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Monday, December 13, 2004
Silent Night
It's a sweet little song. About a sleepy moonlit village, its bed-bound citizens oblivious to this one night's magical meaning.
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" was written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks, a gifted Boston preacher. He believed that preaching communicates God's eternal word through human personality. This carol shows how well he knew his human audience.
Consider his words about "the hopes and fears of all the years" now attended to at last in the coming of Christ...
Unseen above, angels "keep their watch of wondering love," sing praise to God, and do their part for peace on earth...
He even has us pray for Christ to enter our hearts to stay, "born in us today" the way he was that night in Bethlehem...
There's one phrase I can't shake off: "How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!" That's how God "imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven." No great fanfare, bells, or whistles.
This time, God intrudes from heaven to earth wearing sneakers. Silence upon silence; that's how it happens. And all along the way, for thirty short years, Jesus catches the world by surprise.
Of course, some folks get the point, catch his drift, follow his lead. But most don't.
If you're like me, you want to think you'd recognize Christ if he came today, greeting him gladly with open-armed faith, hope, and love. But I wonder...
Would he sign on to our agendas? Would he want to join our churches? Would he know our secret handshake? Or care? How would we know it was him? Suppose he came in disguise?
Mother Teresa once told a reporter she kept on keeping on in the darkest corners of Calcutta by never forgetting to look in her patients for the Christ who's always there. I suppose it's safest to treat every person we meet as if he or she was Jesus in plain clothes.
How silently, how silently.
posted by Jack Buckley at
10:10 AM
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