Sermon
prepared by Pastor Greg Kaurin
for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA, 1/2/11
texts: Isaiah 60:1-6 & Matthew 2:1-12
A Star, a Star!
In October of 1962, Noel Regney, a songwriter, was walking in a park of Manhattan a little before dusk with a slight breeze. He had two things weighing on his mind, the first was weighing on just about every adult in the Americas: the Cuban Missile Crisis was escalating, an immanent threat.
Noel had already lived through the Second World War. In fact, he grew up in France and was forced to enlist in the German Army. He worked as an informer for the French Resistance, but after he had to witness some of his own fellow soldiers ambushed in a trap he had helped set up, he deserted the German Army and became a full member of the French Resistance.
The second thing weighing on him is that Noel had been commissioned to compose a new Christmas carol, and was coming up on a hard deadline. But how could he write a carol, when it seemed very likely that we were on the verge of another perhaps even more devastating nuclear war?
As he passed people in the park, he could tell that they, too, were pensive and afraid, not meeting each other’s eyes, no exchange of greetings. He noticed two mothers pushing strollers, one of them passed the other from behind, and then—like slow motion—he saw the two children make eye contact, smiles spread, and they started to wave at each other. As they passed.
It was in that moment that the inspiration and the song came to him. By the time he got home, he had the lyrics ready, and later that evening he and his wife, Gloria, had composed the music.
For us, it’s a carol. We usually hear it sung by Bing Crosby or Perry Como:
Said the night wind to the little lamb, “Do you see what I see, way up in the sky, little lamb?”
What does the night wind see?
“A star, a star, dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite, a tail as big as a kite!”
Of course it’s roughly based on the manger scene from Bethlehem. Noel himself said that the lamb represented Jesus, the Christ Child. The wind points the star out to the lamb, the lamb tells the shepherd boy to listen to the deep voiced song, the shepherd boy goes the warm palace of a mighty king, and tells him about the shivering Child who needs honor, silver and gold. This king is not King Herod from our gospel lesson. He decrees, “Listen to what I say: Pray for peace, people everywhere!”
For us, it’s a pretty carol. For Noel and Gloria, who both passed away in the last decade, it was a prayer for peace, it was a plea to the powers that be, and the people, to listen to a new song, a deep song of creation, to follow a better star, to listen to the lamb of God.
Isaiah 60:1-3 – Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 2. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. 3. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
That’s a neat story. We may not seem to be on the verge of a nuclear disaster or war, and many of us even a bit numb to the constant barrage of possible danger from just about every corner: earthquakes, tsunamis, dams failing, volcanoes, terrorist attempts and precautions, …ancient Mayan calendars.
Or more individually, death or tragedy in the family. Lost innocence. Unforgiven past. Cancer. Struggles, doubts. It can get real hard to look our Savior in the eye, hard to look God in the eye. Almost like looking in the mirror and really seeing ourselves, as God must see us.
What star, what truth can we follow? Life is so crowded with grey clouds, where is this light shining in the darkness.
It isn’t the date, December 25, it’s not found on a train, or in a great big bag of gifts and toys. It is a song that has been sung throughout all of history. God’s deep voice, became a child’s voice, and smile, which spread from shepherds, and led foreigners to find hope, pay honor, spread to many people, even to kingdoms.
Peace on earth is something that we reach for and pray for… your kingdom come, on earth as in heaven, and may nations come to the light… And on earth we see glimmers, signs of the peace that passes all understanding.
But let me suggest while we’re waiting for God’s Kingdom to come in full, that this peace may come in bits like when we finally forgive ourselves or others, but doesn’t mean that there aren’t regrets or longing aches; it doesn’t mean that we don’t still struggle or see violence, or countries at war. Peace can be there in between tears of loss and even frustrated anger.
Look in the mirror, and if it’s a mirror to your soul, it can make you look like someone who would be hard to love. But God has placed his infant Son in your arms… Look at his love, and the smile stretching across his face, his hand reaches and touches your face. And the song high above the trees says to you, “Peace, be still.”
For now, the peace that can come over us, the healing peace is not an absence of regret or hurt or an absence of the losses we feel, but an acceptance of these, an acceptance of who we are, as God does.
But most of all the peace is seeing, following and trusting this Star of Truth: That God so loved the world that he did not condemn the world, but sent his only Son to save it.
That is why we can get up, and strive and feed others and remain kind and hopeful, even to ourselves. That is the message we can pass on, and lead others to see in us and through us as members of this church, as Christians and children of hope.
God will keep the promise that he has been saying since the day he formed each of us, and saved us through Jesus: I will be their God; they shall be my people.
What, then, shall come between us and the love of God in Christ Jesus? Nothing in all creation.
May the peace which passes all understanding keep your minds and hearts in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
