Luke 2:21-40 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

21 After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon;[a] this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.[b] 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon[c] came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon[d] took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

29 “Master, now you are dismissing your servant[e] in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon[f] blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

36 There was also a prophet, Anna[g] the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child[h] to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

On this the fourth Sunday of Advent, we light the Candle of Hope, which completes the circle around the Christ Candle, and we know that we are almost there, it is almost Christmas. It seems like just yesterday that it was Thanksgiving and Christmas was so far away. But with each passing day it seems like everything started moving faster and faster. That suddenly we jumped to light speed and that our time to do everything that needs to be done is going, going, and soon to be gone!

The Christmas crunch is upon us. Many of us are rushing around trying to get the errands done: grocery store, post office, the last minutes gifts, jumping online to check the shipping status of overdue packages, the cards are going out late, there are three Christmas parties and two school events that we are supposed to be at, there are the gifts in the basement that need to be wrapped, and on and on and on. Too much to do and too little time to do it. And at Stratham Church, we are still talking about Silent Night, of trying to find that calm and bright place of peace, love, joy, and hope.

Today, we are exploring the fourth verse of the carol Silent Night, “Silent night! Holy night! Wondrous star, lend thy light; with the angels let us sing ‘Alleluia’ to our King: Christ the Savior is born! Christ the Savior is born.” It is not a verse that we commonly sing; in fact, this verse isn’t even in our hymnals. If you want to check, Silent Night is number 134 in the New Century Hymnal and number 138 in the Pilgrim Hymnal. But when Rev. Josef Mohr and Organist Franz Xaver Gruber wrote this carol 200 years ago, they wrote six verses to sing on Christmas Eve 1818 at the small St. Nikola Church in Oberndorf, Austria. Rev. Mohr would sing tenor and play his guitar and Gruber would sing bass with the choir backing them up and one of the most treasured Christmas traditions was started. But most English translations only use three of Mohr and Gruber’s original verses.

This fourth verse, that we never sing, has a powerful message for us on this Sunday of Hope. This verse invites us to join our voices with the heavenly chorus. It is a verse of hope and action. In midst of silence of that holy moment of Jesus’ birth, this verse challenges us to break the silence of the night, to add our voices to the joyous cry, to join the holy work of followers of Jesus. The silence and awe of the first three verses, which place us as passive, silent witnesses to this holy miracle is transformed in this fourth verse. We are no longer asked to remain quiet; we are told to be still; instead we are given our voice. This verse moves us to action; it is a verse of realized hope. Hope moving from an optimistic vision to a realized action. This verse seems unusual in a carol entitled Silent Night, which is probably why the Rev. John Freeman Young who translated this carol into English didn’t use this verse in 1859. He only gave us the three verses that we normally sing as he translated Father Joseph Mohr’s first, second, and sixth verses into the arrangements in our hymnals.[i]

The two scripture readings that we are pairing with this fourth verse are also not the usual passages we read on the Sunday before Christmas. Using these passages might seem like putting the cart before the horse, but these two passages embody so much of the hope of Advent. Our Old Testament reading from the Prophet Isaiah is this sweeping statement of hope. As theologian Gene Tucker writes, “from Isaiah’s perspective, the birth announced…is a sign of hope.”[ii] It is a reminder of a future, of potential, of a vision for a tomorrow that is better than today. When Isaiah wrote these ancient words, Israel was suffering from a crisis of bad leadership. As Isaiah wrote these words of hope his nation was face-to-face with a threatening invading army that was poised to wipe them off the face of the Earth. The whole nation had been let down again and again by bad, self-centered leaders who had left their nation on the edge of collapse. It was time of crisis and fear, and Isaiah offers this promise of hope.

And our Gospel reading from Luke today, is also a unusual reading for the Sunday before Christmas. This stirring reading introduces us to two powerful witnesses to the birth of Jesus: Simeon and Anna. But Simeon and Anna aren’t well loved figures from the birth of Jesus; they don’t have carols written about them like the shepherds, the angels, or the wisemen, but they are two of the most powerful witnesses of hope in the entire Nativity. When Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to the Temple to present him to God, they are greeted by Simeon who is an older man. Luke describes him as being righteous and devout who has been guided by the Holy Spirit to come to the Temple. God has promised Simeon that he wouldn’t die until he sees the Messiah, the promised child. And so, God sends Simeon to the Temple that day to meet the baby, and Simeon takes the baby Jesus into his arms and praises God.

And after meeting Simeon and hearing his words, Mary, Joseph, and the babe are greeted by the Prophet Anna. An old woman, in her mid-80s, who lived in the Temple, which is a nice way of saying she was probably homeless. But she stayed in the Temple praying and praising God all day and night. Anna too recognizes the hope of this new born Messiah and showers him and his parents with her words of hope.[iii] I love the image of these faithful elders being rewarded by getting to hold the new born babe. They get to hold the realized promise. It’s touching; it’s beautiful; it’s hopeful. Today, I want us to take these moving scriptures and the call to action in the fourth verse of Silent Night and weave their meaning into a story about a gardener.

Once upon a time because that is how all the good stories begin, there was a gardener, who early one spring morning, noticed an unfamiliar seedling poking through the ground near the rocky, untended edge of his garden. He knelt to examine its first fragile leaves. Though he had cared for many others during his long life, the gardener was unsure what this new seedling was going to become. Still, it looked forlorn and in need of his encouragement, so the gardener removed the largest stones near the seedling's tender stalk and bathed it in rainwater from his worn tin watering can.

In the coming days the gardener watched the seedling struggle to live and grow in its new, sometimes hostile home. When weeds threatened to choke the seedling, he dug them out, careful not to disturb the seedling's delicate roots. He spooned dark, rich compost around its base. One cold April night he even fashioned a special cover for the seedling from an old canning jar so that it would not freeze.

But the gardener also believed in the seedling's natural capacity to adapt and survive. He did not water it too frequently. He did not stimulate its growth with chemicals. Nor did he succumb to the urge to lift the seedling from its unfriendly setting and transplant it in the rich, sheltered center of the garden. Instead the gardener watched and waited.

Day by day the seedling grew taller, stronger. Its slender yet sturdy stalk reached for the heavens and its blue-green leaves stretched to either side as if to welcome the gardener as he arrived each morning.

Soon a flower bud appeared atop the young plant's stem. Then one warm June afternoon the tightly wrapped, purple-blue petals unfurled, revealing a paler blue ring of petals inside and a tiny bouquet of yellow stamens at its center.

A columbine-the gentle wildflower whose name means "dovelike." A single, perfect columbine. The gardener smiled. He knew then that the columbine would continue to grow and flourish, still needing his presence but no longer requiring the daily companionship it had during its tenuous early days.

The gardener crouched next to the lovely blossom and cupped its head in his rough palm. "Congratulations," he whispered to the columbine. "You have not only survived, you have grown beautiful and strong."

As the gardener stood-up and turned to walk back to his shed, suddenly a gust of wind lifted his straw hat and as he bent to retrieve it, a small voice whispered back, "without your help I could not have. Thank you."

The gardener looked up, but no one was there. Just the blue columbine nodding happily in the breeze. . .[iv]

In light of all this reflection, I want us focus upon hope today. Hope along with Love and Faith are the three major foundations of the entire New Testament witness of Jesus. Faith, hope, and love. Jesus gives us all three to make the gospel truly good news. Hope is an optimistic feeling that everything is going to work out for the better; that we will have a positive outcome; it is the confidence in our expectation that something good is going to happen.

When we light the candle of hope as the last candle before the Christ Candle; it is the anchor of hope in the midst of the chaos of the season that pulls us back to the reason. It is that hope that empowers us to hold it all together.

As we enter the mad dash of the final 48 hours before Christmas, I want us to focus upon hope. As in the case of the Prophet Isaiah, hope normally grows out of a state of crisis. It is a reminder that the crisis will threaten us, but it will not overcome us. Hope is also a reminder that we need to open ourselves, our emotions, our spirits, our minds to the creative possibility that God places before us. And when we use the creative possibilities of hope we face this world’s hopelessness.

A few years ago, theologian Jim Wallis argued that we can work to address the biggest issues that we as a society face – from racism to poverty to domestic violence to human trafficking to climate change to terrorism—and we can address them one by one “or” as he writes “we can start by going deeper, to a more foundational and spiritual understanding of hope—rooted in our identity as children of God, made in the image of God, as the only thing that will see us through times like this. I believe we should start there. Because the biggest problem we face—the biggest enemy at the heart of many of the issues we must address—is hopelessness.”[v]

So, there are three little takeaways that I want us to reflect upon this Christmas Season. First, we need to understand that Hope is a form of protest. Hope is seeing the current situation and saying this is not acceptable. This reality is not right. We need change. Simeon and Anna lived under the corruption and violence of the Roman Empire for their entire lives, but their never stopped their ministry of hope. It was their protest and even in their old age they were at the Temple ready. Still answering God’s call. The hope of the baby Jesus is a hope for the whole world that transforms, that turns corrupt systems upside down, that confronts sin and hopelessness and that brings hope to all.

Second, we need to remember that hope is a decision. We need to focus on building our Committed Hope not just wallowing on Wishful Hope. Wishful hope is just basically wishful thinking. Wishful hope is dreaming that we will hit the lottery, or someone will charge into our present crisis and fix everything for us. Wishful hope is fantasy that everything will just get better by itself and we won’t need to do anything. Wither we need to move some stones, pull some weeds, or bring some refreshing water, we have to make the decision to help God’s flower grow in that time and place.

Finally, we need to understand that hope is an action. But we need Committed Hope and that requires us to make to make something happen. After we make the decision, we need to do something to make it reality. Committed hope is when we are willing to work to make our hopeful optimism a reality. We are willing to work to make our dream real. Hope requires action; not other peoples’ action but our action.

My friends, this is our hope today. Tomorrow, we will light that Christ Candle, but it is up to us to carry that hope, that hopeful light, out into the dark concerns of this world. There is hope in the Christmas message, but that hope requires our hands, our feet, our commitment, or as the fourth verse of Silent Night reminds us, our voices to break the still silence.

[i] Silent Night: 200th Anniversary available at: http://stillenacht.com/en// , Mark Savage “The Curious History of the Christmas Carol” BBC Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46553604, Greg Tasker “Silent Night: Austria’s Melodic Message of Peace” BBC Available at: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181219-silent-night-austrias-melodic-message-of-peace, Tanya Mohn “Celebrating ‘Silent Night’ in Austria: The 200th Anniversary of the Famous Christmas Carol” Forbes Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2018/10/29/celebating-silent-night-in-austria-the-200th-anniversary-of-the-famous-christmas-carol/#2a40c2167314, Ron Clancy “Silent Night, Holy Night – Notes” Available at: https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Notes_On_Carols/silent_night_holy_night_notes.htm.

[ii] Gene Tucker “Isaiah 9:2-7” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

[iv] My re-telling of “A Parable” by Alan D. Wolfelt. Available at: https://oconnormortuary.com/caregiver-as-gardener-a-parable/.

[v] Jim Wallis “The Way of Hope” Available at: https://sojo.net/articles/way-hope