Everybody loves the music of Christmas Eve.  There is no other time of the year, excepting perhaps Easter, when the images left by lovely lyrics and the echoes left by beautiful melodies so linger with us, and enrich our experience and our memory of worship.

We at North Broadway owe a debt of gratitude to Carol Ann Bradley, because she has taught us literally to sing the songs of the faith.  This service in particular has come to have great meaning to so many as Carol Ann has shaped it for the perfect celebration just at the dawn of Christmas Day.  Thank you to Carol Ann, and to the youth who indeed sing like the angels, and so faithfully lead us in this very special service.

Tonight, we are singing a verse of one of my favorite Christmas hymns:  “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”  I’ll not sing it for you (a mercy) – but I do want to offer the lyric for your hearing.

“It 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, good will to men,
From Heaven’s 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 over its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.
And 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.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!
For lo!  the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.”
        Lyric by Edmund H. Sears, 1849

The poetry of the song lyric has an honesty about it, acknowledging that even as the angels sing, not all the world listens; that even as we struggle “beneath life’s crushing load,” we are invited to “rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”

I think that what many of us long for at this late night service is to rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.  After all the hectic preparations of the time, and after a year in which many of us have borne our share of burdens, and there has been too much grief, and fear has been the watchword for too long, we want to rest and hear the song of the angels, and let the light of the candles brighten our spirits.

But then, the last verse of the song comes, and we are put to work, but this time not with our own burdensome tasks.  We are invited to join with “the evercircling years…when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.”

Think with me, if you will, about what it would mean for us to dedicate ourselves to sending back the song which now the angels sing.

If we want to know what a human song sent back to the angels sounds like, we can find examples in Luke’s gospel, as the story of Jesus’ birth is told.

Zechariah’s song, sung at the birth of John the Baptist, has these words:  “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Mary’s song has these words:  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. . . He has lifted up the lowly, and filled the hungry with good things.”

The shepherds are not directly quoted, but they go to Bethlehem and see the child, and it is reported that they “returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.”

The songs of Christmas invite us to sing back to the angels, not just tonight, but all through our lives.

When Christ is born in your heart, and in my heart, then our lives sing back the song.  If Mary’s song, and the songs of the angels are to guide is in finding our own song, we will be led to work for peace with justice; not the peace of the empire into which Jesus was born – a peace held together by war.  When we begin to let our lives sing back the song, we will act with the resources of our own lives to lift up the lowly, and fill up the hungry with good things.  When we begin to let our lives sing back the song, then we will be bearers of light in the darkness, beacons of hope to those in despair.  We will let the story of Christ’s birth draw us into living a life modeled after that of Christ.

Later, in Luke, Jesus will be held in the temple at Jerusalem by an old man named Simeon, and he, too, will sing a song.

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples – a light for revelation and for glory.”  Simeon waited his whole life to sing this song…to see the salvation and describe it as we celebrate it tonight:  as a light for revelation and for glory.

This night – the salvation that God has sent into the world is before us as infant in the manger, as bread on the table, as a cup poured out for all of us.

There are weary roads yet to trod.  There are deep griefs yet to be faced.  The joy that we sing this night is not yet real in all the world.  But in God’s heart it is real.  It is now.  It is here.  It is eternally breaking into the world.

Tonight invites us to hear the music … and then to go from this place singing back the song with our words, our actions, our prayers, our worship, our lives.  The song that the angels invite us to sing back is a song woven through with themes of justice and peace and mercy, supported by love.

So let this night be a taste of what is yet to come…let these songs be a prelude to that day when the whole world sings back the song that now the angels sing.