On Hearing Christmas Bells 1994

Fellowship Class

Dec. 18, 1994

Wayne Danielson

On Hearing Christmas Bells

Matthew 2:1-12. After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, some wise men came to Jersalem from the east. “Where is the infant king of the Jews?” they asked. “We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.” When King Herod heard this he was perturbed, and so was the whole of Jerusalem. He called together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, and inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. “At Bethlehem in Judaea,” they told him, “for this is what the prophet wrote:

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

you are by no means least among the leaders of Judah,

for out of you will come a leader

who will shepherd my people Israel.”

Then Herod summoned the wise men to see him privately. He asked them the exact date on which the star had appeared, and sent them on to Bethlehem. “Go and find out all about the child,” he said, “and when you have found him, let me know, so that I too may go and offer him homage.” Having listened to what the king had to say, they set out. And there in front of them was the star they had seen rising; it went forward and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, and returned to their own country a different way.

John 1:9-14. The Word was the true light

that enlightens all men;

and he was coming into the world.

He was in the world

that had its being through him,

and the world did not know him.

He came to his own domain

and his own people did not accept him.

But to all who did accept him

he gave power to become children of God,

to all who believe in the name of him

who was born not out of human stock

or urge of the flesh

or will of man

but of God himself.

The Word was made flesh,

he lived among us,

and we saw his glory,

the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father,

full of grace and truth.

The other night I was sleeping fitfully.

LaVonne said that I was snuffling and snoring a lot, I don’t know about

that.

All I know is that I was troubled by dreams and sleeping lightly, and I kept waking up every hour or so all night long and looking at the bedside clock. Have you ever had a night like that?

Around about 4 o’clock, I came to with a start.

I heard something.

(Shake bells.)

What was that?

(Shake bells again.)

In my dreamy state, I knew what it was. Still half in my dream, I was four years old again, and I had just heard --

(Shake bells.)

reindeer on the roof!

I sat up in bed and listened.

The sound of bells was gone. I actually looked out our big bay windows to check the back yard, not really expecting reindeer to be out there, but -- you never know, do you?

No. It was just a dream.

The years came racing down upon me, and I was my real age again. The dream was gone. The reindeer were gone. I was my usual self again. My right hip hurt the way it does when I lie in a certain position too long. I heard the dog roll over under the bed, knocking into some boxes we have stashed under there.

No more bells. No reindeer. The wonder faded. I knew where the dream came from. I remembered from so many years ago listening on Christmas eve for the sound of reindeer bells. And I sometimes heard them then -- helped along, I think, by my older brothers and sisters and my folks who were still up long after I had been sent to bed.

I rolled over. LaVonne groaned and snuggled deeper under the blankets trying to sleep and wishing I would be quiet. I didn’t dare wake her up to tell her about my dream. But I was strangely proud of myself. I had heard bells. I was still able to hear bells. That meant something important. But what?

I recalled the paragraph about children and bells from Dylan Thomas’s wonderful story, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Do you remember it?

Our snow was not only shaken from whitewash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely white-ivied the walls and settled on the postmas, opening the gate like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards.

“Were there postmen then, too ?”

“With spring eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was the ringing of bells.”

“You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?”

“I mean that the bells that the children could hear were inside them.”

“I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells.”

“There were church bells, too.”

“Inside them?”

“No, no no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our fence.”

I’ve always liked that piece. But why had I thought of it now?

Perhaps because the boy in it could hear bells when other people couldn’t.

Maybe that was it.

There’s something about Christmas that is like that, don’t you think?

To some people it’s just another day -- nothing special -- a big todo about nothing. But to other people, it’s something very special. What is the difference?

Who hears the bells? (Shake the bells) And who doesn’t?

Who sees the Christ in Christmas? And who doesn’t?

That’s the question that came into my mind as I lay in bed that sleepless night. It was a . question worth thinking about.

Take Ebenezer Scrooge for instance.

You’d have to say that at the beginning of that famous story by Charles Dickens Ebenezer Scrooge couldn’t see the Christ in Christmas at all. Do you remember the passage at the beginning of the book? It wonderfully sets the scene for the kind of man Ebenezer had allowed himself to become. It was Christmas Eve, and Scrooge was at his worst -- keeping his faithful Bob Cratchett working overtime -- a stingy, isolated, self-centered, unable man, unwilling to give anything to anybody, least of all to make the gift of himself to his nephew on Christmas Day.

“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

“Bah!” said Scrooge. “Humbug.”

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and mist, this newphew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled and his breath smoked.

“Christmas a humbug, uncle,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “You don’t mean that, I’m sure.”

“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas. What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry, you’re poor enough.”

“Come then,” returned the newphew gaily. “What right have you to be morose?’ You’re rich enough.”

“What else can I be,” returned the uncle. When I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas. Out upon a Merry Christmas! What’s Christmas to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, said Scrooge, indignantly, “every idiot who goes aorund with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should?”

Scrooge couldn’t hear the bells, could he? (Shake bells.)

He couldn’t see the Christ in Christmas. All he could see was the bad aspects of the season -- the overspending, the triviality, the light-headedness. But seeing Christ in that? It was impossible for him. He was far too practical. He was far too removed from the love that had once warmed his heart at Christmas.

You have to have a little child left in you to hear the bells, I thought.

You have to have a little child left in you to see the Christ.

Where have I heard that before?

Didn’t Jesus say something like that?

They were sitting by the roadside near a little town. The disciples, serious-minded men, men of affairs, impressed with what they were doing, protectors of the Lord, were shooing away parents who were bringing their children to be touched by Jesus. Jesus stopped them. And he said something nobody ever understood all that well:

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little chld will never enter it.” Then he put his arms around them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing.

The children, you see, could hear the bells.

The children could see the Christ.

They had not grown so strong and hard and aloof and tough and worldly that they could no longer see. With the clear, fresh eyes of childhood they could look through the superficial things that put other people off about Jesus -- the simplicity of the man, the fact that he had nothing nothing but the robe he wore day after day, the fact that he was a man begrimed with the dust of the roads he walked. The grownups were hesitant sometimes. But not the children. They could look beyond these things and see the Godlight shining in Jesus and they tugged their way toward him.

The morning star shines brighter in the early morning sky right now than at any other time of year.

No longer sleepy, I stared out our bedroom window at the morning star.

“Was that the star the wise men saw?” I wondered.

King Herod probably thought that it was.

He could see the morning star from his palace window on a sleepless night as well as I could see it 2,000 years later.

“It’s just Venus or Saturn,” he must have said. “That’s all it is. These wise men from the east are just crazykooks. No king has been born anywhere in my kingdom. The messiah has not been born.”

He couldn’t see what the wise men saw.

He was far from being a child.

The Kingdom of God was there. It had arrived. But Herod couldn’t see it.

And yet, he must have wondered about thesehighly respected wise men from the east. The writing in Matthew clearly shows that he was worried. It was the time of the Saturnalia, the Roman winter holidays that were riotous and drunken. For a few days servants and masters changed places, elaborate banquets took place, dancing and music went on all night. Herod must have excused himself from such a party to talk to the wise men. Matthew says:

... Herod summoned the wise men to see him privately. He asked them the exact date on which the star had appeared, and sent them on to Bethlehem. “Go and find out all about the child,” he said, “and when you have found him, let me know, so that I too may go and offer him homage.”

Herod went back to the party. But his heart wasn’t in the drinking and the dancing. Even Salome’s dancing. Clearly he was interested in what the wise men had said. He couldn’t see the star the wise men saw, but he wanted to be sure they weren’t on to something important. He had his doubts. The wise men, of course, really were wise. They found the baby Jesus. They worshiped him. And they correctly interpreted a dream they had and decided not to go back and tell Herod anything, but to go home another way.

I wrote a poem, a sonnet, about Herod on that night of the wise men’s visit, imagining how he must have felt after they left . I thought you might like to hear it. It is called: Dark Thoughts of King Herod on the Night of Our Lord’s Birth. It deals with the thoughts running through Herod’s mind as he looks out the window of his palace after the party is over. It goes like this:

Now come the longest nights, when Saturn rules,

And all the normal world turns upside down.

Now slaves are free to roam about the town

And Caesar’s seat is occupied by fools.

Now kings on camels come pursuing stars

That only their demented eyes can see,

And shepherds chant of signs that seem to be

Mere drivel, thick-tongued talk that’s heard in bars.

I’ve not heard any angels, if you please.

And “peace, goodwill,” is an unlikely song

For anyone to sing for very long

Around these parts, in touchy times like these.

Yet -- how the eyes of those old kings did burn!

(They’re overdue -- they promised to return.)

The bells were ringing. (Shake bells.)

But Herod was too far gone in evil and gluttony and sin to hear them.

Nevertheless, he worried. He thought all the same the Christ might really be in the world. If only he had listened a little harder.

In his sermon on the mount, Jesus said:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Tossing about on the bed, I decided that was what it’s all about -- Christmas. Christmas means something to children because they are pure in heart. It can mean something for the rest of us, too, I think, if we are willing to put away our grown up cynicism and hardness and -- at least for a time -- become children again, seeing not just with our eyes, but with our hearts. Then we like the children of old might be able to to look at a dusty young man sitting by the roadside and see Christ. Then we, like the three wise men, might be able to look at an ordinary baby lying in a manger and see the Christ child. But how hard this is.

Martin Luther warns us that it is difficult. In a famous Christmas sermon given in Germany more than 500 years ago,that blunt old German put it this way:

There are some of us who think to ourselves, “If I had only been there, how quick I would have been to help the Baby. I would have washed his linens. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds and see the Lord lying in the manger.” Yes we would. We say that because we know how great Christ is, but if we had been there at that time, we would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Why don’t we do it now? We have Christ in our neighbor!

We have Christ in our neighbor. Luther is right. Many of us, stopping at a stop light at a busy Austin intersection have seen some young bearded man there, dirty, disheveled, with a crudely lettered sign hanging around his neck: WILL WORK FOR FOOD. Many of us lock the doors of our car and stare straight ahead. Many of us think -- DRUNK, DRUG ADDICT, HE DOESN’T DESERVE HELP.But I wonder how

many of us can look into his sick, clouded eyes and see there the image of Christ himself?

How many hear the bells? (Shake bells.)

Not enough, I think.

Not nearly enough to change the way things are.

And yet, change is possible for those of us whose hearts are not as pure as they used to be. Even Scrooge found that out.

The good news of the gospels is that the Kingdom of God can still come to those who truly seek it.

It came to Scrooge, after his long, vision-filled night.

“I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge. “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!”

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, Clash! Oh, Glorious, glorious!

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

“What’s today!” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“Eh?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

“What’s today, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

“Today!” replied the boy. “Why Christmas Day.”

Christmas came to Scrooge.

It can still come to all of us.

The other morning I woke to the imagined sound of bells.

And I was proud of myself for being able to hear them -- even though they turned out not to be really there. I wondered why I was so pleased with myself. It took me some early morning thinking time, looking out the window at the morning star, to figure it out.

Those bells I heard meant, I think, that Christmas can still come for me in all its wonder and magic if I am willing to work at it. They meant I think, that if I try, I can still find the child inside me who found so much joy in Christmas years ago. They meant I think that if I look hard enough and give willingly enough even I can still find the Christ in Christmas. All of us can.

Surely, the words of the Book of John say it best: