And Still the Angels Sing

“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” written in 1849 by Edmund H. Sears and based on Luke 2:8-14 is considered a Christmas Carol—but it is also an Advent hymn—a hymn of expectancy, hope, and faithfulness.  Do the heavenly angels still sing over the Babel sounds of this weary world?  Can we in the midst of all our Christmas trappings—in the midst of this sad and tragic time in history hear their music?  

“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,” (Don’t we all experience the crushing load?) “whose forms are bending low,” (Don’t we all feel the heavy weight?) “who toil along the climbing way” (Don’t we all know the ups and downs—mountains, hills, valleys, and wilderness places, crooked and rough roads?) “with painful steps and slow,” (Don’t we all feel the turmoil and pain?) “O rest beside the weary road” (Don’t we all need to stop, to rest, to look and to listen?) “and hear the angels sing!”  This describes Advent—the waiting, the preparation, the journey to the Bethlehem of the heart:  “For lo! the days are hastening on, by prophet seen of old, when with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.” 

There are those who make much ado about keeping “Christ” in Christmas (whatever that means) as though somehow the meaning of Christmas is up to us and the words we use make all the difference.  Thomas Merton suggests that keeping Christ in Christmas has never been in our hands, when he wrote:  “Into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited.”  He comes to this world still, uninvited still, and it is for us to “rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing” and make room for His coming to our Bethlehem of the heart.  “For if Christ were born a thousand times in Galilee, it was all in vain until He is born in thee.”