tune to the shepherds that night out in the fields and that Christians around the world have been singing it ever since, for like two-thousand years. After all, if you look it up in The Hymnal to see who wrote it, it says that this is a “traditional carol.”

Ah, tradition. Often what it means in church circles is quite precise: it means “how I remember things being done in the church I grew up in from the time I was about six until I went off to college.” Those memories leave a mark. Those are formative years. But we don’t always remember precisely what happened, what we remember is what our brains remember. And sometimes, especially around Christmas, nostalgia takes over.  Are you with me, St. Michael’s?

 “Away in a Manger” was actually written in the late nineteenth century—1885 to be precise—in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where it was published by a Lutheran Church Sunday School in a collection called Little Children's Book for Schools and Families. While that’s a while ago, it’s still only decades ago. Put it this way, when this parish was founded no one had yet heard of “Away in a Manger.”  In that original collection it was set to a tune called "St. Kilda,” a favorite tune of the Puritans, but not the one we all know from The Hymnal 1982, where it is set to a tune called Cradle Song. 

You may be wondering where I’m going with all of this, but stay with me, please. I have been singing that carol for as long as I can remember: in church, in nursing homes, out in the streets of Hawley, Pennsylvania as a child caroling. And because of that I knew this: that when the cattle were lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus—come on everyone, you all know it—what does little Lord Jesus do, or rather not do? No crying he makes! That must be in the Bible, right? (It is not!)

My oldest son sang for four years with the University Choir at Harvard. Imagine my shock when one year, Hathy and I attended Lessons and Carols at Memorial Church, and the choir sang a “traditional” Flemish carol with these words:
 

There is a young and gentle maiden,
With a charm so full of grace.
Look! See how she cradles the Christ Child,
As the tears flow down his face
There is Jesus Christ a -weeping,
While his vigil they are keeping.
     Hush, hush, hush, dear child, do not weep,
     Cease your crying, now go to sleep.

Wait, what?  Baby Jesus cried?! Says who? Colicky baby Jesus? Really?

Yet this image of crying baby Jesus has haunted me ever since then. There is Jesus Christ a-weeping…hush, hush, hush dear child, do not weep. Cease your crying, now go to sleep.

Even if the Bible doesn’t address this question, that carol invites us to re-examine “the tradition.” Less than two weeks ago we sang “Once In Royal David’s City” at Lessons and Carols. The fourth verse of that great hymn goes like this:

For he is our life-long pattern; daily when on earth he grew…now listen up, St. Michael’s! …he was tempted, scorned, rejected, tears and smiles like us he knew. Thus he feels for all our sadness and he shares in all our gladness.

Some of you may remember way back to All Saints Sunday when I shared with you that my Baptist grandmother taught me and her other grandchildren to memorize Bible verses and I always gravitated toward John 11:18 because it was short: Jesus wept.

Now I know that verse is set in a different context, when all-grown-up Jesus is standing at the grave of his friend Lazarus.  But here is the thing: Jesus did grow up. And Jesus did weep. And if he was like us in every way, save sin, then he didn’t wait until he was a grown man to shed his first tears. Like every child he surely cried to let Mary know that he was hungry and when he needed Joseph to rock him to sleep and tell him everything was going to be ok. He surely did cry when his swaddling clothes were wet and he needed them changed. And sometimes he cried just to cry and his parents could not figure out why and there was no Dr. Spock or Dr. Brazelton to consult. Hush, now, don’t cry little one; go to sleep. 

Are you still with me, St. Michael’s? Some of you may be thinking – how did we end up with this guy as interim and doesn’t he know that tonight we sing joy to the world? What a Debbie Downer! OK, but here’s the thing, my friends: joy and grief often go hand in hand. We don’t need to pick just one. December brings with it a lot of sadness and regret and old losses. This holy night carries a lot with it and it’s not all visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads. Crying baby Jesus matters to me, and to us, because tonight we celebrate not a theological idea but the reality that the Word has become flesh to dwell among us. We have beheld his glory. Of course, Jesus cried! Babies cry. Adults do, too, sometimes. Sometimes when we are very sad and sometimes when we are very happy. Crying baby Jesus takes us to the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation and to the good news of this holy night: that God really is with us. God who, in Jesus, knew both tears and smiles and who, even now, feels all our sadness and shares in all our gladness. Immanuel. 

A friend of mine reminded me recently of an acronym I’d known but forgotten: VUCA. It stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. I know I’m in Navy territory, but VUCA came out of the Army War College in 1987, and I wonder if it’s even more true today than it was nearly four decades ago. We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. I bet no one here on this holy night disputes this. Yet, especially at Christmas, some part of all of us yearns for settled and certain and simple and clear, like when we were kids and baby Jesus never cried and all was calm and bright!

But I submit to you that being born on the edges of the Roman empire in the first century was also about being born into a world that was volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. In those days, a decree went out from the emperor that all the world should be registered…

But I have good news of a great joy to share with you tonight, St. Michael’s: God is with us in the midst of all the volatility and uncertain and complexity and ambiguity of this world and of our lives. God is with us when all is not calm and bright, as well as when it is. And that changes everything.

The two great moments in the life of Jesus that take us to the heart of what his life was about are celebrated in the two great festivals of the liturgical year: Christmas and Easter. The two great icons of the birth and death of Jesus are both with his mother: the child born in Bethlehem and at his death outside of Jerusalem, the pieta. If these two images reveal anything at all to us about the nature of the incarnate God, the suffering God, the God willing to be vulnerable it is simply this: God so loved the world. Not that God so loved Christians more than Jews or Muslims or agnostics or atheists. God so loved the world, the whole world. No exceptions. Love came down at Christmas. And we see it in the face of this baby.

God gave up power and control to live and die among us to be with us and for us. In his living and in his dying, Jesus shows us how to live more generous and compassionate lives. He feels all our sadness and all of our gladness.

Look! See how Mary cradles the Christ Child, as the tears flow down his face. There is Jesus Christ a -weeping, while his vigil they are keeping. 

Jesus most assuredly wept and weeps on this holy night with all who are grieving. He weeps with us who are carrying heavy burdens. He weeps with the people in war zones around the world, including Palestine and the Ukraine and so many other places near and far. If you ask the question “where is God?” in relationship to the grief and pain that you or someone you love may be feeling tonight then there is only one answer to that question: look to crying baby Jesus. It is the God we see in the face of this child that calls us to live life more abundantly. The God who is revealed to the shepherds and to us on this holy night is a God who weeps when we weep. And, in due time, will wipe away all of our tears.

The good news of this night is that we are not left comfortless. We are called as followers of Jesus to sow joy where there is sadness, to sow love where there is hatred, to sow faith where there is doubt; to sow hope where there is despair. That is what these weeks of Advent leading us to this holy night have been about: recalling us to the work God has given us to do in Christ’s name. In four words that is about hope and peace and love and joy. Those four words call us back to our purpose. We exist as the Body of Christ, at the corner of Church and Hope, to help the world to trust that hope and peace and joy and love are real. We exist in a VUCA world to bear witness to the presence of God and to insist that love came down at Christmas.

We gather here on this holy night and throughout the year to be re-membered and to listen for God’s calling to us to share the work that God has given us each in our own way: to say “yes” to God by letting this same mind of Christ be in us, until every tear is wiped away. Even the tears of baby Jesus.

There are babies crying, even now, in our world and in our neighborhood. May we see in them the face of Jesus, the newborn king: the crying baby Jesus who yearns for us to become instruments of God’s peace.

Merry Christmas!