11^th January 2011

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Christmas Eve, 2010

Lessons - Zechariah 2:10-13; Luke 2:15-20

- Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For lo, I come and I will dwell
in the midst of you, says the Lord. Many nations shall be joined to
the Lord in that day. . . . Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord,
for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. (Zechariah 2:10,11,13 NRSV)

The prophet Zechariah calls the faithful to await God's coming to Israel and the nations by doing two seemingly contradictory things. They must 'sing and rejoice' and they must 'be silent'.

He is not alone in linking 'silence' and 'praise' as proper reactions to the coming of God to 'all flesh'. Two of our best-loved Christmas carols -- 'O little town of Bethlehem' and 'Silent Night' -- combine silence and exuberance in their celebration of the incarnation.

This is consistent with people's reactions to Jesus in the Gospels. There is astonishment, trepidation and delight. At the same time, somewhat improbably, Jesus orders the crowds to be silent lest they misread his special vocation (Mark). An eerie silence surrounds Jesus' crucifixion at which a few unexpected voices are heard acknowledging the glory of God, and the resurrection is met with fear, awe, joy and silence (Mark 16:8).

Luke too makes this point in his manger scene. While Mary silently 'ponders' this momentous event (v19), the shepherds 'glorify and praise God for all they had heard and seen' (v20). Both are 'awestruck' by the mystery of the incarnation. Silence and praise go together when God is worshipped as God -- the God enfleshed in Jesus.

Mary's silence is not be confused with 'quiet times' which help us cope with pressure but do not necessarily lead us to worship God. Her silence protects news of the incarnate love of God in Christ from being cheapened.
She is not distracted by the euphoria surrounding the birth of Jesus.
Being profoundly moved by events which have taken place in and around her, she knows that their significance cannot be absorbed in an instant. Jesus'
birth is unlike any other birth.

Her profound silence is the expression of wonder at the coming of God in the flesh. To be silent in this way is to acknowledge the mystery of God's unique action in Jesus and to realise that everyday thoughts and reactions to events are incapable of grasping the full measure of God's love for us and all humanity in Christ.

Mary's silence warns us against shallow belief and thoughtless worship. In a world where silence is despised and communication occurs through snappy visual images and simple repetitive slogans, she reminds us that the event of God's coming in the flesh of Jesus must not be trivialised.

How hard it is to get this across in our world! We have all become used to 'chattering' about everything. Now we are into 'twittering' about the most banal details of our lives, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between opinions on small matters and faith in large ones. As TV images must be 'user friendly' we are spared from having to take in complex words and thoughts.

It is alarming to note that so-called 'Christian' programs can obtain high ratings only by offering people what they want to hear -- not what they need to hear. Christianity and Jesus are 'packaged' to remove what is profound and disturbing. Tele-evangelists steer clear of anything that is not instantly graspable, self-affirming and cheerful.

How hard it is today to encourage curiosity, in either the Church or the community, about the mystery of the incarnation which, until now, has played such a pivotal role in Western culture. How easy it is to ignore beliefs which once energised the Church and sustained the faithful and to reduce the Christian life to shared values like caring and decency. How hard it is to arouse curiosity when the 'Christian story' has become too familiar, to non- believers as much as to fellow Christians, and too easily brushed aside, either by contempt or apathy.

How desperately we all need to recover a proper sense of 'silence' in order that our 'enthusiasm' about the birth of Jesus is not shallow or self-centred.

The Church is not above criticism. Christians should be able to laugh at their foibles. But today criticisms from within and outside the Church are seldom playful or good humoured. They show a deep hostility to the claim that, in the flesh of Jesus, God has brought hope to 'all flesh'. They also show a profound ignorance about the intellectual rigour and deep faith with which great thinkers and simple believers alike have 'pondered'
the mystery of the incarnation for 2000 years.

Such shallow criticisms must not deflect us from proclaiming and celebrating the mystery of God's love embodied in Christ! Because God has become incarnate in Jesus, we/humanity do not need to go behind the face of Jesus to know the reality of God or our human purpose and destiny. We are freed from the fruitless task of looking within ourselves for the spirit of God and freed to praise God for coming to 'all flesh' in the flesh of Jesus.

In order to reclaim the Gospel of the incarnation we must learn from Mary and Zechariah to practise a proper silence before God. Silence breaks into the cacophony of the modern world which shouts that our desires must be satisfied. To be silent in this sense means learning to be deaf to the banal voices which clamour for attention in the mass media. Such profound silence means refusing to let God be 'talked down' by ceaseless, trivial, self-centred and pious chatter about our own decency.

Silence and exuberance are not opposites. They belong together. At Christ- mass therefore, and in contrast to the noisy clamour of mass-culture, we can 'glorify and praise God' (with shepherds and wise-men) out of 'profound silence' (with Mary) for the word of hope in the flesh of Jesus above the noise of self-serving messages.

True worship takes place in silent praise and joyful silence born of astonishment at what God has done in taking upon himself our flesh in Jesus Christ, so that we might know God's matchless love for us and all humanity and the destiny which awaits all of us in Christ.

It is difficult to put this into words apart from the language of worship itself. So it is that we turn to the magnificent words and music of the C5th hymn: 'Let all mortal flesh keep silence' (Australian Hymn Book 418).
This splendid hymn, which is most suitable as we celebrate the Lord's Supper at Christmas, reminds us that the incarnation of 'Christ our God'
is an awesome event. Through the self-giving of his 'body and blood' (v2), God signals the defeat of 'the powers of hell' (v3) and summons us to 'full homage' (v1).

We and all flesh are called to a deep faith which is both silent (v1) and exuberant (v4) as we join heaven and earth in praising God for embodying in Christ his love for flawed humans like us.

So may we at Christmas join the communion of saints in 'silent praise' of 'Christ our God' -- to the end that God may be truly worshipped by all nations in the firm hope that, at last, praise shall not be silenced but echo throughout the universe.

To God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be all praise and glory; world without end. Amen.
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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.