A Place for the Singing of Angels Broad Street Presbyterian Church
uke 2:8-16 Columbus, Ohio
December 22, 1974 John McCormick Buchanan

I wonder if it is possible ever to understand those principal

characters in the drama,§ Consider, for instance, how it must have been for
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sosegh,| wing months before, his fiancee - young Mary, had come to him stammering

that she was pregnant: \that she was going to have a baby {(smose baby? brow ould

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it happen? lio could you do it, Mary?'"§How does a man deal with that ?\ rine
has not altered the sharpness of Joseph's gin.\t people found out, Mary might
be accused of adultery and stoned to death.\re it became public knowledge he,

Joseph, would be the object of scorn and ridigute lor he could marry her quickly

and it would look as if the ghild were nis. [owe that would mean a life-time of
ninidiemmet scan tee,

wondering and the swallowing of a very bitter pitt.| soseon had _a dream - and the

fact that an angel of the Lord was in the dream explaining how the conception

took place is not nearly so astounding to me as the fact that Joseph trusted
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the dream, and did marry Mary, and did take her along to Bethlehem and was a

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father to the child whom they called Jerus | sonshoy in the intensity of that

very real human anguish Joseph trusted that God was at wort. | somehow in one of
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the most painful of situations Joseph could hear the singing of angels,

Ox consider the shepherds | wat did they aow\ 11a texate men, they
nay have known about David because he too was a shepherd, but IE suspect their
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theological was moderated by the more immediate realities of keeping the
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flock from straying and themselves var. [and somehow, in the middle of a life
that was hand to mouth at best - a harsh, poor, day to day struggle with bunger -

they could hear the singing of angels,
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Or consider the Magi, those mystic Fastern Astronomers travelling

across the desert because their calcula bbws had indicated a King wre was
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about to be born.

Consider what it was like for them when instead of Herod's palace

they ended up in a cow barn,
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Exnest Campbell has observed chat [we Christians have romanticized
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that stable) tm truth it was a place of pungent, stubborn odors, dank,
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depressing, disappointing". [che Protestant Hour P.20 "Of Stars and Stables")

—

Consider, if you can, how it must have been for the principal
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characters ~ for Joseph, Shepherds, Magi = for the young girl, giving » Recta Souhas

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“the Yona ‘he arenkwe a “Ss are brute m
to a first child 150 miles away from home - in a baxn.| Adapt ~ in the midgt reas,

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Ye Wr. dos wok Levee us he yevers weute leek dy begin the shee - low retire makes tae Pevartcebele Maseckin ve

of emi harsh reality - there was a place for the singing of Angels.
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In the preface to a delightful book, William Muehl, Professor at
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Yale Divinity School, tells the story of a Kindergarten Christmas pageant in

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which his young son played the part of a shepherd,| The play was planned with
FOS PEAY P eee! play was Ses aie ed eh
infinite patience. |Twenty little giris were deployed as ange 1s:\ circles drawn

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on the floor toid each angel where to stand - crosses guided each shepherd to

the proper spot. \put then disaster struck..\the flowing robes of the angeis
Perera |

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eovered not ouly the circles but the adjacent crosses as weit | te young
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shepherds scurried about, frantically Looking for their places;\bumping, pushing,
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lifting up robes.\finally one little boy turned to the teacher standing in the

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wings and announced ("These damned angels are fouling up the whole show. /They've

be

hidden all the crosses." Mixeseaes

Muehl observes that what his son angrily proclaimed is still a

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trenchant comment on the human situation |e writes: | "we are imdeed ‘damned
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angels'.oeethe cross is hidden beneath the flimsy fabric of our simple_piety.

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Our flesh drives and afflicts us from birth to death.\But we have the gall to
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affirm that it once sheltered the Eternal.ooecs

3.
There are men wise and good enough to walk with God and see visions of
heaven. \I have had to be content with damned angels and the facts of |
— ——e CR Ted

(All the Damned Angels P, 12-13)

And so comes Christmas 1974 and the facts of life 1974, in many

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ways just as real and earthy and depressing as they were in Bethlehem,|And I

wonder if you and I will hear the singing of angels this year,

Near the beginning of the Advent season IT purchased a set of heavy
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paper nativity figures:\my youngest son and I punched them out and assembled

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them and he set about happily playing with then. \Aeter a while he stepped back

—

to look at the rather chaotic scene and asked, (waaay, where's God in all chat?)
A very good question, I thought. 4 question we well might ask - where is God
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in the sultural phenomenon called Christnas?|with all the other noises, are
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there really any angels singing?
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Tt iss after all, no profound observationg to state flatly, that a
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lot, if not most, of what is going on during December has very little to do

with the birth of Jesus christ. \re doesn't take a scholar to deduce that

something is out of focus when the birth of one called the Prince of Peace is

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the occasion for presenting children with scale-model machine guns:| or that the
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Savior's birth is the opportunity to get drunk and grab a secretary at the
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office party, \rt doesn't take a theologian to deduce that something is out
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of focus when God's greatest gift somehow is symbolized by a shabby Santa Claus
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whose inevitable first question 1 (nave you been good?" tt seems, at times,
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that if there are any angels singing during December, they're singing the
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wrong tune.
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And yet, perhaps God is in it - even in the middle of that rerhaps
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God can use even the absurdities - to speak to us, just as He used that
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disappointing scenario twenty centuries ago.

A.

+node has clus
There is, first of all, a universal respouse to Christmas yh. averthy
‘ied
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# | soncone has suggested that the
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Christmas season is a protest - a protest against dullness and sameness -
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a protest that there must be more for us than life ordinarily ofters | A
—

favorite line of mine from W,H,Auden has the shepherds at the manger say,
MAREE Sere La saa SEA
"Tonight for the first time the prison gates
Have opened, Music and sudden light
Have interrupted our routine to-night
And swept the filth of habit from our hearts

O here and now the endless journey starts"

“ror the Time Beings

I submit that life, for many of us, does become a joyless routine,

a succession of empty days, and that there is a universal human need to

celebrate and laugh ~ to have our hearts Lifted yp and te feel that Life, after
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all, is a rather happy contition,\1 think that is a deeply human need quite
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apart from our theological convigtions.| and so, almost without exception, all
men pause at Christmas to express special affection, parties are planned,
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customs are preserved with care, the past is remembered and ngage | and td

like to hear the singing of angels in chat \ Rather than bristling with
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resentment at the secular incursion into our sacred feast, I'm inclined to be
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grateful that because of our Christmas, a lot of people hear the momentary
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singing of angels: \chat we help to interrupt the routine of a whole culture,
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i'm: inclined to believe that God is not entirely unhappy at what transpires
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as a result of His Son's birth,
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Beyond that, there is a deeper level at which Christmas touches us,
~ spetrecuasmmtie. Smt NTT

and although we may not always assign the proper words to define it, it is

there nevertheless,

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5.
Tt is the level at which Christmas makes us feel both worse and
batter about ourselves; | the level at which Christmas seems to touch that
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most sensitive part of us ~ the heart, the spirit, and causes us to feel
both sad and happy at the same tine.|1 believe that, too, becomes the place

for the singing of angels - if we will hear.|\Let's examine it for a moment,

Dr. Thomas Harris, in hig popular best-seller several years ago,
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"Tlnm OK - You're OK" wiaintains that what all men need most is a feeling
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of being acceptable to other men - and the conseguent sense af self-acceptance:

in his idiom - "I'm GK", Harris and others have demonstrated how the human
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experience usually leayes that need unfulfilled and in many ways aggravates

ic.|ie teach our children, unintentionally and unselfcousciously to be sure,
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that their acceptability is based on performance | Sometimes we even verbalize
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it directly - [Ponmy and Daddy won't love you if you're pad" .\ that is to say,

(your acceptability as a person depends, not on your intringic worth as a
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person, but on your willingness to comply with our expectations."}| The result,
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according to the psychologists, is a whole culture of men and women, unsure of
EET Sa men

serately to comply with someone's expectations.

Under those conditions life can be pretty grim - a constant battle to win, to
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their worth, and still t

succeed, to get ahead, to prove that "T am ox" f ana no prize, no pinnacle of

success, is ever adequate: \there is no place in the serious strugale for

acceptance for the singing of angels,

And here comes Ghristmas, simply and eloquently telling us that we

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are ox:\ enat God loves us enough to become one of us:\that He lovas mothers
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and fathers enough to entrust His own Son to a family:\that all men are acceptable
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to fim, |christnas says, |"You are ox: |you are one of the ones with whom God is

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pleased." |

6.

And so we respond from the depths to that music of angels even when

we're not sure why.

Or let's po deeper sean. rte Exvikson, a giant in developmental
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psychology, taught that the fundamental component in 4 healthy personality
is something called “Basic sus” |New born infants learn it in the act of
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nursing = there is a world out there that can be trusted to provide for my
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inmger \ that experience, Erikson suggested, must be repeated at each stage
along the way of growth \iten a child leaves home he needs to know that his

widening world can be depepded on to be responsive to his needa | IF he has
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that ~ he or she will be,relaxed, self-confident person, able to function
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appropriately and responsibly,
REMERON

Now, put that psychological theory in the context of theology.

This has been called the age of anxiety, the decada of despair, dread and
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fear and a sense of hopelessness seem to characterize our age.|We need
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"Basic Trust't in a psychological sense and wee that same taust on a level that
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must be called spirituat \we need to know that there is more to reality than
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what comes at us through our senses:| that in the middle of a world that keeps

looking hopeless - there is a place for angels to ging. {20 be without that is
saree heal

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to be in despair - it is to nod in pathetic agreement to the suggestion that

God is dead,

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No one ever expressed that philosophic dilemma more eloquently than
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William Shakespeare.oeo
"Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

signifying nothing". (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 Line 19}

That's wheffit comes down for all men finatty,| Tf our
—_——— beeen laa
religion is worth anything, it must tell us that we matter, that our lives
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count for something however modest they turn out te be:\ that somehow we
a. Barre onre otToTr ian fa onriire — |

ave set in a universe that is friendly and trustworthy | one theologian put it

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in these words: \"rt is the function of religion to affirm that the source out

of which life comes and into which it disappears intends the fulfillment rather
pete Ee evar |

_——s

than the frustration of those values we hold to be fundamental."\(S. Keen,
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Apology for Wonder, P.204)

Havns Lilje was a Lutheran pastor arrested by the Gestapo during
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World War r1.\nts story is told in his book The Valley of the shadow. | At
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Christmas time in prison Lilje longed for a congregation, as only a pastor does,
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Ou Christmas Eve be was called to the office of tha commandant :\ evo others
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were @uew@nt ~ a violinist and another man who was to be executed and who had
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requested the Sacrament of coununion.\There, in. the commandant's office the
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violinist played a Christmas Choxates\ the pastor read the Lesson, broke bread
— Semepacabtiniece tere IS Se |
and poured wine \ Later he wrote, [ze was a very quiet celebration of the
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sacrament, full of deep confidence in God;| almost palpably the wings of divine

mercy hovered over us... .We were prisoners, in the power of the Gestapocsses
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But the peace of God enfolded us."| (See Best Sermons of 1955 P.114)
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That is what Phillips Brooks had in mind when, in 1868, he wrote:
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'Q Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.

The hopes and fears of all the years are met_in thee tonight."

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of Christmas.

That, finally, is the deepest and dearest meaning

™phe hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee conight"| negioning

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with Joseph and Mary, Shepherds and Wisemen, and continuing down through the
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ages, in all conditions, in all situations, in the middle of boredom, war,
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sickness, fear, despair, men have heard the singing of angels.
wero ect ve

So may it be for you,\ sake a place for the singing of angels,

—

For("behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will come
to all the peoples \ for to you is born this day in the City of David, a

Savior, Who is Christ the Lord", Amen.
te ,

Come to us, Father, in the quiet moments. Come in loud,happy moments,
Come in love and joy: come in memories of Christmases past. Help us to
hear - in and through it all - the singing of angels.

Amen,