Love, the Lord

 

"People, Look East": verse #5

The Eve of the Nativity / Year C

We have had a wonderful Advent season here at St. Paul’s.  It began with a contemplative service of Advent Lessons & Carols on the afternoon of December 1.  The following weekend we opened our church to be a part of the Historic Home Tour, which allowed hundreds of visitors to experience the beauty of our church and to learn a little bit of our story.  The third weekend in Advent found a few of us at Chanco on the James participating in a wonderful retreat on meditation practices led by our bishop, Susan Haynes.  This past Saturday we welcomed the Virginia Handbell Consort for its incredible annual Christmas program.  While the schedule has been full, it has been fulfilling in every sense of the word.

I will always remember Advent 2024 for our focus on the hymn People, Look East.  I love its melody, am captivated by its images, and am inspired by its message of hope.  After Love, the guest, the bird, the rose, and the star, tonight we are invited to contemplate Love, the Lord.

Angels, announce with shouts of mirth

  Christ who brings new life to earth.

Set every peak and valley humming

  with the word, the Lord is coming.

People, look east and sing today:

  Love, the Lord, is on the way.

Perhaps nothing is more remarkable than how our Lord comes to us as a child.  In fact, in my humble opinion, Love, the child is on the way is a perfect way to wrap up our Advent focus.

I remember so vividly the births of each of my daughters.  The very instant I held my first daughter for the very first time is was as if a lightning bolt from out of the blue struck me.  Without warning something I never anticipated happened.  A depth of love, of compassion, and of joy which I had never experienced before was born in me.  It remains one of the most miraculous moments of my entire life and the feelings it stirred endure to this day.  When my second daughter was born I experienced how this feeling could be broadened to another human being.  Love, the child, has a way of awakening something deep in our souls.  It lights a flame not present before… a flame which will never burn out.

I am not yet a grandparent, but I have learned from those of you who are, once you have a grandchild you become absolutely incapable of not showing pictures of the new arrival to everyone you know… especially your humble parish priest.  You who have foisted photo after photo upon me know how I have developed a sarcastic way of saying, “That is the most be-ute-if-ole baby EEEVVVEEERRR.”  And let me get this out of the way now, so I don’t have to say it to each of you individually after the service: “Your grandchild was definitely THE star of the nativity pageant!”

Actually, I am very happy for those of you who are grandparents and great grandparents.  You have come to experience one of the great blessings in life.  I note with awe how, especially with the birth of the first grandchild, you grandparents soon are given brand new names.  It happens when your grandchild begins to call you ‘Pop Pop’ or ‘Nana’ or ‘Grampsy’ or ‘Grammy.’  Up until you’re your grandchild’s birth no one ever called you by this name before.  But your grandchild has the power to claim you and to rename you – to give you a new identity – one which will last for the rest of your life. 

Tonight we celebrate because centuries ago Love, the Lord came to us first as a child and this child has the power to do what our grandchildren do.  This gift of Love awakes something deep within us.  Through the birth of Love, the Lord, we are reborn.  Something new, something almost unspeakable comes to life in us.  And this Love has the power to claim us, even to give us a new name.  However we were known before, however we thought of ourselves in the past, once Love, the Lord claims us we take on a new name, a new identity: ‘beloved.’

Tonight, as a we celebrate Love, the Lord coming into the world, we give thanks for what it births within us and for how it lays a claim on our hearts.  Tonight we no longer look East to find this Love, we look within and we look around… around at the faces of those who gather with us here tonight; whose bright eyes and warm smiles are radiant with the Love of the Lord.  Tonight, we joyfully sing, Love, the Lord, has come today.

Love, the Star

 

People, Look East: verse 4

Advent 4 / Year C

Since the dawn of time we humans have been looking up at the stars in the night sky with a sense of wonder, majesty, and awe.  Various early cultures all over the globe, from the Phoenicians to the Chinese to the Inca and more, observed the stars with such intensity they began to discern circular patterns and fixed constants.  Each civilization created star maps of varying accuracy, some able to predict eclipses, comets, and various other celestial events.  Ancient and mysterious structures, from the pyramids in Egypt to Stonehenge in England to Mayan temples, were sited to align with solar events like the solstice. 

For millennia, the movement of stars (which actually don’t move at all) served to guide daily life as well as religious beliefs.  From the night sky people determined the most optimal time to plant and to harvest.  In the multiple constellations human beings deduced mythological figures and celestial gods whose reach affected affairs here on earth.  Given star maps represented a synthesis of science, agriculture, and spirituality, each culture imbued these works with the highest level of artistic expression available to its age and setting.

The Romans were among the first to produce cartography which, using stars, allowed navigators to determine their location and thus were able to chart a course with impressive precision.  This understanding opened new sea routes, expanded trade, and facilitated military expeditions.  In our hemisphere, latitude was easily determined by the position of the North Star.  Longitude was a more vexing challenge not completely resolved until John Harrison developed a chronometer 1761, which told time at sea, vastly simplifying complex calculations. 

Perhaps you are aware the Naval Academy required celestial navigation (one of its most demanding courses) to be taught until 1998 when it was removed from the required curriculum.  Citing concerns about the potential for the GPS system to go down or be hacked, it was reinstated in 2015.  Beyond midshipmen, it is worth noting several species of animals, birds, and fish, mysteriously utilize the stars to direct migrational behavior. 

Today’s verse from People, Look East, which we sang moments ago, focuses our attention on a star:

Stars, keep the watch.

  When night is dim

  one more light the bowl shall brim,

Shining beyond the frosty weather,

  bright as sun and moon together.

People, look east and sing today:

  Love, the star, is on the way. 

The hymn uses a star as a metaphor for God’s love which, like a fixed star, will point the way for us to travel through life.  Love, the star is an unchanging value and virtue from which we can orient and navigate no matter what conditions and challenges we face.  Are you familiar with carol Star of Hope?  Set to a deeply soulful tune, these are its lyrics:

Star of hope, star of love

   shine down from afar.

You’re the one guiding light

   no matter where we are.

Through the valley of tears

   through the long, dreary years

   you’re the star up there, star of hope.

From heaven above

   let each beam guide our dream

   leading to hope and love.

A deep and abiding sense of hope is not just an option for the tool belt we use to draw on through life.  It is absolutely essential for our very well-being.  Social theorists tell us how we think directly influences how we feel, and how we feel directly influences how our body reacts, and how our body reacts directly influences how we behave, and how we behave comes to define who we are and how we experience life.  So, what we think is the bedrock on which everything else is built. 

If your core belief is set upon hope you will engage the world in a way very different than, say, someone whose center is dominated by fear, or by cynicism, or by a paradigm of reward and punishment.  To draw on the language of today’s hymn, we all need to choose a star to use as the object on which we orient our lives.  People, Look East proclaims a new star is on the way and it will shine brighter than every other object vying for our attention.

One final thought, most of us come to the star of Love through the witness of another person who lives it out for us to see.  We call this person a role model.  When we are young we may adopt the look and language of an athlete or a celebrity, but the people closest to us have the most enduring influence on us.  It may be a member of our family or a teacher or a coach, whoever the role model may be, this person shapes us in the moment and becomes a lasting influence on us throughout our lives.  Our role models do more than teach through their words and deeds, we sense they care about us because they listen to us and are genuinely empathetic.  And while they may correct us, we know they respect us.  We observe everything about them in the same way we observe the location and movement of an orienting star.  Their Christ-like life shapes and guides us. 

God-willing, somehow, someway, in time, as we get older we will be a guiding star for someone else.  So people, look east because love, the star is on the way.