In the Bleak Midwinter

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 1:46-55; Isaiah 40:1-11

December 15, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

By now, I would imagine, most if not all of us have our Christmas decorations up. Long gone are the days when decorating takes place on Christmas Eve. The stores start right after Halloween these days! So we’ve decorated, and many of our decorations, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, contain not only depictions of Jesus and Mary and Joseph, but winter scenes, snow villages, and snowmen named Frosty. We have this picture of Christmas being a winter wonderland, and many of us think it’s not really Christmas if we don’t have at least a little snow on Christmas Eve (as long as it goes away December 26 in time to do our after-Christmas shopping, right?). One of the strangest Christmases we had as a family was several years ago when we boarded a plane on Christmas Day and flew to Florida to spend a couple of days at Disney World, and then we went on south to visit my parents. Being at Disney World in December is not only really busy, it’s also strange. Everything is decorated for Christmas: red and green everywhere and piles of fake snow all around. Picture swimming in a pool surrounded by decorations making it look like a northern winter. Even in sunny Florida, people want to see a winter snow for Christmas!

And yet, we know with as much certainty as we can that Jesus was not born in the winter. He wasn’t born December 25, and even if he had been, winter in Bethlehem is much warmer than here, usually in the high 50’s. It might get cold enough to snow one day out of the month, if that, meteorologists say. No, Jesus was probably born in the spring, as that’s the only time of year when shepherds would naturally be out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks. That’s when the lambs were born, and the shepherds needed to be nearby to make sure none of the mother lambs got into distress while giving birth (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 48). Now, there are a lot of theories as to how Christmas—the feast of Christ—ended up on December 25, at the beginning of winter, but it appears to have happened early on, sometime before the year 312, maybe as early as 200, and it was based on the curious idea that Jesus was crucified on the same day as he was conceived. There’s no proof for that belief, and it may sound crazy to us, but the early church calculated his conception as March 25, and nine months after that is December 25 (http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/). So, early on, that become the celebration of his birthday. Later on, it was noted that this time of year is rather dark, and how appropriate it is—even if it’s not historically accurate—to celebrate the light of the world shining in the darkness in the depths of the bleak midwinter. Light in the darkness, hope in the bleak midwinter—it was that imagery which captured the attention of a nineteenth century poet named Christina Rossetti.

This Advent, we are exploring several Christmas carols—some of them you may know and others, like this one, you may not know as well. “In the Bleak Midwinter” doesn’t often end up on Christmas records, and it’s usually not at the top of carol requests. I didn’t grow up singing it, and really only discovered it a few years ago, but when I first heard it, I realized the power of this song. In a culture that often overlooks or downplays those who struggle in this season, Christina Rossetti has much to say to us about the way Christmas should impact our lives. To understand her poetry, however, it will help to know a but about her and her life in England. Christina Rossetti’s father was a poet, and she seemed to naturally have an artistic bent. She dictated her first story to her mother before she learned to write. Educated at home, she was exposed to a wide variety of fairy tales, novels, classical works and religious literature. Early on, she had a deep faith, rooted in the Anglican-Catholic tradition. But Rossetti’s life was not easy. Fairly early in her life, her father’s physical and mental health deteriorated to the point where he was unable to teach and faced the possibility of also losing his sight. Rossetti herself had a nervous breakdown at the age of 14, and she continued into her adult years facing bouts of depression and other illnesses. She found love an impossible goal; three men proposed to her and she turned them all down, mostly because they were spiritually incompatible. Her depression came and went, and later in life, Rossetti was diagnosed with Graves Disease, a thyroid condition that left her permanently weakened, and then came breast cancer. Though the tumor was removed, it came back and she died from cancer at the age of 64.

Christina Rossetti had a difficult life, even with her faith. In 1857, she had a “major religious crisis,” though there don’t seem to be a lot of details as to exactly what it was about. And yet, she clung to her faith to get her through the most difficult parts of life. It shines through in her poetry; two of her songs are in our hymnal. One of them reminds us that “love came down at Christmas” (UMH 242), and the other one is this one, “In the Bleak Midwinter.” As we sang it earlier this morning, I’m reminded that Rossetti is speaking much about her own life and the presence of the Christ child in her life. Her life was not perfect. Many times her life seemed quite winter-like. And yet, into that imperfect, sometimes confusing life, came the presence of God in the form of baby Jesus: “In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed—the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ” (UMH 221).

Certainly, this time of year is one of joy and celebration, happiness and wonder, and Rossetti’s words sometimes seem out of place alongside other carols like “Joy to the World” and “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.” But I love that Rossetti’s carol is in our hymnal and part of our tradition, because we need to hear her voice, reminding us that life is not always joyful and merry. There are difficult pieces and sharp edges to life that don’t just go away on December 25. In fact, in some ways, the coming of Jesus and his presence in our lives only complicates things. Certainly Mary, in our Gospel lesson today, found that to be true.

Mary, you may remember, was quite young—most scholars estimate she was probably between 12 and 14 when the angel Gabriel announced to her that she was going to be the mother of the Messiah. Out of all the women in all of Israel, she was chosen. She was probably largely uneducated, and we know, since she was from Nazareth, she came from a poor family. Nazareth was the “low-rent district” for people who worked in the nearby city of Sepphoris. If you were someone, you lived in Sepphoris. Archaeology has uncovered lavish villas in that city. If you were nobody, you lived in Nazareth. We also know Mary was betrothed to Joseph (cf. Hamilton, The Journey, pgs. 21-22). This was probably an arranged marriage. Joseph had a career, and was probably a few years older than Mary, but this arrangement would have allowed her to climb at least a bit out of poverty. And in the midst of all of that, before she and Joseph are married, before they have slept together, Mary becomes pregnant. Very few, if anyone, would believe her story that the baby was the work of the Holy Spirit. Even people of faith, as Mary’s family and neighbors would have been, struggle to really, truly believe in the supernatural. They and we struggle to believe God can really do all those things. And so, for perhaps a variety of reasons, Mary leaves Nazareth and makes the eighty mile trip journey (probably nine days on foot) to see her older relative, Elizabeth, a woman who was miraculously pregnant in her old age (cf. Hamilton 63). This was a natural conception, but no less miraculous. And so, Mary wanted to be with Elizabeth. She needed her wisdom, she needed her understanding, and she needed her presence. Mary has entered a difficult part of her life, a time when depression or discouragement could have surrounded her. She’s in a metaphorical midwinter. The joy of a new baby coming is mixed with the reality that she isn’t believed, that she could be killed for what is happening in and to her, and that even Joseph is threatening or planning to divorce her (cf. Matthew 1:19). She needs someone to come alongside and help her through this time, so she goes away, to visit Elizabeth.

Luke tells us the story. There’s no e-mail, Facebook or Twitter for Mary to let Elizabeth know she’s coming. She doesn’t even have a cell phone to call ahead and say when she might arrive. Mary just shows up on Elizabeth’s doorstep, and when she does, the baby inside Elizabeth’s womb (who is John the Baptist) leaps at the sound of Mary’s voice. Now, obviously, I’ve never experienced that, but mothers say it’s the most amazing feeling in the world when the baby begins to move. This, however, is more than random movement. John is responding to Mary’s voice even while he’s in the womb. Elizabeth, with her motherly intuition, knows it’s not just random movement. It’s a leap of joy, because Mary is carrying the savior of the world, the one who will turn everything upside down when he comes, the one who can turn the bleak midwinters of our lives into spring. Mary knows this, too, which is what she sings about after Elizabeth blesses her.

Mary’s song is often called the “Magnificat,” which is the first word in the song in Latin, but it’s really a borrowed song. Pieces of this song come from all over the Hebrew Scriptures (Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 15); these words and phrases just flow out of Mary because she knows her Bible so well. Did I say she was uneducated? Well, maybe, as the world considers education, but Mary knows her Scriptures and the promises of God so very well and holds them close to her heart. And so she sings—and she sings more than she knows (Card 41). She is singing of revolution, a radical reversal in the way things are. She sings of God’s mercy, of God’s mighty deeds, but if you’re on the upper side of life, you may not think of Mary’s song as good news. She says the proud will be scattered (1:51). The rulers will be brought down from their thrones (1:52). The rich, she sings, will be sent away empty (1:53), while the hungry will be filled with good things (1:53) and the humble will be lifted up (1:52). In other words, when the Savior comes, those who are powerful will find themselves without power, and those who are without the things they need now will find themselves provided for, just as God had promised the people long ago. Mary’s song finds the Savior turning the world upside down. And he will do that by coming in the weakness of a child (cf. Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 9, pg. 55).

Do you suppose Mary sang this song to Jesus when he was a baby, or as he grew? Because there are certainly echoes of what she sings about when Jesus begins preaching. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled…Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:5-6, 9). Jesus comes and upsets the status quo. The baby of Bethlehem is not interested in your achievements and your popularity. He wants to know what you’ve done for the least of these (cf. Matthew 25:45), for those who are walking through a bleak midwinter. That’s what Mary’s song is about. Even before Jesus is born, Mary knows that her son is coming for the Christina Rossettis and all those who struggle. He is their—and our—and her hope.

That song sung at Elizabeth’s doorstep would not be the end of Mary’s “bleak midwinter.” When she said “yes” to God, to being the mother of the Messiah, she said “yes” to many moments, many years of struggle, difficulty and hardship. Think about what Mary will face in the coming years. When Jesus is eight days old, she will be told by an old man in the temple that a sword will pierce her soul (Luke 2:35). When Jesus is somewhere around the age of two, she will find herself fleeing in the middle of the night because Joseph had a dream that King Herod was trying to kill their child. So they run to Egypt—not an easy journey from Bethlehem even today—and there they live as refugees for a number of years. No home, no family, nothing to depend on (Matthew 2:13-15). When Jesus is twelve, she loses him for three days in Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-50). Can you imagine how that felt? God gave me his son and I lost him! At some point after that, her husband dies and she’s left to raise Jesus and their other children all by herself in a culture that didn’t always look fondly on women. When Jesus is thirty, and he’s gone out preaching, she thinks he’s gone crazy because he’s been so busy working that he hasn’t eaten (Mark 3:21). (Mary would think a lot of people are crazy today!) And then, just a short time after that, she despairs completely as she stands at the foot of a Roman cross, a cross where they have nailed her firstborn son. She watches as he dies a painful and agonizing death. For three days, Mary is heartbroken, until she sees him raised from the dead (John 19:25-27). But she doesn’t know all that as she stands in Elizabeth’s house. All she knows is that, no matter what happens to her from this day on, there is always hope. In the midst of her “bleak midwinter,” Mary finds tremendous hope in the coming of the Messiah. Centuries later, so did Christina Rossetti.

“Our God,” Rossetti wrote, “heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain; heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.” Jesus is coming, Rossetti writes, and even this darkness, this bleak midwinter, will be done away with in favor of something better, something perfect, something where pain, death, mourning, sorrowing and sighing will be made obsolete (cf. Revelation 21:4). And then, in the final verse, Rossetti reflects Mary’s heart, wondering what would be an appropriate gift for someone who is coming to turn things upside down, for someone who is coming to make all things new and right (cf. Revelation 21:5). “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; yet what I can I give him: give my heart.” Give my heart—when we hear that in modern American Christianity, we think of the word “salvation,” giving my heart to Jesus. And that’s certainly a gift we need to give. Trusting Jesus for salvation from our sin, trusting him to save us from an eternity away from God, trusting that he will walk with us and make us holy—that’s absolutely where we need to start in our Christmas gift-giving to Christ. If you haven’t accepted the baby of Bethlehem into your heart and life, why not? And why not now? It’s the best Christmas gift you can ever give to yourself, to those around you, and to Jesus himself. He longs for you to come to know him. He wants you to accept his gift of love. What can I give him? I can give him my heart by receiving his love.

But giving our hearts doesn’t stop when we accept Jesus into our lives, when we are saved. In fact, I would go so far as to say it only starts there, because giving our hearts is really a much larger and much more inclusive task than just saying “yes” to Jesus once. Mary learned that. Saying “yes” for Mary was about giving her whole self—soul, mind, and body. Do you remember how she responded to the angel’s invitation? It wasn’t, “Well, yes, you can use my womb for nine months.” No, Mary said this: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38). In other words, use me however you want to. I am your servant, Lord, do with me as you will. That’s the response of a believer giving their whole heart, and that’s the Christmas gift Jesus would most like to receive. Yet it’s the Christmas gift we most often hold back. So what are some ways we can give our hearts this Christmas and push back the “bleak midwinters” of our lives?

Counselors often tell folks who struggle this time of year that one of the best ways to combat the winter blues is to serve others, to get out beyond ourselves and care for someone else. This coming week, of course, there are a couple of opportunities to serve others, starting today when our youth and adults go out Christmas Caroling to the nursing homes and shut-ins. Now, what’s amazing about that time this afternoon is that you will go out to bless others, to share the Christmas spirit and joy with those who can't get to church, and yet you will find yourself blessed. The smiles and those who can sing along will bless you, will lift your spirits. That’s the way it is with service beyond ourselves. It happens every year when our team goes to Red Bird Mission. We go to fix doors or windows—sometimes we break them, not saying who, just that it might have happened—we go to take school supplies and items for the thrift store, and yet as we serve, as we get to see how God uses our small efforts to enrich lives, to touch hearts, we find ourselves blessed as well. We come home with our bodies tired and our hearts full. The same thing can happen in a simple afternoon of Christmas caroling, or giving an hour of your time for bell ringing. You can sing, dance, spread Christmas cheer. I like to watch faces as I’m ringing bells, and I always realize how unhappy so many people are this time of year. Do you notice that? The stress and the frantic activity really takes its toll and puts many people into what looks like a permanent bleak midwinter. But for an hour, we get a chance to shine the light, to spread the joy, and to help others in need at the same time. It’s not about collecting money in the kettle, although we want to do that. But more than that, it’s about reminding people that there is joy, there is gladness in this season. And when we take an hour to remind others of that, we might just find the winter in our own hearts melting. It’s similar to what John Wesley was told when he was struggling with his faith early in his life. He was told to preach faith until he had it, then preach faith. Or, as Pastor Mike Slaughter (cf. Dare to Dream) and others have put it: it’s easier to act our way into a new belief than to believe our way into a new way of acting. Serve others, and see what that does to the midwinter that threatens to settle in.

Just ten days ago, the world mourned the loss of a man who made a choice that changed the world. Nelson Mandela fought against the government of South Africa and its policy of apartheid, and ended up serving 27 years in prison because of it. For many people, that would be a time when bitterness would set it, but Mandela instead made it a time of growth and even found a measure of healing. When he was released after an international campaign of support, he joined with the then-white government to abolish apartheid and help establish the first multiracial elections in the country. Out of that election, Mandela was elected president and rather than striking back at those he might have considered enemies, he chose to work with them. He established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated human rights abuses in the country. If those who committed such abuses would admit to them, be a witness, confess their participation, they could be forgiven. Mandela believed that striking back with violence in response to previous violence was not the answer. He chose, instead, to serve, and even after his term was over, when he declined to run again, he continued to serve others, to bring people together. What could have been a bleak midwinter in the country of South Africa instead turned into a season of hope. We can make a similar choice to serve others.

Sometimes we also need a place to find healing and hope for the scars that we hide within. For the last several years, we have offered a Longest Night Service as a place of healing for those who struggle during this season. The longest night of the year is December 21, and this Saturday at 7:00 p.m. several pastors will gather together to offer this time of quiet prayers and hope to our community. If your season is a place of struggle, I can’t encourage you enough to join us. Invite someone you know who is struggling and offer to come with them.

And then one final way you can serve other this season—actually, beyond this season. For the last several years, many of you know, we have done a crazy thing. We’ve been giving our entire Christmas Candlelight offering away. That’s nuts, you might say, because some people only come that night! And you’re right, but we were challenged several years ago to begin thinking about what we could do on that night as a gift to Jesus. What if Christmas was more about giving than getting? So, if you’re going to catch up on your pledge or tithe for the year, you’ll need to do that on a Sunday morning because everything that goes into the plate on the 23rd and the 24th for our Candlelight services will go to serve others in need. Half of it will go to the Feed My Lambs ministry, which serves hungry children right here in our own community, providing food for the weekends for kids who might not otherwise have anything. And we’ve heard from teachers and administrators in our own congregation what a difference that ministry is making. The other half of the offering this year will go toward the Africa University Campaign that our Annual Conference is running right now. Africa University was founded in 1992 in Zimbabwe as a Christian university designed to make a difference both spiritually and economically on that continent. It has grown tremendously and graduates are shining the light all over Africa. Currently, the student body is made up of folks from twenty-five nations. Think what a difference they can make as these students learn about serving as ambassadors of Christ—whether that’s in the church, in agriculture, in business, in politics. What if the next Nelson Mandela is sitting in those classrooms right now? The money we give will fund scholarships and academic opportunities, and goal of the Annual Conference is to raise $1.6 million over the next three years. So we can be a part, through our Candlelight offering, of making a difference in the future of Africa.

So, those are a few ways to serve, to push back the bleak midwinter. Trust me when I say that I know we can’t push it back or fully erase the darkness that surrounds us, the depression we might face, with just an hour at the kettle or sitting in a single worship service. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not proposing some quick fix or that we just ignore the struggle. Christina Rossetti, as we’ve said, fought the bleak midwinter all of her life, and yet she stubbornly clung to the hope found in that Bethlehem manger. Mary could have given into fear when facing that first Christmas. She could have allowed herself to imagine the worst when Joseph said he didn’t believe her, or later when he told her they had to make the long journey to Bethlehem. But she didn’t. She grabbed onto the hope offered by God through the prophets, and she also had help in Elizabeth. Sometimes we might need someone to walk with us, in part so that we don’t have to suffer alone, and also so that on those days when the midwinter seems so dark, there is someone to turn on the lights for us. That’s why we launched our Congregational Care ministry this fall. We’re up and running, but you might not hear a lot about it. On its best days, Congregational Care will operate in the background, so to speak. But we currently have deployed nineteen Care Ministers in four different areas of ministry, and if you find yourself facing a bleak midwinter like Christina Rossetti described, don’t walk through it alone. There are people here who want to care for you. We may not know your need, so help us help you. And together, we’ll all journey joyfully to the manger.

Centuries before that night in Bethlehem, the prophet Isaiah, inspired by God, looked down the hallways of history and saw a day coming when the people of God would receive comfort. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (40:1). When we hear the word, “comfort,” we might think of wrapping up in a warm blanket. We might think of comfort food, or of a soft mattress to sleep on. But Isaiah isn’t talking about that kind of comfort. He’s talking about doing what’s necessary to be restored to a full relationship with God.—that’s real comfort. Whatever it is that gets in your way, Isaiah says, it needs to be removed, but his promise is this: there is one coming who will be able to remove it. He is the good news (40:9), the one who will come as a shepherd carrying a lamb close to his heart (40:11). He is the one who is our God (40:9), and no matter what life throws at us, he offers us himself. He is our comfort, our hope, our savior. “In the bleak midwinter, a stable place sufficed—the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.” Because of that gift, Mary could sing, and so can we.