Carol Four: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Listen to this beauty piano arrangement of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."  First, let the melody move into your ears, minds, travel down to your heart and knock on your soul.  Second, listen again, this time, read through the third and fourth verses.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow;

Look now, for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing;

Oh rest beside the weary road

And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,

By prophets seen of old,

When with the ever-circling years

Shall come the time foretold,

When the new heaven and earth shall own

The Prince of Peace, their King,

And the whole world send back the song

Which now the angels sing.

Okay, I totally understand that these are not exactly the most uplifting lyrics.  I get that in someways it is like unwrapping a present today to find a fruit cake.  And you plaster on that phony smile and say, "Oh, how exciting, a fruit cake."  I don't understand how this is still an item you can purchase.  But I have digressed and took an exit ramp.  These words give voice to something important, especially as we inch closer to the longest night on December 21.  These words give voice to the reality that right now not everyone is holly, jolly, merry and bright.  Too many people have had their candles of hope blown out and peace seems about as possible as us colonizing Pluto.  Too many people this time of year, do put on, plaster, a smile for the sake of appearances.  Too many people are weak and weary and need to rest by the side of the road.  That is exactly, why I wanted to share this verse, because it calms me down in the midst of too much busyness.  I need a single piano to invite me back to the beautiful simplicity of God.  I need to breathe and be in this moment, even with all of its imperfections. There is a great prayer I was taught some time ago that goes, "Here I am, God."  As in here, I am, God in my stumbling and bumbling, still have not found a gift for my wife kind of brokenness.  Here I am, in my worn down-ness and wondering if Christmas can really come without tags. Can it come without packages, boxes or bags? (Again, bonus points for getting the Grinch reference that you might have expected today).  The second part goes, "Here You are, God.  Here we are together."  Togetherness in the here-ness and now-ness, even when it isn't perfectness.  Just let that sentence find some wiggle room in your life right now.

God's entrance was amid the hubbub and hectic, but the not the cause of it.  Caesar thought he was in charge.  He thought he was the puppet master making everyone move around, but what he really unearthed and unsettled was nothing short of the sacred entering into our world.  Caesar thought he was in power amid his palace, but God's grace broke in another way, albeit out of the way place called, "Bethlehem".  This story needs space to sit and sink in.  So, go ahead and play this brief video again inviting God into your messy, worry, frazzled, even frantic self.  Because of God can be comfortable in a manger and barn, then God might find room at the inn of our hearts, if only we notice God's desire to come in and stay for awhile.

Prayer: Come, o come, God into this moment, messy and disorganized, not to help me fix everything but to be with me here and now.