Christmas is the season of music.  Whatever else we think of Christmas, the music is a constant—carols, songs about snow, home, Santa, decking the halls.  It’s all there on our CD’s and radios and in the malls and in churches.  The music ranges from the sublime—like what we’re hearing here tonight and in the services of Lessons and Carols that we had here on Sunday and that abound each year, like the music of Handel’s Messiah—to the ridiculous—like “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” or “Grandma got run over by a reindeer,” or, my personal favourite, “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.”

It used to be that families and friends gathered around the piano or organ or guitar for a “carol sing,” as part of their Christmas festivities.  Some still do.  One year we made a tape of Mom and Dad and me singing Christmas carols.  I’m playing the little organ and singing the alto line.  Mom is warbling the melody. And Dad, blessed with a very accomplished “tin ear,” is rumbling along in the background.  Christmas is decidedly the season of music—or something resembling it!  We can’t imagine having a literally “silent night.”

And none of the books of the New Testament does the singing of Christmas better than Luke.  Luke tells the stories of the birth of Jesus with song and poetry.  Zechariah, old man, father-to-be of John the Baptist, hears that he is going to be a daddy—and he sings.  His wife, Elizabeth, sings too.  Mary hears that she is going to be a mama—and she sings.  The angels sing.  And I expect that even the shepherds sang as part of their “glorifying and praising God.”  Everyone seemed to be singing in Palestine that night.

And this is not unusual, is it?  Singing is often one of the responses we have to good news, to excitement, to joy.  And we can understand this in the case of the expectant parents of John the Baptist.  After all, they had wanted a child for many years and they were finally having one.  We can understand the singing in the case of the angels and shepherds—they had good news to tell and hear.  But how could Mary sing?

Would you sing if you were Mary, if you were a young, teenaged girl who knew that this pregnancy would disgrace you in the eyes of all your people and ruin your engagement to a good man and maybe even result in your being stoned to death.  What was there to sing about?  And yet Mary sang.  Sang a beautiful, powerful song of joy and hope—we call it the “Magnificat.”  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour; for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.  Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me.”

“O really?” we ask her.  “Great things?”  Yes, really.  Great things.  For Mary knew that the God of her people had promised long ago that one would come, a Messiah, who would set the people free.  Mary knew that this promise was being fulfilled in her.  And, if God was keeping that promise, then all the restof God’s promises would be fulfilled, too.

And, in her fearful and anxious joy, Mary sang of those promises—that the lowly would be exalted, that the hungry would be fed, that oppression by the powerful and rich would end.  Her song was one of exultation in what was a dark and repressive period in the history of her people.  A time when the Jews in Palestine were put down and kept down, kept poor and frightened by the powerful, and often cruel, Romans.  And Mary sang because she knew that, in the darkness, in the fear, a light was coming.

This isn’t just an ancient story of an ancient time that we remember once a year to make us feel warm and fuzzy inside.  This is also the story of our world today.  There are days when listening to the news is almost unbearable.  Constantly we hear of some new war, of some new brutality, of some new chaos.  Even in the place of the birth of the Prince of Peace, there is no peace.  In the sky are the “lights of violence,” not angels singing peace.

When I listen to the news at this time of year, I am reminded of an old Simon and Garfunkle song, Silent Night/The Seven O’clock News.  The song begins with the duo singing Silent Night, in beautiful harmony.  Gradually we can hear a news reporter in the background.  Slowly the reporter gets louder, telling us about war, riots, unrest, murder, poverty, until, at the end, the carol is almost completely drowned out.  The news of the world seems more powerful than the news of the birth.  As an aside, the You Tube version of this song is accompanied by pictures of Time magazine covers depicting war and destruction over the years.  The carol seems naïve.

And sometimes it seems as if we are living that Simon and Garfunkle version of the beloved carol.  Our hearts ache for the people caught in wars and violence, caught in poverty and homelessness.  Our hearts ache for those we know who are caught in grief, illness, despair, lonely and lost, whose dreams have all died.  And our hearts ache for ourselves, for our own troubles of body and mind and soul—sometimes too private and personal to share with anyone.  The carol is almost completely drowned out.

And then we come here tonight and sing of the faithful who are “joyful and triumphant,” of the “light and life” that is brought to all, of the star “like some bright jewel glowing in the winter sky,” and of “joy to the world.”  What brings us here?  What moves us, even those of us who never attend church at any other time, to gather, to sing these songs, to hear these words?  What is it, deep in our souls, that draws us to experience, once again, the story of the child in Bethlehem?

You might answer that it’s the warmth of family and friends, the familiarity of the traditions.  But that can be had in other ways, in other places.  Why do we come here, tonight, in the cold and darkness, to sing and listen and, in a moment, to eat and drink such a meagre symbolic meal when our tables are groaning with the food of the festival?  Do we come here to get lost in the beauty, in the candles, the music, the warmth, for a blessed moment when the world beyond this moment is far away?  Is that it?  We come to forget or get some respite from the “real” world?  Maybe that’s part of it.

Because the story of the birth of this baby, Jesus of Nazareth, a story that is more legend than fact, is a story of hope—a story that we keep coming back to because, in this world, at this time, we need, more than anything else, hope.

This was no rich birthing bed; no eminent physicians stood around to help the young mother and her precious baby; no hot water was boiled; no cigars were handed out; no flowers were delivered; no soft bassinet received this baby.  This birth was in a cold, dirty, noisy cow stall.  This couple was alone, frightened and, the mother at least, inexperienced.  The cover for the baby at birth was only simple cloth and straw.  But, in that dirty, dingy, smelly, unsanitary stable, a miracle occurred—the miracle of hope for all the hopelessness of all people, for every person, for all time.  The hope that, beyond any darkness that engulfs us, there is light, the light of love that will overcome the shadows that block our vision, that threaten our joy.

Mary sang, the angels sang, the shepherds sang because they were convinced once again that God’s unconditional and everlasting love and support will continue to inspire people to act from compassion and kindness, will bring us to a world where forgiveness and reconciliation lead us to peace, a world where no one is hungry or afraid, a world where loneliness is embraced by companionship, a world where “me” gives way to “all.”  And we can join in their song because, with them, we can see that, in the thick darkness of our world, there is light.  And that light is the light of God’s hope.

May this birth, this promise, this light find its way into your heart and into our world.  May we go from here “singing in the night,” sharing the song of hope.