Luke 2:1-20
The Christmas story is all wrong, though we who have heard it a million times may have lost the ability to see how wonderfully wrong, how beautifully wrong it is, or to feel the depth of gratitude that such an amazingly wrong story should evoke in us.
But it’s a story that doesn’t make sense – at least by the standards this world thinks are sensible – with everything turned upside down, the opposite of what this world thinks is normal. It’s a story about a king’s birth – but where is he born? Not in a palace or a kingly estate, not even in a house, but out with the animals in a stable. What kind of king is homeless right from birth? And who are the king’s parents? There are no kings and queens, no princes and princess in this story – no nobility of any kind – just a carpenter and a peasant woman. This king grows up and achieves a little bit of fame – though not in the way you’d expect a king to do it, of course – but as a teacher and healer he has some successes and brief moments of influence. But at the end of his story it’s as wrong as the beginning. The king who was born in poverty, rejected by the busy people in his ancestral home, concludes his life with a criminal’s death. None of this makes sense, at least in the way we expect things to make sense in this world.
That’s what’s so wonderfully wrong with the Christmas story, and the full story of God who comes to us in Christ. In it’s contradiction of what we think makes sense it brings us a hope that transcends the discouragement and despair of this world – this war-weary world, this pain-filled world, this world in which injustice sometimes seems to prevail. In the story of Christ God turns things upside down. Sometimes God’s action is a rejection and reversal of the values of the world – as in Christ’s birth in the stable. In a world that worships wealth, God sanctifies the ordinary and the humble. Sometimes God’s action is a transformation of evil and injustice – as in the cross. When wrong seems to have been victorious God is at work, bringing a victory out of what looks like defeat, creating good out of evil, and bringing a redemptive force into people and experiences and situations that are disappointing and tragic.
The story of Christ – his birth and his death – give us new eyes with which to see the world. God honors what we often despise. And God can redeem, transform, and make use of that which seems completely tragic.
That’s the message of hope I want to bring you tonight: Christmas tells us of God at work in the ordinary and in the tragic – and gives us hope that God can be at work in our lives in their ordinariness and in their times of pain and struggle.
That message comes through again and again in the story behind one of our most beloved Christmas songs. It’s words were penned by a young man named Joseph Mohr, who was born into poverty in Salzburg on December 11, 1792, the illegitimate son of Anna Schoiberin, a knitter, and Joseph (Franz) Mohr of Mariapfarr, a deserter from the Salzburg army who also deserted Joseph and Anna when the boy was quite young. We’ve heard stories like this before haven’t we, with endings that are predictably tragic: unwanted children, born of irresponsible parents, growing up to become irresponsible adults, created more unwanted and poorly cared for children in a cycle of irresponsibility, poverty and sadness…. We hear such things all the time in this world, but in the story of young Joseph Mohr there is a redemptive quality – like the story of Christ, a story of God redeeming wrong and turning it into something good and right.
Young Joseph was taken under the tutelage of a Benedictine monk who was the Salzburg cathedral choir director and who recognized the boy’s musical talents. A chorister in the Salzburg Cathedral, Joseph later attended Kremsmunster Lyceum, where he was an avid music student, and in 1811, he entered the Salzburg seminary. He was ordained a priest on August 21, 1815 – though only after receiving a special dispensation because he was an “illegitimate” child.
The young priest served in several parishes in the Salzburg area, and it’s believed that in this time period, probably in 1816, he wrote a 6-verse poem about Christ’s birth; “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!” – “Silent Night, Holy Night.” Due to poor health he was sent to Salzburg for hospitalization in 1817, and then while he was recovering he was assigned to assist the pastor in St. Nicholas’ Church in Oberndorf. That’s where he met Franz Gruber.
Gruber was also born into poverty, in 1787, and he likewise showed his musical talents early. His father Joseph, a linen weaver, discouraged his study of music so Franz studied the violin secretly. He became a school teacher, working at Arnsdorf from 1807-1829 and during that time he was also the organist at Oberndorf where he became good friends with Fr. Joseph.
As Christmas of 1818 approached Fr. Joseph was distressed about the music to be presented at the Christmas Eve service. Something was wrong with the organ at St. Nicholas’ Church. Legend has it that mice had eaten away at the leather bellows, but other reports indicate that flooding had damaged the organ – with no repair man available until well after Christmas. Another account, written long after the fact, just says that the organ was a very poor instrument, always out of tune and beyond much rehabilitation, and Fr. Joseph, as a music lover, was unhappy about the prospect of all the Christmas Eve music being played on this discordant instrument.
What we do know for sure is that on Dec. 24th, 1818, Fr. Joseph walked several miles to the home of Franz Gruber, bringing with him the poem he had written two years before, “Stille Nacht.” That afternoon Franz Gruber wrote a simple tune for that poem, to be accompanied on the guitar. And that night the two friends sang the song at the midnight mass, with Franz playing the guitar and the church choir harmonizing behind the priest and organist as they sang.
The song tells the story of Christ’s birth – the strange story of the king born in poverty, the story of God and “the dawn of redeeming grace,” as one of the lines puts it. And of course the song itself is an illustration of God’s redeeming power – God’s power to transform and redeem situations that are negative and wrong and disappointing. One young man born to illegitimacy, another to poverty, but both through the influence of the church and God’s people growing up to be productive adults…. There’s a frustrating situation with mice or flooding or something ruining the organ, but out of the situation comes a song that tells – with its words and by its very existence – of the redeeming power of God.
I can’t imagine that Mohr and Gruber thought they were writing a song that we’d be singing almost two centuries and half a world away. The organ repairman eventually came to Oberndorf and heard about the song that had been written. He was given a copy of the music and took it with him as he went to various towns in Austria, and after a time it became a popular folk carol. A singing group called “The Rainers” used it in their repertoire when on a concert tour of the US, and gradually the song won its way into the hearts of Christians all around the world – with the Methodist Church being the first (we can proudly say) to include it in a hymnal.
Christmas reminds us of that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not ours. God sanctifies the ordinary – the guitar is as noble for praising God as the organ; the stable is a holy birthplace as a palace. God redeems situations that are wrong, unjust, disappointing – bringing resurrection out of crucifixion, lifting up lives from poverty and injustice, allowing a beautiful song to spring up out of disappointment.
And this night, as we look ahead to another celebration of the holy night… as we contemplate a world in which joy and despair are intermingled… as we think about churches that are sometimes an inspiration, sometimes a frustration, but always by grace the Body of Christ… as we think about our own lives and the mix of virtue and shortcomings on our records… in the midst of all this ambiguity we give thanks for God’s redeeming love. We give thanks for Jesus, and for “the dawn of redeeming grace….” And I pray that – wherever you find yourself as Advent unfolds and Christmas dawns – that the hope that comes from the redeeming God will be with you. Amen.
