We knew about a week ago that it might snow this past weekend, but ministers have to be in denial about it at least until Saturday afternoon. During the senior adult luncheon last Tuesday when the mere possibility of snow was mentioned, Lauren, our senior pastor, was adamant that it was not over yet. We should not scare people off with such talk!
However, it might as well have been over once Stephen, our worship minister, chose In the Bleak Midwinter as the anthem for this Sunday. “Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,” Christina Rossetti wrote in the late 19th century. We know such a choice of words does not magically summon the wintry weather that blanketed many states for the past few days.
We know, but sometimes we wonder.
Rossetti’s poem, turned into a popular hymn in the 20th century, has stayed with me all week — and not just because at least one of us was always humming it at some point in the office. Despite the described improbable weather conditions of the first stanza, there’s something arresting about the way it tells the story.
Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
Now that Christmas time and even Epiphany have passed us by for this year, we pack up our nativities and crèches. It is quite the picture: we literally place Jesus in a box. We place in a box the one whom heaven cannot hold nor earth sustain, wrapped in tissue paper and sealed with tape. It’s an absurd picture to put the God of the universe in a box, because we know God is bigger than such cardboard limitations. We know God is bigger than the bleakness of our midwinters, too, and that God’s reign will overwhelm these troubles.
We know, but sometimes we wonder.
Enough for him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk,
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Most nativities and crèches depict such a serene and transcendent scene. So do most hymns. While Rossetti’s poem is cosmic in scope, it does not shrink from the material details. Jesus needed to nurse and needed somewhere to lie down. Jesus may be exalted by angels, but there were farm animals around, too! And I am sure an ox, ass and camel’s adoration was the not the most sanitary. The messy birth stories about Jesus remind us that God is present in the muck and mire that make up our own lives. We know that God is not afraid of the complicated and dirty situations in which we find ourselves. We know that God is not averse to human suffering.
We know, but sometimes we wonder.
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 him my heart.
We sing songs like In the Bleak Midwinter and have celebrations like Christmas and Epiphany because sometimes we wonder. 2016 was a rough year for many of us, and 2017 — when we had yet to meet it — held a lot of promise. 2016 made us wonder, and we gather to tell the story because of that hurtful wonder. Songs, rituals and holidays are how we worship and offer our hearts to God, but they are also how we remember the truth.
Remembering the truth, too, is a means of resistance — not resistance to the wonder, which is a side of faith we must embrace, but resistance to lies, the ones we are told and the ones we tell ourselves. We have to keep telling the truth, and telling the story to keep moving forward in trying times.
There was no way with all the snow and ice that we could meet for worship on Sunday morning at our church. But it was still important to tell the story. So, we recorded a video of the ministerial staff performing their parts of worship. We still had a call to worship, an invocation, a song, a sermon, and a blessing. Even if we could not do it in person, even if we cannot gather in the traditional ways, it is still important to speak the story.
Song choice did not bring about our wintry weather, but it is our hope that telling the story of Jesus can change our lives and our world. That is why we keep telling it. The telling does not remove suffering, it does not make injustice OK, and it does not solve all our problems. But it can and does move us to see and respond to the world and to each other more like God does.
Telling the story of a refugee savior born to a poor mother without adequate healthcare and affordable housing can and should move us to see and respond to the world and to teach other in a different way. So, snow and ice be damned, we keep telling the story and hopefully acting on it, too, all year-round.