Luke 1:46-55
“How Does A Weary World Rejoice?: We Sing Stories of Hope”
Preached Sunday, December 17, 2023
“A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices.” That infamous line from the Christmas carol, “O Holy Night” and the focus of our Advent and Christmas worship. We are asking - how does a weary world rejoice?
We are coming to the end of Advent. The end of the four weeks of preparation for Christmas and when we gather next Sunday it will be Christmas Eve, the start of the celebration of Jesus’s birth.
And in the Church we have Advent hymns and we have Christmas hymns. I have always been a fan of Advent hymns. These are all the songs, generally in minor key, that we sing in this season: O Come, O Come Emmanuel, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Savior of the Nations Come, and so forth. I was baptized during Advent and I’ve always said I have an Advent soul. It is the season of the Christian year that resonates with me most - because in Advent we not only look backwards, remembering the birth of Christ, when God took on flesh in Jesus, became Emmanuel, God-With-Us, the start of God’s salvific acts for us…but we also look to the present and acknowledge that we are in a weary world, a world that needs saving, that longs for God to come again, return to us and redeem all of creation. And we look toward the future, awaiting that second coming.
And so I used to be fairly strict: In Advent, we only sing Advent hymns. At Christmas, the 12 days of Christmas, that is when we can belt out the Christmas carols.
But you know…I have been slowly changing my mind on that.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not yet the kind of person who starts listening to Christmas music on November 1st. And I think I may always prefer Advent hymns over Christmas carols because they resonate with me more personally…and yet, Advent hymns resonate so deeply with me because they bring me hope. I sing them and I remember, I hope, I know…that one day, Christ will return again and redeem all creation.
And that is what singing Christmas carols does too. We sing of Jesus’s birth and we remember, we hope, we know…that this a world with reasons to rejoice. This is a world with love and goodness. This is a world with kindness and cheer. This is a world where even when we are weary, even when there are so many things that try to steal our hope, our peace, our joy, our love for one another…Christmas music gives hope, peace, joy, and love back to us in spades. It is a lifeline, a joyous lifeline in a weary world.
Our Scripture is full of people who burst into songs and sing songs of hope. Today’s Gospel lesson, known as the Magnificat, Mary’s Song: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” - it is a song of praise and hope. It’s a song where Mary praises God, rejoices that God has looked upon her, yes, even her - and then celebrates and hopes for all that God will accomplish through the child now in her womb - righting wrongs, freeing the oppressed, ushering in God’s Kingdom.
Mary, Zechariah, Moses, Miriam, Hannah, King David…there are so many ancestors of our faith who sang songs of hope. Songs of praises of God.
Today, let us lift our voices with them. Let us sing songs of praise to God, songs of hope for our weary world. And we will do that today, we will share in a mini-lessons and carols, giving us a chance for the songs of our choir and the songs we will sing to bolster us - to give us reasons to hope and rejoice in a weary world.
And, beyond today, anytime your heart is weary - may you find a song to sing. A song that fills you with hope. And beyond that, may you find others to sing it with.
I’d like to end my sermon this morning by sharing a poem with you by Meta Herrick Carlson, entitled “For Beloved Christmas Hymns”:
“Advent was brief and flew away
with one, maybe two renditions.
Christmas is for all the verses,
a chorus of people gathered in
by forces of faith unseen, preaching
Joy to the World and Silent Night.
Christmas is for anthems that wait
all year long in the dark depths
of our lungs for a time such as this,
to revive the world with hope that sings.”
Let us sing. Amen.
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