Another Night Before Christmas

A few nights ago, I was sitting up reading in bed, and my husband was listening to the radio, and it struck me that we were centuries apart!

This isn’t a comment on our marriage. He was listening to ‘2011 – the Year in Review’ and I was doing some reading on this evening’s Isaiah passage. What struck me was the similarities – disasters, frantic financial bailouts, great empires crumbling, leadership struggles, the death of despots, the voice of protestors... You find all this in the first chapters of Isaiah!

Then – suddenly – in chapter 9, verse 2, - the prophet abandons prose, and the oracles of judgment and condemnation, for a poem describing God’s salvation and future reign.

Why does he do this? Because we remember poetry better? Yes.

Because the material is intended to be reworked for other settings – the coronation of a new king (Hezekiah, who succeeded his father, Ahaz, for example) – or in more recent times, Handel’s magnificent oratorio. Yes, I think so.

But also because Isaiah is highlighting a change, a reversal; both of what God is doing and how God is doing it. As the Christmas card a friend sent me said – and I think this echoes Isaiah – God loved the world so much, that he did something very, very, very different.

And so in the Spirit of Isaiah (and with a nod to Clement Clarke Moore) I, too, am going to continue this message in poetry – this message of God’s very, very, very different intervention.

(There’s some copies at the back when we leave if you’d like to re-read it.)

Twas the night before war, and all through Jerusalem,

The people were terrified and their king, Ahaz, with them.

The gold had been sent to Assyria with care,

In hopes that assistance might come from there.

So Ahaz was waiting by highway and field,

When up comes Isaiah, saying, “God’s what you need.

The people in darkness will see a great light.

The nation will party! All wrongs will be right.

Here are three reasons you have God to thank.”

“Give me one,” Ahaz said, “Just make it a tank!”

“First, said Isaiah, “God’s intervened in the past.

And, second, in God’s future no weapons will last.

But the third is quite wonderful, God gives this today,

A baby, for us, who shows us God’s way.”

“A baby!” chokes Ahaz, “You prophets all bark!”

“Hope starts small,” says Isaiah, “Great fires from a spark.

This child has four, two-barrelled names,

Each of them telling us how God will reign;

Counsel starts as a whisper, might might begin small

God’s love loves forever, peace will peace together all…

Twas the night before the census, and all through Judea,

The Romans were ruling with sharp swords and fear.

But God came again; this time as the baby,

Found by farm-hands, not kings, our flesh and our frailty.

Counsel starts as a whisper, might might begin small

God’s love loves forever, peace will peace together all…

It is the night before Christmas, and all through Australia,

Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and Asia…

Counsel starts as a whisper, might might begin small

God’s love loves forever, peace will peace together all…

And we hear God exclaim, “In the darkness, there’s light,

For I’m with you always. Happy Christmas! Good night!”

- Rev. Belinda Groves, Christmas 2011