Carol Four: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Listen to Ella Fitzgerald soulfully sing to us about the mystery of God's arrival.  Let the words of the first two verse wash over you, breathing in their promise and possibility.

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, goodwill to men

From heavens all gracious King!"

The world in solemn stillness lay

To hear the angels sing.

Still through 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.

There is a liminal space that this season invites us into.  A space between.  It is like standing at the threshold of a door where you are not inside or outside, but in the middle of each where both be experienced.  There are a couple of poignant lines to this Carol.  First, the hymn the angels sing is one of blessing.  They come to pronounce peace to all, in response there is a stillness of the whole earth.  That is a kind of liminal space where both song and silence co-exist.  A space between sound and stillness.  A space that is rare in a world filled (overflowing) with noise.  As I type, outside someone is cutting trees, the sound of chainsaws mix and mingle with the words Ella sings.  I could be frustrated by this.  I could go find a good pair of noise canceling ear phones and shut out the world.  Or I could remember that the first night of God's arrival was not as silent as we sometimes have made it out to be.  There was a crowded streets, voices filling the air waves, just the noise of everyone being together.  There was a hum hovering in the air that night.  That is the space the angel's song enters into.  It was a weary world that the notes of the angels broke into.  My hunch is that many did not hear the song or feeling the blessing.  It is easy when the weariness of this world gets too much of us, when we are constantly on the go, always moving, that we miss the music of mystery God is still singing.  The Carol references, "Babel", which is what a lot of what we hear today might be classified as.  Yet, the invitation is to listen closer, for even amid the noise, noise, noise (bonus points for those who just got my Grinch Stole Christmas reference there), there is a sacredness.  The Grinch reminds all of us that sometimes what we are expecting to hear is not actually what we encounter.  The Grinch thought after he stole Christmas from the Whos down in Whoville there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth...but he gets a hymn.  A hymn that doesn't come down, but raises up.  A hymn that disrupts and interrupts (just like the workers using those chainsaws).  Sometimes it isn't always sweet, sentimental music that God sings, but a melody we were not expecting, but nevertheless lets us know that we are in the presence of God.  May these Carols continue to help guide us in ways that what we are hearing around us truly teaches and tells us about God's presence that is here and now in our lives.

Prayer: God, in the melody of the voices I hear around me, help me hear and discern Your still singing voice in those I encounter.  Amen.