The Hope of Yule

Scripture: The Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas I), A.D. 2014 B

Many ages after God created the heavens and the earth, when man and woman were formed in God's own image; long after the great Flood, when God set the rainbow in the clouds as a sign of the covenant; 21 centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah; 15 centuries after Moses led God’s people to freedom; 11 centuries from the time of Ruth and the Judges;

A thousand years from the anointing of David as king; in the 65th week as Daniel's prophecy takes note; in the 194th Olympiad; the 752nd year from the founding of the city of Rome; the 42nd year of the reign of Octavian Augustus; in the Sixth Age of the world, all earth being at peace, Jesus Christ, eternal God, Son of the eternal Father, willing to hallow the world by His coming in mercy, was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judea.

Tonight is the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, God made flesh.

Sermon:

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

“Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” Proverbs 25:25.

The great stories often involve good news from a far country. A hero travels from the east to bring aid to a beleaguered king. An army arrives from an ancient ally to stand together against a mutual foe. A distant victory brings hope to a hopeless struggle. These stories and this proverb remind us that no one is an island unto himself. We are affected, for good and for ill, by things that befall our fellow Man, no matter how distant he may seem.

When Ebola breaks out in Africa, the whole world must take note and work together to prevent pandemic. When a new medical advancement is discovered in Israel, afflicted souls the world over groan with relief. When things seem bleakest, and disaster unavoidable, still we look with hope to the east, for good news from a far country. And that hope is not in vain.

Long ago, our ancestors, the peoples of Northern Europe, held a midwinter festival they called Yule. Starting at the winter solstice, the darkest and longest night of the year, they would feast and drink and sacrifice for three entire days. They would pile high the flames with a Yule log, as we still do today. They would roast wild boar, just as we enjoy our Christmas hams. And they would sing, and they would drink, and they would tell the good old stories of ages long past.

It was the jolliest time of the year—which is really quite remarkable, when you think about it. I mean, anyone can rejoice at May Day or Midsummer, when the sun shines down and the land explodes with fresh new life and light and color. But a midwinter feast is just the opposite. When nature is at her bleakest, men are at their merriest. It is an act of defiance to pile high the roaring flames against the howling winter wind, to sing out songs in the frozen silence, to feast in a stark and barren land. Why did they do it? What made them rejoice in the midst of Yule?

It was because they had hope, and to have hope is always a defiant act. I can’t say in what, exactly, they placed their hope. Certainly it wasn’t the old northern gods. At the Yuletide, Odin was said to ride through the air with the hosts of the dead in what legend calls the Wild Hunt. This was the time for men to hide themselves indoors, lest they be snatched away by the death-god’s murderous ghosts. Moreover, the draugar were said to roam the woods at Yule. Draugar were the undead: vampires, zombies, white walkers, if you will. So while our ancestors indeed offered sacrifices at the Yuletide to honor and placate their savage gods, they certainly did not put much hope in them.

So what gave them a hope beyond Odin and his ghastly hordes of shambling corpses? What made them merry with song and good cheer when all the world about them seemed draped in bleakness and death? There was something in their hearts, something universally human, that cried out for a hope unknown; something that looked ahead to the fulfilment of a promise they had not yet heard. They were waiting, it seems, for good news from a far country.

And they were not alone. The ancient Egyptians also hung evergreens and feasted and prayed in midwinter. So did the ancient Chinese, and the Romans with their raucous Saturnalias. All the world over this same winter festival reared its oddly familiar head. Always merry, always hopeful, and always holy. Even the Hebrews of old decked the halls in evergreen, to drive off the devil and bring life to the snows. The only difference, of course, was that the Hebrews knew just what they were hoping for; their prophets had foretold the Messiah to come. (So had some of the pagan Sybils, for that matter, but they were much more cryptic about the entire affair.)

And so the whole world watched and waited. The whole world hoped and prayed: for a hope beyond hope; for a promise they had not heard; for a Messiah beyond the horizon. And they all defied the night with fires blazing against the cold, light dancing upon the ice, and merry voices raised to challenge the dead!

Then at long last it came. In the fullness of time, it came: like cool water to a thirsty soul, Good News from a far country.

“Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased!”

And so came the Good News from far to the East, from the Promised Land of Israel, that Christ the Savior is born. And it came to Greeks and the Romans. It came to Persia and Babylon. It came to Druids and Vikings and Caesars and slaves. And the Good News was for you, for you this day is born a Savior; His birth is a sign for you. And the peoples of the earth heard and believed—“The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all!”—and they became one people, one Body, and this Good News changed the world, changed history, changed everything.

It was a fellow named Haakon the Good who helped bring the Good News to the North. He took the three days of Yule and moved them—moved the entire celebration—to coincide with the 12 Days of Christmas, as if to tell his people, “This, my brethren, this is the hope for which we have searched and yearned for so many generations. For once we celebrated a hope beyond hope, but now we celebrate our hopes and prayers fulfilled. For you this day a Savior is born. For you comes good news from a far distant country.”

Brothers and sisters, our time in this world is often short and fraught with hardship. One pagan priest described it as like unto a sparrow in a winter night’s storm, flitting in one window of a lively feasting hall and immediately out another. Like the sparrow, it is often hard for us to discern how we’ve arrived at our given state in life, and harder still to see what fate lies ahead. Winter has a way of amplifying worry, and dampening joy. We feel lost in the darkness, the winds and the snows.

But on this one defiant night, when we build high the fires and sing the good songs, when we hope beyond hope and love beyond love, Good News has come from a far country, and it has come for us, for each of us, for all of us. The promise has been fulfilled. The Child is born anew. At long last, we have hope, we have joy, we have life evergreen! At long last, it is Christmas.

Thanks be to God.

I find it fitting this night to conclude with the words of the great G.K. Chesterton, from his Christmas poem, “A Child of the Snows.”

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim, / And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long, / And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow, / The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth / And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn / Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet / At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red, / For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold, / And a Child comes forth alone.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.