Communion Meditation

December 6, 1987

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It’s still too early in Advent for us to sing Christmas carols, I suppose. Technically, carols should be sung only during the season of Christmas, after the birth, as a witness to the birth.

We always start too early and by the time the right season arrives, we’re saturated to overflowing.

But it’s hard to wait. Some of those words are so lovely and have such a timeless quality of serenity about them....

One says: “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the message of His heaven.”

I’m sure it’s seemed to you as it has to me that the quietness, the silence, the simplicity of it might just be one of the most important aspects of the whole thing....How remarkably unobtrusive God is in His dealings with us...how restrained.

God could make us do His bidding if He wanted to...it wouldn’t be hard. God could force us to act right. God could shake us in His hand like a rag doll until we are totally acquiescent. BUT THAT’S NOT THE WAY HE SEEMS TO CHOOSE TO DO.

His involvement in the lives of His creation is characterized by quietness and simplicity. God doesn’t thunder, He beckons. God doesn’t demand, He offers. God doesn’t insist, He invites. BY INVITATION ONLY seems to be the way God gathers followers into His kingdom.

Quietness and simplicity are the hallmarks of Christmas, REAL Christmas---the manger, with its rustic stillness, the shepherds, tip-toing in from the fields, the magi, stealing quietly inside, to leave their gifts.

“Above thy deep and dreamless sleep”, Phillips Brooks wrote, “the silent stars go by.” THAT WAS THE SETTING.

The birth of Jesus was a quiet thing, accomplished in a remote corner of the civilized world, where all but a very few were completely oblivious that anything cosmically significant was going on at all.

So, too, was the Last Supper. That was also a quiet thing. There was no fanfare about it, no pageantry. Nobody called the Press to come, there were no Eye-Witness news cameras on hand.

A Man and His friends ate a meal together, then quietly, unforgettably, He told them goodbye.

I guess, come to think of it, most of the truly important things of life happen quietly and simply, don’t they? NOISE, FOR THE MOST PART, LOUD RAUCOUS NOISE IS DESTRUCTIVE, NOT CONSTRUCTIVE.

Insight is quiet, growth is quiet, love is quiet, commitment is quiet. These things happen on the inside, where only the heart knows the truth.

We gather this morning on this Second Advent Sunday, as believers, part of the Body of Christ, in a special place, at a special time, to re-live, quietly, and inwardly the central events around which our Faith revolves.

The heart of Christianity is not a set of rules, not a list of principles, not even a code of morals. THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY IS SOMETHING GOD FREELY HAS DONE...in Jesus of Nazareth, who was born, lived, taught, suffered, died and was raised from the dead in a momentous, but not ostentatious act of divine compassion.

It happened, it all happened, physically, biologically, historically, but it really has no meaning “out there”, unless it also happens in HERE. That’s the really important locale.

As old Martin Luther used to put it so straightforwardly with his typical Teutonic directness: “I care not that Christ died, unless He died for thee.” Exactly!

For that to happen, it has to be an inward thing, a quiet thing, a personal thing, that can take place only in the stillness of your heart.

My prayer for each one of you this morning would be that your heart might be a manger in which there is a welcome place for the Christ to come and dwell.

As you come to the altar in a moment to receive these historic elements denoting His sacrifice, you would be especially sensitive to what His life and love means to you.

And I would pray that as you take these tokens of His love, you could renew your commitment to His Lordship over all your life.

Quietly, inwardly, silently, let it happen again.

“No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.”

Let Him enter into you, and reign forevermore.