D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Twelfth Day of Christmas" (January 5, 1969)

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-	Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord,	0:08
	or who shall stand in His holy place?	0:12
	He that hath clean hands and a pure heart,	0:16
	who has not lifted up his soul onto vanity	0:20
	nor sworn deceitfully,	0:23
	he shall receive the blessing from the Lord	0:26
	and righteousness from the God of our salvation.	0:30
	O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,	0:35
	serve him with gladness, all the earth.	0:39
	Amen.	0:42
	(tranquil organ music)	0:44
	(congregation singing praises)	1:20
-	Let us now unite our hearts and our voices	4:02
	in our unison prayer of confession.	4:05
	Let us pray.	4:08
	Oh, Lord, Thou has searched us and known us.	4:10
	Thou understandest our thoughts afar off,	4:14
	and art acquainted with all our ways.	4:17
	There is not a word in our tongues,	4:20
	but low, oh Lord, Thou knowest it altogether.	4:22
	Take from us all hardness and impenitence,	4:26
	that we, admitting our sins	4:30
	and earnestly facing our faults before thee,	4:32
	may obtain pardon for all our guilt,	4:36
	absolved, O God, from every kind of sin.	4:39
	Forgive us for trying to be clever	4:43
	when we should have sought wisdom.	4:46
	Heal lost from the disease	4:48
	of trying to make names for ourselves	4:50
	when we should have been seeking to glorify thy name.	4:53
	Enable us, O Lord, to find pardon now,	4:57
	and to attain everlasting redemption in the world to come.	5:00
	Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	5:05
	As in our prayer, we asked God to pardon us	5:12
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	5:15
	We are made aware during the Christmas season	5:18
	that indeed our redemption is through Christ	5:21
	who saves us from our sins.	5:25
	It is recorded that the angel,	5:29
	in announcing the birth of Jesus,	5:31
	said that his name should be called Jesus,	5:33
	for he would save his people from their sin.	5:38
	May this be our understanding and our experience	5:43
	at this season of the year.	5:47
	(tranquil organ music)	5:55
	(soprano singing)	6:22
-	One of the reasons why Christians come together	9:29
	for a corporate worship	9:32
	is to hear the reading of the word of God.	9:34
	Today, our scripture lesson contains	9:39
	a portion from the Old Testament and a portion from the New.	9:41
	In the Old Testament, Zachariah chapter two,	9:47
	beginning at the 10th verse is our reading.	9:51
	"Sing and rejoice O daughter of Zion,	9:56
	for lo I come and I will dwell in the midst of you,"	10:00
	says the Lord,	10:04
	"and many nations shall join themselves	10:06
	to the Lord in that day	10:09
	and shall be my people,	10:11
	and I will dwell in the midst of you,	10:14
	and you shall know that the Lord of Hosts	10:18
	has sent me to you,	10:21
	and the Lord will inherit Judah	10:24
	as his portion in the holy land,	10:26
	and will again choose Jerusalem.	10:29
	Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord,	10:34
	for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling."	10:38
	The New Testament reading is from the Gospel	10:45
	according to Luke, chapter two, beginning with verse 21.	10:47
	"And at the end of eight days, when Jesus was circumcised,	10:54
	he was called Jesus,	10:59
	the name given by the angel	11:01
	before he was conceived in the womb.	11:03
	And when the time came for their purification,	11:07
	according to the law of Moses,	11:09
	they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,	11:12
	as it is written in the law of the Lord, quote,	11:16
	'Every male that opens the womb	11:20
	shall be called holy to the Lord' unquote,	11:22
	and to offer a sacrifice,	11:26
	according to what is said in the law of the Lord,	11:28
	'quote, a pair of turtle doves,	11:32
	or two young pigeons,' unquote.	11:35
	Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.	11:39
	This man was righteous and devout,	11:43
	looking for the constellation of Israel,	11:47
	and the Holy Spirit was upon him.	11:50
	And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit	11:53
	that he should not see death	11:56
	before he had seen the Lord's Christ.	11:57
	And inspired by the spirit, he came into the temple.	12:02
	And when the parents brought in the child Jesus	12:05
	to do for him according to the custom of the law,	12:08
	he took him up in his arms and blessed God, and said,	12:12
	'Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart in peace,	12:19
	according to thy word,	12:23
	for mine eyes have seen thy salvation	12:25
	which thou has prepared in the presence of all peoples,	12:29
	a light for revelation to the Gentiles,	12:33
	and for glory to thy people, Israel,'	12:36
	and his father and his mother marveled	12:40
	at what was said about him.	12:42
	And Simeon blessed them."	12:44
	Amen.	12:47
	(tranquil organ music)	12:51
	(congregation singing praises)	13:01
	The Lord be with you.	13:36
-	And also with you.	13:38
-	Let us pray.	13:40
	Almighty God,	13:50
	we acknowledge here in thy sanctuary	13:52
	that although we have not been good to thee,	13:55
	thou hast been good to us.	13:59
	We frequently have deserved adversity,	14:02
	but instead the lines have fallen unto us	14:06
	in pleasant places.	14:08
	Thou has crowned us with loving kindness,	14:11
	and hast anointed us with the oil of gladness.	14:13
	For these unmerited mercies, we give thee thanks.	14:17
	O God, we are grateful to thee this morning	14:23
	that we do find it in our hearts to seek thee	14:25
	and to worship thee.	14:29
	Thou hast given us the grace	14:31
	by which an interest in thy kingdom	14:33
	has been kindled in our souls.	14:35
	We know not how to be sufficiently grateful	14:39
	that before we love thee, thou did love us,	14:42
	and did send thy son, Jesus Christ,	14:46
	to be our redeemer and our friend.	14:50
	We thank thee for the continuing presence	14:53
	of the Holy Spirit in our midst.	14:56
	Grant that we may heed his voice	14:59
	and honor the calls which he makes upon us.	15:02
	O God, as we come thoughtfully into thy sanctuary,	15:09
	we become conscious of many needs which we have	15:13
	and we bring them to thee in prayer.	15:18
	We come as needy children	15:21
	to a loving and all sufficient father.	15:23
	More than anything else,	15:28
	we need the convincing awareness	15:30
	of thy presence in our lives,	15:32
	to know and to feel that thou art not dead,	15:35
	that thou art not distant,	15:38
	but that thou art a present force in our lives.	15:40
	Help us therefore to live close to thee	15:46
	and to experience, even in this hour,	15:48
	the redeeming grace which only thou canst give us.	15:51
	We lift up to thee our petitions for health	15:56
	and for serenity.	15:59
	We ask that these blessings may especially be given	16:02
	to those who today are sick.	16:05
	We pray for those who are the victims of the flu epidemic	16:09
	in our nation and in the world.	16:12
	Grant unto them peace and patience and hope,	16:15
	and remind all those who are sick of thy loving care	16:20
	through the nurses and the doctors	16:25
	and the friends who visit them.	16:28
	We offer our prayers, O God,	16:33
	for all who need to make great choices in their lives.	16:36
	Give them not only wisdom in general,	16:41
	but wisdom that is tailored to their own needs	16:44
	and their own particular situations.	16:48
	Grant that those who ponder their life's vocation	16:52
	may receive the clarity of insight	16:56
	and the steadfastness of purpose	16:59
	which is essential for the making of stable choices.	17:02
	May Christian motives be uppermost	17:07
	in the minds of those who plan for leadership	17:09
	in tomorrow's business world.	17:12
	May they have every Christian grace	17:15
	as they move into business responsibilities	17:18
	and professional demands.	17:22
	We offer also our prayer	17:27
	for those who plan to be church leaders,	17:28
	theologians, professors, ministers, bishops.	17:31
	Guide them by thy spirit	17:37
	so that they may guide others to the way of Christ.	17:39
	Keep them from emphasizing trivialities	17:43
	and ignoring the spirit of Christ.	17:46
	Help them to know that in Christ there is no east or west,	17:50
	in him, no south or north.	17:54
	Help thy church to be in fact,	17:59
	one great fellowship of love.	18:02
	Take away from us every attitude	18:06
	which would hinder the accomplishment of this.	18:09
	Indeed, oh God, we pray that thou would give us	18:12
	hearts prepared to love one another,	18:14
	and prepared to love ourselves properly.	18:18
	Grant us grace to do ourselves the supreme favor	18:22
	of offering our hearts to thee,	18:26
	so now in this moment we pause to do this.	18:29
	Oh God, take our hearts and make them thine.	18:35
	Receive us as thy children,	18:39
	for we make our prayer in the name of him	18:43
	who has taught us, when we pray, to say together,	18:45
	"Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,	18:50
	thy kingdom come, thy will be done,	18:55
	on earth as it is in heaven.	18:59
	Give us this day our daily bread,	19:02
	and forgive us our trespasses,	19:04
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	19:07
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	19:10
	For thine is the kingdom, and the power,	19:15
	and the glory, forever.	19:17
	Amen.	19:20
-	Let us pray.	19:44
	May the words of my mouth	19:50
	and the meditations of our hearts	19:51
	be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,	19:54
	our strength and our redeemer.	19:56
	Amen.	20:00
-	This is the 12th day of Christmas,	20:09
	if I count correctly, and I hope I do.	20:13
	This day, if it reminds most of us of anything,	20:19
	probably recalls 12 lords a laeaping,	20:23
	or a partridge in a pear tree.	20:27
	It's the last Sunday of the old Christmas season,	20:31
	and the first Sunday of the new year.	20:35
	Some of us had scarcely begun to get used to the 1960s,	20:39
	and now we're almost out of them.	20:44
	And the coming of the new is even faster	20:48
	than the passage of time.	20:51
	This is the year of Apollo 8, and man's first voyage	20:55
	outside the Earth's gravitational field.	20:59
	But that was last year, wasn't it?	21:03
	Who knows what this year or the next year will bring.	21:06
	Surely we seem to be getting a long way from the world	21:11
	that is represented by the quaint little song	21:14
	about a partridge in a pear tree.	21:18
	For many people,	21:22
	we seem also to be getting farther and farther	21:23
	from a world, or a time	21:27
	in which the season through which we have just passed	21:30
	has any real or specific meaning, or significance.	21:33
	And so, we often hear it asked,	21:39
	can we put Christ back into Christmas?	21:41
	The question, as it is often asked in this day in time,	21:48
	seems a little trite and irrelevant to me	21:52
	in a world like ours.	21:55
	How hollow the solemn denunciations of commercialism sound	21:58
	in a day in which man lives by all kinds of commerce,	22:02
	and in many ways lives better than he has ever lived before.	22:06
	I wouldn't walk across the street	22:13
	to hear all of the sermons	22:16
	that have been preached this Christmas season	22:17
	deploring the commercialism of modern Christmas.	22:20
	In fact, I would walk across the street	22:23
	to avoid hearing them,	22:26
	and I think that in doing so,	22:29
	I would have struck a modest blow	22:30
	against the kind of vacuous piety	22:33
	which in our time so often masquerades as Christianity.	22:36
	The really important question	22:43
	is whether our world any longer is or can be	22:44
	receptive to the message of Christmas,	22:48
	that is, to the message of the coming of God	22:50
	in Jesus Christ.	22:55
	Can it make any sense out of that message at all?	22:58
	Now, I suppose we could create	23:02
	a kind of small sensation here	23:04
	by simply saying that it cannot,	23:06
	but I would be less than honest with you	23:09
	if I didn't confess at the outset	23:11
	that I'm not going to say that this morning,	23:13
	but neither am I going to be presumptuous enough	23:17
	to stand here and announce from this pulpit	23:20
	to the world and to the last third of the 20th century	23:23
	that yes, Christ can and does have importance	23:27
	and meaning for all of us.	23:33
	I just want to call your attention to the fact	23:38
	that the world has not always, or even often	23:42
	been entirely receptive to Christ,	23:46
	and that in this respect	23:49
	our age may not differ so greatly from many others.	23:50
	All the pious glorifying of the birth of Jesus	23:56
	that has traditionally gone on at Christmas, understandably,	23:59
	has nevertheless made us Christians forget	24:04
	the essentially obscure and humble character	24:06
	of the birth of Jesus,	24:09
	and indeed of the origin of Christianity.	24:12
	Who would've thought that from so small a beginning	24:16
	such a mighty movement would have sprung,	24:19
	and yet, already before the close of the first century,	24:23
	Luke foresaw the world historical importance	24:27
	of the faith in Jesus which he held.	24:29
	At a time when it was far from obvious	24:33
	that Christianity would conquer the Western world,	24:35
	Luke wrote a two volume history of Jesus	24:38
	and the beginnings of the Christian Church.	24:41
	He wrote it out of his fundamental conviction	24:45
	that Jesus Christ was the center,	24:47
	the very hub of human destiny and history.	24:50
	Christians have since read the books he wrote	24:55
	and taken for granted his basic conviction.	24:58
	And yet, it is perhaps significant	25:02
	for us to remember this morning	25:04
	that in Luke's day, relatively few people	25:07
	would have taken him seriously, much less agreed with him.	25:10
	Now the text, which is our lectionary reading	25:18
	appointed for this 12th day of Christmas,	25:23
	this text is from the Gospel of Luke	25:27
	and reflects Luke's firm belief.	25:31
	It is the passage from the second chapter,	25:36
	which, as you've just heard, is a description of the events	25:39
	immediately following Jesus' birth,	25:42
	concluding with the famous (indistinct).	25:45
	Our text is quite appropriate	25:51
	for this last day of the Christmas season,	25:53
	for it is the final in a series of infancy narratives	25:57
	with which Luke's Gospel begins.	26:01
	It is based on the previous accounts,	26:05
	the stories of angels and shepherds in Jesus' birth,	26:07
	but it points forward to the manifestation of Jesus	26:12
	to Israel and to the world.	26:15
	We therefore, so to speak in the text,	26:20
	stand at the end of the Christmas season,	26:23
	and already there is a hint	26:26
	that more rigorous times lie ahead.	26:28
	So, when Mary and Joseph Marvel at Simeon's wonderful words,	26:31
	the ancient Sage continues,	26:35
	"Behold, this child is set for the fall	26:38
	and rising of many in Israel,	26:42
	and for a sign that is spoken against,	26:44
	and a sword will pierce through your own soul also	26:47
	that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."	26:51
	And thus, before the wondrous words	26:57
	about Jesus being a light for revelation to the Gentiles,	26:58
	and for glory to thy people Israel, are fulfilled,	27:01
	Jesus will be a scandal,	27:05
	a divisive, and perhaps judgmental force.	27:08
	Still Luke's emphasis does not fall upon this hard fact.	27:13
	The subsequent pericope of the next story in the account,	27:18
	the brief tale about the old prophetess Anna	27:22
	who gives thanks to God at that very hour,	27:25
	indicates that Luke wants to emphasize the positive side	27:27
	of Simeon's prophecy.	27:31
	Luke's last Christmas story then presents Jesus	27:33
	as the light of the world.	27:37
	And yet, this Jesus is one born of human parentage,	27:40
	there is but brief mention of the virgin birth.	27:45
	He is born in humble circumstances.	27:49
	He is circumcised on the eighth day,	27:53
	like any other good son of Israel.	27:55
	He is given a good historic Israelite name.	27:58
	Indeed, the purification offering of two turtle doves,	28:04
	or two pigeons is the one specified	28:07
	for the mother who cannot afford a lamb offering.	28:09
	Even the presentation of Jesus to the Lord in the temple,	28:14
	which is something extraordinary,	28:17
	is recounted as the fulfillment of Israelite law.	28:19
	Jesus is a true and obedient son of the covenant,	28:25
	and Luke wishes to make this fact absolutely clear.	28:29
	And so, the righteous and elderly Simeon	28:34
	who takes the baby Jesus into his arms and blesses him	28:37
	is the very personification	28:41
	of that righteous remnant of Israel	28:43
	from whom the Christ or Messiah would come.	28:45
	Simeon has been waiting a long time	28:49
	for the relief, for the constellation	28:52
	of a troubled and oppressed Israel.	28:54
	And in this time, he has been sustained only	28:58
	by the Spirit inspired knowledge that he would not die	29:01
	until he saw the Lord's salvation, until he saw the Christ,	29:04
	the anointed king of Israel.	29:09
	And when he sees Jesus and recognizes him as the Christ,	29:13
	then he knows that his time has come.	29:16
	"Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace	29:20
	according to thy word.	29:24
	For my eyes have seen thy salvation	29:26
	which thou has prepared in the presence of all peoples,	29:28
	a light for revelation to the Gentiles,	29:33
	and for the glory of thy people Israel.	29:36
	Jesus is designated as the one through whom	29:41
	God will make you saving purpose for the world know,	29:45
	and thus the salient note of Luke's theology is struck.	29:48
	Through Christ, God's light shines forth	29:53
	as a beacon to Gentiles, to nations and peoples.	29:56
	Through a true son of Israel,	30:00
	Israel's true role is fulfilled and she attains her glory.	30:02
	The imagery comes from the Old Testament,	30:06
	particularly from 2 Isaiah.	30:08
	All of this is very beautiful, I think.	30:13
	And yet, in the aftermath of 2,000 years	30:18
	of traditional biblical and Christian language,	30:21
	how does it sound to us today?	30:26
	Perhaps a little trite,	30:33
	or perhaps we take it for granted,	30:36
	or perhaps we wonder just a bit about it.	30:39
	There was a time when, I suppose,	30:44
	it seemed equally inspiring and true to just about everybody	30:46
	or everyone in the Western world, in Christendom,	30:51
	but perhaps today	30:57
	it seems a little more inspiring than true.	30:59
	It's very likely that the time is gone	31:08
	when one could simply take for granted	31:12
	that the acceptance of Simeon's prophecy	31:14
	as obvious revealed truth.	31:16
	Perhaps that time was gone before the Apollo 8,	31:22
	years before.	31:26
	The recent celebration of the death of God	31:30
	was perhaps only the widespread recognition	31:35
	that the Lordship of God and his Christ	31:37
	over our lives and histories	31:39
	is now no longer an obvious fact	31:41
	which everyone takes for granted and no one dares doubt.	31:43
	It was, I think, a kind of popular waking up to a situation	31:47
	that had existed for a good while,	31:52
	a kind of uneasiness about the relevance	31:56
	and meaningfulness and truth of our religious tradition.	31:58
	But wait a minute.	32:04
	We look around us, especially in this region,	32:06
	and we still see manifold signs of the vitality	32:11
	of the Christian religion.	32:15
	And so, it may seem superfluous or even wrong headed	32:19
	to speak of obstacles in the way of belief in our age.	32:22
	After all, the Apollo 8 astronauts,	32:29
	as they circled around the Moon, read the scriptures	32:31
	and prayed to the God that the Judeo-Christian tradition.	32:35
	Is our time really comparable with Luke's?	32:40
	Well, while the church is very much alive,	32:45
	and I for one am not sorry, at least not most of the time,	32:48
	we ought not to deceive ourselves by looking only	32:53
	at the nearby signs of optimism.	32:56
	For it is not only in the communist world	33:00
	that Christianity is on the defensive.	33:02
	In Europe and in much of this country, the social pressures	33:05
	which used to get people to church on Sunday morning	33:08
	have weakened.	33:10
	In fact, on the religious news just this morning,	33:12
	I heard that for now 10 years, year by year,	33:16
	the percentage of Americans who can be found in church	33:20
	on any given Sunday morning has been declining.	33:23
	It's down to 43% now among Americans,	33:26
	and that figure is only that high	33:31
	because of the rather remarkably high	33:33
	incidents of church attendance among Roman Catholics.	33:36
	Less than 30% of the population of the world	33:41
	is even nominally Christian today,	33:44
	and that's less than 30 years ago.	33:47
	There are predictions that the percentage will shrink	33:51
	to say 15% by the year 2,000.	33:53
	And even the Roman Catholic church,	33:58
	which to us Protestants has so long seemed to be	33:59
	such an unshakeable monolith,	34:02
	has been shuttering in the wake of widespread rebellion	34:05
	among the laity, and defections from the clergy.	34:11
	And so, it is not alarmist to say	34:16
	that the fortress of Christendom	34:20
	is not only on the defensive,	34:23
	but has some real problems within the ranks.	34:26
	Such signs as these are cause for concern,	34:31
	but perhaps they need not be reason for despair,	34:37
	for the Gospel which Luke announces in this text	34:43
	for the 12th day of Christmas	34:46
	transcends all human expectations and institutions,	34:47
	even the visible church.	34:52
	Luke may have been encouraged	34:56
	because he saw the early Christian mission succeeding,	34:57
	but his own proclamation of the Gospel	35:01
	was not based simply upon that success.	35:03
	He like the other members of the New Testament church	35:07
	was moved by the conviction, the faith and the hope	35:10
	that God was really bringing a new thing into being.	35:15
	He saw the advent of this newness	35:21
	in what to world could only seem a rather unimportant event,	35:23
	the birth of a baby in humble circumstances.	35:27
	That faith which Luke shared	35:33
	with other first century Christians	35:35
	was perhaps the principle miracle of Christian origins.	35:37
	It was a conviction that despite many confusing	35:42
	and contrary indications,	35:45
	God was working his will among men,	35:48
	leading humanity into a new day.	35:52
	Such a faith was really far more amazing	35:57
	than belief in angels descending from heaven,	35:59
	or even the virgin birth.	36:03
	How easy it has been for a culture	36:07
	permeated by Christian influence over one or 2,000 years	36:09
	to take Simeon's prophecy and Luke's faith for granted,	36:13
	but how really astounding that Luke should dare to announce	36:17
	the fulfillment of ancient hopes and universal yearnings	36:20
	in the birth of a baby in lowly surroundings,	36:25
	in one who was to be crucified as a messianic pretender.	36:29
	Luke knows that this new day is not yet fully manifest,	36:37
	that its consummation lies ahead in the future.	36:40
	He knows that the ambiguities and frustrations	36:44
	of human life and human history are going to continue,	36:47
	that rigorous times, times of hardship and crisis	36:51
	are not over and done with.	36:55
	Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising	36:58
	of many in Israel,	37:03
	and for a sign that is spoken against	37:05
	that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.	37:08
	And yet he also believes	37:13
	that God has already spoken a decisive word	37:15
	over the course of human history,	37:18
	and that that history and destiny is moving to a conclusion	37:21
	that God intends.	37:25
	Now, it may be a question to us,	37:28
	to some of us, to many of our contemporaries,	37:32
	whether such talk is any longer meaningful.	37:36
	As we take leave of the Christmas season,	37:41
	can we take the message of Christmas with us	37:44
	and make it meaningful in our lives and in our world?	37:49
	That is a real question,	37:56
	and I do not want to take the edge off of it	37:59
	or deprive it of its seriousness	38:02
	by giving some pat or superficial answer.	38:04
	To such an answer one could well respond,	38:10
	"Of course he said that.	38:12
	He was expected to say it.	38:14
	He even gets paid for saying it."	38:15
	I just want to suggest again	38:18
	that faith in the real message of Christmas	38:21
	has always been a challenge, and has always been a risk.	38:23
	The problems and challenges which faith confronts today	38:29
	are real and serious, new and different,	38:32
	but not without precedent.	38:37
	Luke's faith may commend itself to us now, today,	38:41
	even as it did to men of the first century of our era.	38:46
	In a world of ever increasing change and motion,	38:51
	we yearn for direction,	38:55
	and for the assurance that there is one	38:58
	who illumines and who guides.	39:00
	In a threatening world,	39:05
	we yearn for a security that is more satisfying	39:06
	than the many tentative securities	39:09
	the modern world now offers,	39:10
	for we know that the science and the technology	39:14
	which produces the securities which are quite beneficent,	39:16
	on the other hand can be the instrument of the captivity	39:22
	and even the annihilation of mankind.	39:26
	In a world ridden by dissension, plagued by inequities,	39:32
	tortured by the senseless sufferings of millions,	39:37
	we yearn for peace and justice, and sensibility in it all.	39:41
	Luke does not announce the immediate fulfillment	39:50
	of all these yearnings if we only believe.	39:53
	The new Testament does not assure us	39:56
	of peace, happiness, and security	39:58
	in the sense that these things are usually defined.	40:01
	What we are given his perspective and power,	40:06
	perspective with which to view ourselves and others	40:12
	with charity and with hope,	40:17
	power to engage in the tasks	40:21
	which are set immediately before us,	40:23
	power and perspective to understand	40:27
	and to accept our destinies as God's grace,	40:30
	most of all when these are not pleasant.	40:35
	So on the 12th day of Christmas,	40:41
	we necessarily turn from the celebration	40:43
	of the appearance of God's grace and love in the world,	40:46
	and set our hands to the tasks of a new year.	40:51
	Does this year or the prospect of it appear to us	40:57
	as a confusion, and even the curse,	41:00
	or does it appear to us as an open future, God's future,	41:07
	the object of God's blessing?	41:13
	Upon our answer to such a question hinges the meaningfulness	41:17
	of this and every Christmas season,	41:22
	and I would not presume to answer that question for you,	41:26
	but may I simply wish a happy and a meaningful	41:31
	12th day of Christmas.	41:37
	Amen.	41:40
	(tranquil organ music)	41:49
	(congregation singing praises)	41:54
	(tranquil organ music)	44:47
	(tranquil organ music)	46:25
	(soprano singing)	46:28
	(tranquil organ music)	49:40
	(congregation singing praises)	50:08
-	All that we have, we have of thee,	50:45
	creator and preserver of mankind.	50:48
	Accept these gifts which we now bring before thee	50:52
	and help us to make the whole of life an offering,	50:56
	and every thought a prayer.	51:00
	We would seal this, our worship this morning,	51:03
	in a renewed consecration of ourselves	51:07
	in our coming days to thy service	51:11
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	51:14
	Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.	51:22
	Amen.	51:26
	(church bells tolling)	51:28
	(church bells tolling)	51:32
	(church bells tolling)	51:36

Item Info

Title:

D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Twelfth Day of Christmas" (January 5, 1969)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r43x87n0r

Date:

January 5, 1969

Speaker:

Smith, D. Moody, Jr.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0463
ref6131_y53
uachapelsermaud
duke:628317
dcrau002454
ark:/87924/r43x87n0r
628ce739-7036-422a-ac1f-863a291b8095

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Twelfth Day of Christmas" (January 5, 1969)

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1. D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Twelfth Day of Christmas" (January 5, 1969)

Duke University Archives

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D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Twelfth Day of Christmas" (January 5, 1969)

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Duke University Archives

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