"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given;
so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven."
- O Little Town Of Bethlehem, 3rd verse
I am astounded at how loud the world has gotten lately. I stepped into an elevator at a nearby hospital to do a pastoral call on a parishioner and was almost deafened by the piped-in music playing through the speakers inside that tiny moving box. Christmas music has begun playing on the radio, Christmas shopping commercials have begun occupying television air-time, and all around are the Silver Bells reminding us (as if we could ever forget!) that it's "Christmas time in the city!"
The noise and din of the world's commercialized view of the holidays seems at times to me to be somewhat forced. "It is Christmas time, and don't you forget it, Buster!" And to make sure that you get into the mood, carols will be played at the top volume; decorations will go up post-haste; Christmas sales will be crammed into your inbox, your mailbox, and...well, your face lest you forget that you have so much more to do.
Now, don't get me wrong - I love Christmas. The traditions that have accumulated over the generations are grand, and remind us of a simpler time, a better time, a time filled with family and friends, and good cheer. My Christmases are filled with memories. Of that old hand-blown glass candy dish filled with the hard ribbon candy (all stuck together into one confectionery blob, mind you!) sitting on the old buffet in Grandma's Dining room. Of the smell of the pine yule logs in the fireplace, so full of sap they were hard to light. Of the worn out pages of the old Sears and Roebuck Wish Book, that had been so paged through it barely held together. Of the frosty windows, and seeing your breath outdoors in the cold frozen air as you hiked up that hill again pulling your Flexible Flyer sled behind you for one more ride down the hill before dark. I remember all that stuff, and it warms the cockles of my heart just like most people.
But somewhere along the way, something was forgotten. Left out. Fallen by the wayside. Not intentionally, mind you. But somewhere we became absent minded. We forgot what the core of the season was all about. But we didn't notice much because of all the excitement and noise.
And I cannot help but wonder...have we grown deaf to the silence of the season? Have we grown so accustomed to the noise that we cannot hear the silence of eternity breaking into the chaos of our world?
I was privileged to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem twice in recent years. And each time I was able to be there, I was surrounded by literally hundreds of tourists straining to see the grotto where supposedly Mary gave birth to God's Son, Jesus. It is a place adorned with artwork that is hundreds of years old, and at the same time, is remarkably humble. A Church has been built over the site, but with patience, one can walk down the narrow steps beneath the altar and see where God became a tiny human being. I daresay the noise of that night was nothing compared to what we hear today.
Phillips Brooks' Christmas hymn, "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" is one of my favorites because it speaks to this silence. And I am reminded that no amount of shouting, clanging, or other noise will enable me to hear "how silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given." It is only when I sit quietly and tune out the noise that I even become aware of just how noisy the world has become, perhaps it its attempts to squelch the silence of this holy mystery that has become flesh among us.
"No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in."
