Luke 2:1-7
Christmas is a time for music. People who never sing find themselves singing along with the carols and songs being played on the radio or in the department stores.
There’s a Christmas song you’re bound to hear that you won’t find in many hymnals. No, it’s not Santa Claus Is Coming to Town or Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Those are not in any hymnals, I hope. As best as I can determine, the song I’m talking about is found in only four hymnals. One of them is generically Evangelical, one is Church of England, one is Dutch Reformed, and one is from a fellowship in Singapore. I guess that shows it has a fairly wide appeal even if it’s not found everywhere.
I’m talking about Mary’s Boy Child.
It was written by a man named Jester Hairston. Jester was born in Atlanta in 1901, grew up in Pittsburgh, and briefly attended Julliard. But he was bitten by the acting bug and headed off to Hollywood. From 1936 to the late-1990s he stayed busy in movies and on TV, but it’s his music that we probably remember most, even if we never heard his name.
Throughout his life he continued to lead choirs and write music. In 1963, he wrote the song “Amen” that Sydney Poitier “sang” in Lilies of the Field; actually, Hairston sang it and it was dubbed for the scene. A few years earlier, in 1956, he was asked by a friend to write a Christmas song. He decided to give the song a Calypso beat. So, he wrote Mary’s Boy Child. The lively song was being sung by a choir when Harry Belafonte heard it. He got permission to record it and the song became a hit.
I going to let that song guide my remarks this morning. I’m not going to sing it, so you can relax but I’ll just kind of offer some observations.
The song begins simply
Long time ago in Bethlehem,
So the Holy Bible say,
Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ,
Was born on Christmas day,
We’ve heard that so much that we have become immune to the wonder of what it says. At a particular time in history and at a particular place in this world, God acted. When we look into “the Holy Bible,” we find that both Matthew and Luke are very specific about the time of Jesus’ birth.
This was important because the earliest Christians saw those events as the culmination of promises God had given centuries before. In time, one of the most-often creeds of the church would tie Jesus to real time-space history when it says Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
This tying Christ’s birth to history not only reminds us that God keeps his promises, it reminds us that God has not left us alone. He is not a remote deity who is content to observe the messes we get ourselves into and then do nothing. He is willing to act. In fact, he is willing to enter history himself, to walk among us as one of us.
The song goes on…
Now, Joseph and his wife, Mary,
Come to bethlehem that night,
They found no place to bear her child,
Not a single room was in sight.
By and by, they find a little nook,
In a stable all forlorn,
And in a manger cold and dark,
Mary's little Boy was born!
When God entered our world, when he became one of us, he did not come to live in an opulent palace, he came to live as the Child in a peasant family. Hairston depicts the announcement to the shepherds this way: “Hark, now hear the angels sing,
A newborn King today….” Have you ever thought of the mind-boggling message the angels gave the shepherds? The angels said, “Today your Savior is born in the city of David. He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you:You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger….” You can imagine the shepherds saying, “Excuse me. Savior, manger. That doesn’t make sense.” Let’s face it, people who are going to change the world aren’t born in barns. It’s just not the way it’s supposed to be.
Years after his birth, some of Jesus’ critics would sneer at his humble origins, discounting what he said because he was merely “Joseph’s son.” One man who would become a follower, on being invited to meet Jesus, muttered a common prejudice, “He’s from Nazareth? What is he, some kind of hillbilly? What good ever came out of Nazareth?” Ok, that’s from the “reading between the lines” version.
The point is, he didn’t come to overwhelm us with his good looks, his wealth, his style; he impressed people with his goodness, integrity, and wisdom.
There’s a phrase, not one I especially like, but admit to using: “It is what it is.” It was chosen as USA Today’s “cliche of the year” in 2004 but you still hear it. Cliches often live long and prosper. And, even when it goes unspoken, the idea is there. Things are bad and they’re not going to change. It suggests a spirit of helplessness and hopelessness. And it’s contagious. I have Christian friends who cannot imagine any scenario in which the church does not become a meaningless relic of a far-off past, a dinosaur that makes no real difference in the world. Actually, the dinosaurs help provide fodder for sci-fi movies. The church, however, is not going to be so lucky. Of course, that runs contrary to one of my fundamental truths for understanding the history of the church: It is always too soon to publish the church’s obituary.
The message of the prophets’s could, at times, have been described as “ It is what it is but it won’t be forever.”
The birth of Mary’s Baby Boy made all the difference.
Did you hear President Obama’s speech at the lighting of the national Christmas tree? In this time of political correctness, it was remarkable. He spoke of Christ healing people, caring for the poor, and lifting up the outcasts, introducing his comments this way.
"More than 2,000 years ago, a child was born to two faithful travelers who could find rest only in a stable, among the cattle and the sheep. But this was not just any child. Christ’s birth made the angels rejoice and attracted shepherds and kings from afar. He was a manifestation of God’s love for us.”
Okay, he left out a lot and he did try to equate Christianity and other religions but what he did say could inspire a lot of discussion. So could the refrain of Hairston’s simple song:
Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ,
Was born on Christmas day,
Hark, now hear the angels sing,
A newborn King today,
And man will live forevermore,
Because of Christmas day.
Trumpets sound and angels sing,
Listen to what they say,
That Man will live forevermore,
Because of Christmas day.
That refrain that you hear and may even tap your foot to, begs the question: Why should the birth of any child have had that impact?
One of the most common complaints Christians make this time of year it that Christmas has become so secularized that we’ve forgotten about Christ. So, every year some good people put signs on our buses that say “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” I’ve always thought that the average adult will say, “What’s your point.” Knowing the historical origins of the Christmas holiday is not the same as understanding its significance for us.
People who won’t go to a cantata or hear a Christmas sermon, will hear this peppy little song. And it contains a seed of the gospel: “Man will live forevermore, Because of Christmas day.” We can pray, that somehow, someway people listening to the words might begin to ask “Why?”
Of course, “Mary’s Boy Child” leaves a lot of blanks. It doesn’t touch on much beyond Bethlehem, the manger, and the shepherds.
When Pat suggested I take a look at this song, I discovered there was a later version sung by a Jamaican group, popular during the disco era, called Boney M. For some reason, their version of the song has a little more theology in it. I don't know why they felt the need for more theology but it's there.
Here’s how their version ends:
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Mary's boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
Oh a moment still worth was a glow, all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted
"let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace".
Oh my Lord
You sent your son to save us
Oh my Lord
Your very self you gave us
Oh my Lord
That sin may not enslave us
And love may reign once more
Oh my Lord
when in the crib they found him
Oh my Lord
A golden halo crowned him
Oh my Lord
They gathered all around him
To see him and adore
Did you hear those words? If they don’t fill in the blanks, they open the way to discuss the “why” of Christ’s Birth.
“You sent your Son to save us.” Save us from what?
“Your very self you gave us.” What does that say about the identity of that Child? How would he give himself?
“That sin might not enslave us.” What is sin? How did the Child born on Christmas deal with sin?
“They gathered all around him/to see him and adore.” Why should we adore him? What does that mean for how we are to live?
And don’t miss this:
…all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted
"let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace".
That’s a great image: Excited people dashing about telling about Mary’s Baby Boy. It just seems right. It’s a story worth telling—at least we think so. Luke says the shepherds overflowed with excitement about what they had seen. We can’t imagine anyone telling the shepherds to hush because they might offend someone. Or can we?
Because we can’t put Nativity scenes on the court house lawn, because our children enjoy “winter” break not Christmas break, because our elected officials must temper any good word about Christ with an equally good word about any other religious leader, we think we have been silenced.
But this little song that has found a home in so few hymnals, can be a starting place. Actually, my point is if we want to “let everyone know,” we can find a way.
There’s a great little phrase in Mark 7:24 in the Authorized Version. It tells of how Jesus had sought privacy in a home near the border of Tyre and Sidon. Then Mark adds, “…but he could not be hid.”
The only way people around us will miss the point about Christmas is if we forget to tell them that we may “live forevermore because of Christmas day.”
Of course, it’s important for me to ask if you somehow may have missed the point of Christmas.
So, ask yourself: Have I received God’s Gift? If you haven’t, there’s no better time to accept his offer of life.
