Shepherds, Why This Jubilee? Why Your Joyous Strains Prolong?

Riley is a fourth-grader who was cast as a “Shepherd” for Sunday’s Christmas program in church. He also had a solo. He had been practicing “Angels We Have Heard On High,” and he needed someone to accompany him on guitar, so I offered to play. On a chilly afternoon earlier this week, Riley sang for me while I played the chords of the familiar carol. His clear boy-soprano tones filled the rehearsal space, but he was struggling with the words to the second verse. Suddenly, it dawned on me to teach what my drama coach had taught me back in seminary: to read the words with exaggerated meaning and to sustain them from the muscles in the gut rather than the throat. Besides, I thought, if Riley really understood the words, he would remember them and sing them with more feeling. So I shouted to Riley, “Repeat after me! Shepherds, why this jubilee?” He said back, “Shepherds…why…this jubilee?” It became like a game. “Why your joyous strains prolong?” We asked each question of the carol back and forth, as if the shepherds were across the room dancing a jig and jumping for joy: “Say what gladsome tidings be…” We were almost shouting now. “…which inspire your heavenly song?”

The shepherds were dancing and shouting that the Messiah – the child God was going to send to reign over all the world – was about to be born! And there we were: if Riley sang clear enough, and I played well enough, we imagined ourselves joining the jubilant shepherd band as they literally skipped and spun, danced and dashed, toward a birthplace still unseen.

Riley sang it through one more time. Every word was clear and his notes were sharp and true. I smiled knowing this "shepherd boy" had experienced the story for himself. On this Third Sunday in Advent, Sunday, December 11, our worship service will begin at 10:30 as usual, but soon “the usual" will end and “The Christmas Story,” will be told by our children and youth, in word and song! Be there, and watch as the story comes alive for us. You may just return to your life “glorifying and praising God for all you have heard and seen!” (Luke 2:19)

I look forward to lighting candles and singing carols and sharing the world’s greatest story with you in church and in the places where we share ministry together!

"Pastor Paul"

Speechless in Bethlehem

“15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ 16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” —Luke 2:15-16 (NRSV)

This weekend, when Christmas comes to us, we, like the shepherds long ago, come to our journey’s end … and discover it’s just the beginning! However we come to the nativity, the birth of God – and God’s promised wholeness – into the midst of a fragmented world is a show stopper. There are no words for it, at least, not at first. “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given,” the poet wrote. “So God imparts to human hearts the joys of highest heaven.”

"10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

—Matthew 2:10-11 (NRSV)

The magi – astrologers and sages – who followed a star for a long journey across borders and through time, also found themselves without words. We do not know if they spoke any quiet words to Mary and Joseph, or to the baby, but we do know that God spoke to the depths of their beings, imploring them to return to “their own country by another way.” (Matthew 2:12b)

So when we get where we’re going, after the last package is wrapped, the final card is mailed, the final cookie baked, the Christmas dinner prepared, will there be time for silence? Will we be able to silence the voices of the noisy, fragmented world around us long enough to become aware of the magic and the mystery of God coming to us, and dwelling among us, as one who is vulnerable unless we act? Will we pause and let our selves be filled with awe and wonder?

If you are in Trenton on Friday evening, please plan to come to the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at First Christian Church at 6 PM: for a time of singing the favorite carols of Christmas when we will commune with Christ and light a candle in His honor. Wherever you are this Christmas, take time to pause, be silent and remember … that God has come for us and lived among us, in order to promise us…the wonders of eternal love.

I look forward to greeting you at the church door...or wherever we share ministry together!

Merry Christmas! Pastor Paul