Midnight Mass - Learning to sing with the angels
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
ܞ
On a dark, wintry night, in a stable, nestled in the hay amidst the animals, a cowherd slept.
The year is about 670.
The stable is on a monastery farm.
In the distance, the monks are making merry, feasting and singing around the fire of the great hall.
The cowherd’s name is Caedmon.
As he drifts in and out of sleep, he hears the sounds of the cows in their stalls, and the drinking songs of the monks.
And then silence.
A light shines in the gloom, and Caedmon sees an angel.
The angel comes beside him and says,
‘Caedmon, sing me something.’
Caedmon is terrified and ashamed.
He explains that he cannot sing – he doesn’t know any songs – and he left the feast early to avoid taking a turn with the harp.
The angel’s steely eyes pierce Caedmon’s very soul, as the angel simply replies,
‘Nevertheless, you must sing.’
Caedmon doesn’t know what to do; he realises he cannot get out of it this time.
‘What must I sing?’
‘Sing to me of Creation.’
And at that very moment, Caedmon began to sing the praise of God the Creator.
And Caedmon’s nine line hymn of praise, recorded in the History of the Venerable Bede, has resounded down the ages,
the oldest recorded poem in the English language.
From an illiterate cowherd, working on a monastery farm, to the first English poet and a monk of Whitby Abbey,
Caedmon’s encounter with the angel brings him into harmony with the angelic song, the praises sung before the throne of God.
***
In our Gospel reading tonight, we are told not of cowherds, but of shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night.
They, too, encounter an angel in the darkness.
As the angel recounts the good news of the Incarnation, the human birth of the Word of God, the sky is flooded with light and song:
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’
The shepherds stand enraptured, entranced, caught up in the glory of the Lord –
and as soon as the angels return to heaven, they don’t waste a second.
‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.’
They leave their flock – their livelihood – and hasten to the City of David, with the angelic song resounding in their hearts.
***
This is a theme picked up beautifully in the carol, ‘It came upon the midnight clear.’
‘It came upon the midnight clear/ that glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth/ to touch their harps of gold.
‘Peace on the earth, good will to men/ from heaven’s all-gracious King!’
The world in solemn stillness lay/ to hear the angels sing.’’
But as we are between time and eternity, the song the angels sang, and which the shepherds heard, continues.
“Still through the cloven skies they come/ with peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats/ o’er all the weary world.”
But we are not always attuned to this angelic song, to the praise of God and to the message of peace.
The carol continues,
“Yet with the woes of sin and strife/ the world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled/ two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not/ the love-song that they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,/ and hear the angels sing.”
In all the anxiety, fear, and darkness of our world – its ‘sad and lonely plains,’ or ‘man at war with man,’ -
the song of the angels goes on.
But we are not attuned to it, or we sing out of harmony with it.
We sing our own discordant songs;
We don’t listen to each other. We cannot hear the angels.
But still they sing, ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth…’
In the birth of Jesus Christ, heaven and earth are inseparable, our fallen humanity, our lives are touched by his Divine life.
The music that the angels sing around the throne of God is in the depths of our souls, like a melody half-remembered.
And as Christ comes among us in human flesh, the angels sing the tune so that we might join in again:
‘Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth…’
Like the Shepherds, we must learn to listen –
to hear anew the good news that the angels bring;
to allow the song of God’s glory and peace to soften our cold, hard hearts,
and to rush with a reckless eagerness into the presence of Christ.
And like Caedmon, that cowherd-turned-poet, we must learn to sing;
to sing in harmony with the angels.
We must cast aside our fears and anxieties, no longer singing the discordant melodies of sin and strife;
but singing with clear voices the love-song that the angels bring.
For this very night, God has come among us,
“peace shall over all the earth/ its ancient splendours fling,
And the whole world give back the song/ which now the angels sing.”