We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Sermons

Sermon, Pentecost 3, Proper 6, June 18, 2023

Exodus 19:2-8a; Psalm 110; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8

First, I’d like to thank Ben for preaching the sermon I had planned to share with you last week before I unexpectedly had to be absent. 

The theme of that sermon was “Press on to know the Lord.” 

As God’s people, we are to press on throughout our lives to grow in our knowledge and love of God,

for that knowledge and love of God brings us peace

and God’s peace brings us into a deeper knowledge and deeper love of God, a never ending circular exchange,

an eternal turning toward love that is essential to our spiritual growth. 

As we receive God’s peace, as we come to know God’s love more and more personally, we also find that our hearts fill with joy. 

And that is the theme of today’s sermon!  Rejoice! 

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Sermon, Proper 5, Pentecost 2, June 11, 2023

Sermon, Proper 5, Year A 2023
Hosea 5:15-6:6, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Please look at your bulletin cover.  The device in the photograph shows a person in a wheelchair, and underneath the image is this statement.

“Press to operate door.” 

I usually don’t use these devices, even when they are available, because I believe that I am self-sufficient enough to open the door myself. 

But think about it.  On some level, every one of us here today is that person who stands in front of a door and can’t get it open.  The door isn’t stuck, we are!  All of us need God’s help in some way or another.  Maybe your belief system has you stuck, or you are devastated by grief and can’t get up, or you are physically sick and can’t stand.  All of these ways of being stuck keep us from pushing open the door into the glorious freedom of life in God.

Give it some thought! 

What keeps you stuck?    

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Sermon, Pentecost Year A May 28, 2023

Come, Holy Spirit! 

From the beginning, the breath of the Holy Spirit pours out, bringing life.   The Holy Spirit gives life to smallest microscopic organisms that can be seen only with the help of a microscope, and yet are essential to the world’s food chain.  And the Holy Spirit works in and through the sweeping grandeur of this earth’s magnificent and ever changing landscapes, covered in life, that the earth sustains.

All of this life exists and thrives through the power of the Holy Spirit, uncontrollable, wild, and free.  As Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 

We Christians have been given the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.  I guarantee you that even  when we don’t acknowledge or recognize the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is always at work in those born of the Spirit, and that’s us. 

So today, I’d like to talk about how the Holy Spirit works in our lives so that we can more easily recognize the Spirit’s presence in each of us and among us. 

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Sermon, Easter 6, May 14, 2023 – Praying for God to fill our imaginations

Have you ever wondered about what is going to happen to church as we know it?  What is going to happen to St Peter’s after we are gone? 

Like many churches, we now have fewer people here at St Peter’s.   Even the huge denomination of Southern Baptists has declined by over three million members since 2006, losing almost half a million members in just this past year. 

The signs of the decline of what we can broadly term Christendom are everywhere. 

We ask ourselves how many people we can lose and keep going.    Maybe we ought to spend our money differently.    Do we need to change our worship services?  We are puzzled, clueless and troubled when we think about these things.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want St Peter’s, after a long slow decline, to someday be deconsecrated so that it can be sold and turned into yet another Port Royal antique shop! 

The disciples had some of the same questions we do.  They wondered what would happen to them when Jesus was gone.  They were worried about how they’d continue without him.   

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Sermon, 4th Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2023 – “Abundant Life”

John 10:1-10

Today’s gospel about abundant life offers so many things to think about—Jesus as the Good Shepherd; we sheep who follow the voice of our shepherd; the strangers, thieves and bandits who try to call us away from Jesus; and then, finding that Jesus himself is the gate through which we pass to enter into God’s everlasting security and abundant life.    

Jesus used these images because shepherds and the sheep pens that dotted the landscape were a familiar sight to those who were listening to him.    According to a meditation on The Our Daily Bread website,  the sheep pens were probably made of stone, or possibly wood, about three feet high.  Toward evening, the shepherd would lead the sheep into the sheep pen to protect them from predators.  Some of these enclosures were large enough for several flocks, so a watchman stood guard and allowed only certain shepherds and sheep to enter through the one gate into the sheep pen.  In smaller pens that held only one flock, the shepherd himself would serve as the gate.  Once the sheep were inside the pen, the shepherd would lie down at the entrance to the pen to serve as protection to the sheep through the night, and to keep out anyone or anything who might try to harm the flock. 

For us Christians, Jesus is gate through which we find God. Jesus is also the shepherd, the one who leads and guides us once we hear his voice, the one who leads us in and out and helps us to find the pasture in which we have all we need. 

This gospel reminds us, though, that often we hear the voices of the “thieves and bandits” of this world instead of the voice of Jesus, and so we choose not to enter the sheep pen, even when Jesus calls us, because other things seem more inviting, or more necessary.     

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Sermon, Good Friday, April 7, 2023

Can you imagine being Mary, the mother of Jesus, that day? 

Mary stood there with her sister, with Mary the wife of Clopas, with Mary Magdalene and with the beloved disciple on that dusty, horrid hill, Golgotha, the Place of the Skull.  The most sordid of deaths, Roman crucifixions, took place there.  Criminals hung on crosses and gasped out the last hours of their lives, and finally, agonizingly, suffocated and died.

Now, Mary is watching her own son hang on the cross.  This is the man that she had carried in her body for nine months, and given birth to,  loved and cared for as a child.  She loved him as he grew up into the man in whom she had complete confidence.  She is watching him die an ignominious death on a Roman cross. 

What must she have been feeling? 

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Sermon, 3rd Sunday in Lent, March 12, 2023

Today’s passages invite us to consider for ourselves who Jesus is and what Jesus offers to each of us, if only we take the time to be in conversation with him and to spend time with him.  Jesus welcomes us into a closer and more loving relationship with God through both his living and his dying.       

In today’s passage from Romans, Paul says that “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.  Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.”

Is God really waiting to deal wrathfully with us, miserable sinners that we are? 

In his commentary on Romans, William Barclay, a Scottish theologian, explains “the wrath of God” in this way.

Think about the law. 

We all know that none of us can keep the law perfectly.  That doesn’t stop us from trying to keep the law, but sooner or later, we mess up.  When we mess up, we suffer the consequences.  And if we think of God only in terms of the law, then we can assume that God is going to be angry with us when we break God’s laws.  Barclay points out that if we think of ourselves in terms of the law, then we are all headed for God’s condemnation. 

Paul wants  the Romans to know that trying to be in a right relationship with God through our own efforts will never work, because we will never be perfect. 

Thanks be to God, then, that we have another way to be in right relationship with God, and that way is when we enter by faith into a relationship with God.  We learn God is not waiting to condemn us and wrathfully punish us.  Instead, God loves us and is waiting for us to draw more ever more closely into God’s presence. 

Jesus is the one who leads us into a deeper relationship with God.  As we come to know Jesus more and more, then we find ourselves growing closer to God.  Jesus would do anything for us. He doesn’t wait for us to be good, or to have our act together—in fact, while we were sinners, Christ died for us.    

When Jesus died, he showed us the way to God by showing us the way of God—God is always breaking love wide open so that it can be shared more fully.  When Jesus was broken open in his death on the cross, God’s love flowed from the cross out into the world like a stream of living water that gushes up to eternal life.

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One more look at Nicodemus – from a sermon in 2011

“Nic was a big guy in many ways.  He was tall, and even though he had put on a little weight in middle age, he still had a certain youthfulness and confidence that other men envied.  Nic was a big guy at work too, having successfully risen to the top of his profession, known as a leader, not only in the local company, but also at the corporate level.  People listened when Nic spoke.  They paid attention, sought his guidance.

Black Escalde“Nic drove a large black Escalade. He loved the way the Escalade roared to life when he turned the key in the ignition, the way he sat up high above the rest of the traffic, barely having to press the accelerator to gun past anyone in his way and to get to his destination in record time.The Escalade suited Nic, summed up who he was, really.Big, bold, in charge.”

Read more of the 2011 sermon

Sermon, Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Feb. 19, 2023

John Meng-Frecker – “Transfiguration of our Lord”

Jesus has traveled a long way since his baptism. 

That day, when John baptized him in the Jordan River, Matthew tells us that just as Jesus came up out of the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Can you imagine what Jesus must have felt that day?  His skin tingling as the cool river water poured down his face and over his body, his eyes squinting as brilliant light poured out of heaven, and from that light, he saw a dove descending and alighting on him. 

And in his ears, a voice ringing. 

“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

It was after his baptism and his forty days in the wilderness that Jesus began to proclaim throughout Galilee, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 

He called his first disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  And the disciples went with him as he taught and healed, restored a girl to life, and as he did all of this, people could see what the kingdom of God could and would be like on this earth. 

The disciples watched and learned. 

And then Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

Soon after this, Jesus started explaining to the disciples that he would go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering, that he would be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him!

“God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you.” 

Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 

Jesus then teaches the disciples that if any want to become his followers, they must take up their crosses and follow.

And then, only six days after Peter has said that Jesus is the Messiah, we come to today’s gospel. 

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up a high mountain, by themselves. 

Now it’s their turn to see light pouring out of heaven, Jesus shining like the sun, his clothes dazzling white.  Now it’s their turn to hear a voice ringing, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

And an added phrase.  “Listen to him.”

No wonder Peter, James and John fell to the ground in fear. 

But Jesus came and touched them, saying “get up and do not be afraid.”  And when they looked up, they saw no one but Jesus himself alone. Moses and Elijah, the dazzling light, the bright cloud, the ringing voice—all gone.

But Jesus was still there, with them! 

Their skin must have tingled as Jesus touched them.  And the voice they heard was his, familiar, reassuring, challenging and strengthening.  

“Get up and do not be afraid.”

And then they went back down the mountain.

We hear this story every year in church on the last Sunday after the Epiphany. 

The transfiguration inspires the disciples in the moment, what some would call a mountain top experience, because what they see points beyond his death to what will happen to Jesus in the future—his resurrection. 

When Peter, James and John see Jesus shining like the sun, and his clothes dazzling white, they are seeing a vision of the future, Jesus in his resurrection body, the one who will lead them “out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life”   as the words of Eucharistic Prayer B say. 

And so the disciples would remember the transfiguration forever because this event proved to them without a doubt that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Son of God, and that his reign stretches into eternity.    

So no wonder that in the Second Letter of Peter, the writer says that “we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” and we ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, saying “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

So, the writer goes on, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your own hearts.”

This story of the transfiguration can serve as a  lamp shining in a dark place for each one of us when we find ourselves facing into bad news, like the disciples faced the bad news that Jesus would suffer and die. 

This story helps us to remember that beyond death is resurrection, and that Jesus goes with us through our lives, through our years of health, productivity and mostly stability.  But at some point, we all end up staring death in the face, just as Jesus did.  But Jesus knew, and told the disciples, and they got to see, that beyond his death was resurrection. This fact is true for us as well.  The light of the resurrection burns through and beyond the darkness of death for all of us who follow Jesus.   

Today is the day of our congregational meeting, when we review the year just past.  

This church has been blessed for the almost two hundred years that it has been in existence.  I have no doubt that God considers this church as beloved, and that God is well pleased with this church.  For here we are, moving forward, even as we face the challenges of illnesses, aging, deaths, and other changes and transitions that have been difficult.

Like Peter, we may find ourselves saying, or wanting to say, “God forbid it, Lord!” when it comes to our individual challenges, and the challenges that we face as a small church in what seems to be a decline.   

But the story of the transfiguration reminds us to hear instead the words  of Jesus and to heed them. 

“Get up, and do not be afraid!” 

Jesus has always been with this church!    Jesus is with us now!  And Jesus will be with us!

When we are discouraged by our small numbers, discouraged by the accidents and illnesses that disable us for varying periods, when we want to do some work of God in the world that we feel might be impossible because we’re too small, or too old, or too isolated,  let’s turn to this story and not be afraid to proceed wherever it is that God will lead us.  Because just as Jesus led the disciples down that mountain back into ministry, Jesus leads us too. 

Our job is to follow, knowing that as the followers of Jesus, suffering may be inevitable, but guess what, our resurrections are inevitable as well.

So as this season after the Epiphany comes to a close, and we look back on 2022, and at all St Peter’s did last year, and as we look back at all that happened in our own lives,

Remember.  “We are God’s beloved.  God is pleased with us.”

For we are the light of the resurrection and the reign of God here and now in this time and in this place.  As God’s beloved sons and daughters,  our job is to continue to be resurrection light out in the world, so that the world can see that the reign of God has indeed already drawn near! 

Jesus has touched us, and blessed us and God has blessed this church, over and over and over. 

So get up, and do not be afraid.  Let’s head down the mountain and take up our crosses and follow Jesus wherever he will lead us, knowing that resurrection awaits.   

Sermon, Second Sunday after Epiphany – “We are the People of Hope”

Sermon, Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A 2023
I Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

“Calling of Peter and Andrew” – Caravaggio 1602

“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

So begins Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth, a diverse and contentious group of people, called together by God into the fellowship of Jesus Christ our Lord:  called to be the church, to be God’s light in the world. 

Paul’s enthralling words remind us that God calls us too—you and me– to be saints, that is, to follow Jesus and to witness to God’s justice, power, mercy, healing, and love in this world. 

That is why we’ve chosen to be here today, because we have heard God calling us to be part of this fellowship of the saints that we know as the church. 

Here, God reminds us, through scripture and prayer and song that we are not alone in this calling to follow Jesus. 

Jesus is not just a prophet with tremendous healing power and a mighty heart, willing to go to death and beyond as he does God’s will in this world, someone to admire and emulate.  Jesus is more than all of that, as wonderful as all of that is. 

Jesus is God’s Son.

So when we follow Jesus, God’s Son,  we enter ever more deeply into the heart of God, even in the ordinary things that we do, which can grow into the extraordinary things that God calls us to do, the things that we never believed possible—Glory to God, whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we could ask, or even imagine. 

God imagines our lives—magnificent, challenging lives that reveal God to those around us! 

God has already imagined the life that God is calling you and me  and this church, St Peter’s, into.

God wants our imaginations to expand, so that ultimately, God’s imagination for each of us and for this church, and for this world, can and will  become reality. 

The clue to how we even begin to live into God’s imagination is to have the desire to know God more deeply, to want to live in the heart and mind of God, which is what the two disciples in today’s gospel realized they wanted. 

They were followers of John the Baptist.  But when they saw Jesus walk by and heard John say, “Look!  Here is the Lamb of God” these two disciples of John followed Jesus. 

Jesus turned and saw them following and asked what they were looking for. 

Their answer was simple and to the point. 

“Rabbi, we want to know where you are staying.”

Jesus invites them, right that minute,  to come with him and see. 

And so these two went with him and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day. 

Andrew, one of these disciples, was so excited that he went to find his brother, Simon Peter, and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” 

In that time he had spent with Jesus, Andrew had found his imagination sparked.  And now his imagination was growing because he realized that Jesus was the one they had been waiting for, the one sent by God, 

The Messiah!  The Anointed One!

Andrew didn’t go to Peter and say, “We’ve found the Son of God or the Lamb of God.”  That deeper understanding of who Jesus was would come later. 

Instead, Andrew proclaimed, “We have found the Messiah!” 

In Andrew’s time, the Jewish people were looking with great expectation for the Messiah, the one God had promised, for they lived under the yoke of the Roman Empire.  The people of Palestine were oppressed, disrespected, and mistreated.  Since they were not Roman citizens, they could not expect the privileges of a citizen.  They were nobodies. 

So when Andrew told Peter that they had found the Messiah, Andrew must have been convinced that Jesus was the one that would lead the people out of bondage. 

You can see how Andrew’s imagination had started growing.  He must have imagined that Jesus would somehow lead his followers into freedom.  Maybe he imagined the literal deliverance from the bondage of the Roman Empire and  freedom for the people that the Messiah, sent by God,  would bring. 

All of us are in bondage to something that limits our imaginations. 

Right now we are in the season of winter, and the darkness closes around us late in the afternoon.  And in the winters of our lives, especially, the darkness  of illness, accidents, the deaths of those we love, transitions, wanted and unwanted, and the list goes on—we find ourselves in bondage to anxiety and worry and despair and fear.    

The challenges of aging, the challenges of illness, the challenges of addiction, the challenge of stressful busyness, all of these things can kill our imaginations and hold us captive to what is.  We lose the ability  to imagine what could be. 

That’s when the story of Andrew and the other disciple comes as a welcome reminder that wanting to go where Jesus is, and learning from him can turn the twilight and darkness that can so easily close around us into the brightness of a new day.

Spending time with Jesus in prayer, worship and study helps us to imagine more fully what God’s kingdom here on earth could be like, especially when the current reality tempts us into hopelessness.   One of the big functions of a Messiah is to restore hope to those who have lost hope. 

Choosing to follow Jesus is an act of hope!

We follow Jesus because we hope and imagine something different and something better, not just for ourselves but for everyone, and for all of creation.   

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday is today, was a man whose journey into God as a follower of Jesus allowed him to see through the darkness of the racial discrimination and segregation that gripped this nation and held it in bondage into the light of what God must imagine for this nation, liberty and justice, equality and respect for all.     

King’s journey on this earth as a pastor and as a civil rights leader was a journey of hope and imagination.    

King’s dream is not a solitary, individual dream.  It includes all of those who call on the name of God and who follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior, a way of non violence, love, and insistence on God’s justice for all, no matter the cost.     

In a stirring speech, Dr King shared his dream of God’s kingdom come on earth with the over 200,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington.    

In his speech, King pointed out that our destinies and our freedoms are bound together. As King puts it, “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

A little later in the speech, King describes  what he is imagining, his dream—that we all might be one, his dream that “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood”… “that black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.” 

In the words of the prophet Isaiah, King shares God’s dream for us all, that God’s glory will be revealed in all of creation and in all of us.    

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, King says.  God’s imagination made reality when we in this nation come together to dream of and work for freedom and justice for all people. 

So now, joining Andrew, that first one to follow Jesus, joining those people in the church at Corinth, joining with all who have followed Jesus down through the ages, joining modern day saints like Martin Luther King, Jr,

We are the people of hope. 

We are the saints, the ones who call on the name of the Lord Jesus and seek him. 

And when we seek him, Jesus invites us to come and see. 

Jesus invites us to be the ones who imagine God’s dreams of grace and peace and justice, mercy and healing for this earth. 

Jesus invites us to live the magnificent and extraordinary lives that God imagines for us.   

Jesus invites us to be the ones, who when God’s power is working through us, can help turn God’s dreams for this earth into the reality of a new day, bright and full of God’s glory and love for all.

Come and see.  Let’s take Jesus up on that invitation.  The world is waiting. 

 

Resource:  https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety 

Sermon, Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2022

Sermon, Christmas Day III, 2022 John 1:1-14

In the magisterial opening of John’s gospel, John describes a great cosmic darkness into which life and light come—the Word made flesh, Jesus. 

Ultimately, what difference does the coming of Jesus make to us several thousand years later?   Why should we care?

Because as John points out, the world does not care.  The world did not know Jesus, and does not know Jesus now. 

So I ask you, “Why should we care?  Why should we accept this Word into our lives?”

Because as St Athanasius says, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become gods.” 

That is, we can only be what we are until we come across Jesus, and if we receive him, then our lives begin to expand, not only on this earth, but out into eternity. 

As John puts it, “For all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the power to become children of God, who are born not just as flesh and blood, but born of God.”

That’s why the coming of Jesus makes a difference, and why we should care.  Because receiving Jesus draws us into the life of God, into eternity beginning now, into love and into light, even in the darkness that surrounds us. 

When we choose to become children of God, our vision changes.  God gives us the great desire to see into the essence of the universe, to see into the essence of God’s creation, and to see deep into the hearts of one another. 

Newborn babies are very sensitive to bright light.  Their pupils are small, limiting the amount of light that comes into their eyes. 

But as their retinas develop, their pupils widen and allow more light into their eyes.  And, as Kierstan Boyd says in her article about the vision development of newborns, “they can see light and dark ranges and patterns.” 

We human beings tend to limit the amount of light that comes into our eyes as well, limiting our vision to what fits into our limited world views, that is, until we become children of God. 

Then, our “children of God”  retinas develop, letting in more and more of God’s light.  We can distinguish more clearly the light and the darkness and the patterns of light and darkness in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.  

And as children of God, we gain the ability to see the light in others that is mostly  hidden to all except to God. 

As we see into the essence of things, we now see light even in the darkness of our lives.  We see light in the lives of others.  We can look into the light with no fear of being blinded.   We realize that the light we are seeing is the light of love itself. 

And so, our ability to love deepens.  We gain the capacity to love ourselves as God loves us, and to  love others as God loves them.

As we love with God’s love, the light of that love helps to push away the darkness of our own shame, and  the darkness of hatred that is so much a part of our world. 

To see light is to see God’s love at work in the world, and to see the potential of God’s work in the world—to see beyond the years into the mighty eternally transforming power of God’s love. 

And as children of light, we become part of God’s work of love on this earth. 

When we become children of God, God also gives us new hearing.  We can hear God speaking in the sounds around us.  We can hear the meaning of sounds. 

When we hear people shouting with rage and hatred, we now can hear in their raging the interior voices of fear that drive the hatred.  We can hear loneliness in the silence of the neglected.  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow could hear God’s voice in sounds.    My reference is an article written by Dennis Rainey. Longfellow lived from 1807 to 1882 and was a well known poet in his time.  He is still known today for his poems.  But what I didn’t know about Longfellow was that his life was filled with great tragedy.  In a horrible accident, his wife’s dress caught fire.  Longfellow tried to put out the fire with his own body, but his wife was killed by the flames.  And then, only two years later, in 1863,  one of Longfellow’s sons, Charlie, joined Lincoln’s army.  The Civil War raged as the country fought a war with itself. 

On December 1, 1863, as Longfellow was eating dinner with his family, he received a war telegram letting him know that Charlie had been severely wounded and might be paralyzed for the rest of his life. 

On Christmas Day, this widowed father of six, with a war raging through the nation, and his oldest son nearly paralyzed, heard the bells of the churches pealing.  As Justin Taylor writes, Longfellow felt a war within his own heart.  He  could see for himself that there was no peace on earth.  He could hear the destructive sounds of war,  and yet, the sound of the bells promised peace on earth, goodwill to all.  As Longfellow kept listening to the bells, he heard something beyond the sounds of the bells themselves.  He heard the sound of hope in the midst of despair. 

And so Longfellow wrote “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.”  This poem is a testimony of this child of God’s ability to hear in the sounds of those Christmas Day bells the hope that we can hear as children of God,

the hope we hear in a sleeping child’s soft breathing,  the hope of a kind word spoken into fear or sorrow,  the hope that can rise in our hearts when we listen to music, the universal language, hope even in the sound of bells,

hope beyond the hatred and division of our times, hope that we someday, even in our differences, will all be one in God’s love. 

The love and the hope that we experience as children of God change us into better people as we continue to grow in God’s love. 

And so we find ourselves wanting to share that love and hope, because God’s love and hope for this world are too great to hoard—we cannot contain the immensity of either. 

God’s love and hope flow through us out into the darkness of the world, and we become witnesses, like John the Baptist, who  testified to the light and glorified God.    

We children of God become the messengers that announce peace and bring good news.  With God we bare our arms and fight the injustices around us.  God gives us the power to offer the comfort on God’s behalf, the comfort that can come only from God, because we know that God is in the world and is always coming into the world in new ways, and  bringing love, light, and new life. 

And through the years, as God sustains our hope and enriches our love for God and for one another, the light of God’s love in our lives will shine ever more brightly.

God will set us, God’s children, on fire with love that can and will  shine out with God’s radiance.  And this fire of God’s love brings life and the light that illumines and transforms our minutes and our hours into the nearer presence of God in and through our love for one another.  We can see and hear and know that we too are part of the eternity of God’s love.    

And so the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 

And so, yes, we care, these thousands of years later, that a baby has been born, and that angels are singing, and that shepherds are telling the good news of all they have seen and heard, that a star is shining, and that Mary is pondering all of these things in her heart. 

For unto us a child is born, and if we choose to follow him, we too will sing, and tell out the good news, and shine and ponder it all, and get reborn for the love that never ends. 

 

Resources:

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/baby-vision-development-first-year

https://www.theraineys.org/post/i-heard-the-bells-on-christmas-day