Bishop Nolan B. Harmon - "The Sacrament of Life" (December 9, 1962)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | I'm speaking from a text this morning. | 0:09 |
"And the angel said unto them, | 0:13 | |
fear not. | 0:16 | |
For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, | 0:18 | |
which shall be to all people. | 0:23 | |
For unto you is born this day | 0:27 | |
in the city of David | 0:30 | |
a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." | 0:32 | |
Because the time draws nearer the birth of Christ, | 0:38 | |
as Tennyson rather beautifully expressed it, | 0:44 | |
I've chosen to bring a message this day | 0:48 | |
regarding the coming of our Lord. | 0:51 | |
The Advent, as the Church calls it. | 0:55 | |
Advent, of course, means a coming to or coming toward. | 1:00 | |
And in theological language, | 1:06 | |
we call this season the season of the incarnation, | 1:07 | |
as well as that of the Advent. | 1:12 | |
Someone has expressed the historic importance | 1:15 | |
of this event and all that it implies | 1:19 | |
in a bit of writing | 1:23 | |
which we sometimes see here or there. | 1:24 | |
"Here is a young man who was born the son | 1:28 | |
of a peasant woman in an obscure village. | 1:32 | |
He was brought up in another obscure village. | 1:37 | |
He worked in a carpenter shop | 1:42 | |
until He was about 30 years of age, | 1:45 | |
and then He became an itinerant preacher. | 1:48 | |
He never wrote a book. | 1:53 | |
He never held an office. | 1:56 | |
He never had a home. | 1:59 | |
He never had a family. | 2:02 | |
He never went to college. | 2:06 | |
He never put his foot into a city of any size. | 2:09 | |
And He never traveled 200 miles | 2:14 | |
from the place in which He was born. | 2:17 | |
In short, He never did anything | 2:20 | |
of those usual occurrences which make for greatness. | 2:22 | |
He had no credentials, but Himself. | 2:27 | |
While He was still a young man | 2:32 | |
the tide of public favor turned away from Him. | 2:33 | |
He was betrayed to his enemies. | 2:37 | |
He went through the mockery of a trial. | 2:41 | |
He was put to death on a cross between two thieves. | 2:45 | |
When He was dead He was laid into a borrowed grave, | 2:50 | |
loaned by the courteous and kindness of a friend. | 2:53 | |
19 centuries have come and gone, | 2:59 | |
and today that one question, | 3:02 | |
is the unquestioned leader of the human race | 3:05 | |
and in the very forefront | 3:09 | |
of all its movement toward progress." | 3:11 | |
No one knows exactly who wrote those words, | 3:15 | |
but we today have our reasons | 3:19 | |
and know what we talk of, | 3:23 | |
for the one who gave us that message | 3:26 | |
concluded by saying that, | 3:28 | |
"All the armies that have ever marched, | 3:31 | |
all the navies that have ever sailed, | 3:35 | |
all the parliaments that ever sat, | 3:38 | |
and all the kings who ever reigned | 3:41 | |
have never affected the life of man on this planet | 3:45 | |
as has that one solitary life". | 3:48 | |
Now, of course, that is simply a historic recapitulation. | 3:53 | |
And for the historic reasons we may talk and talk, | 3:58 | |
but Christianity sees a reason with a capital R. | 4:04 | |
For we believe that that one particular individual | 4:09 | |
was a Christ of God, The Son of God | 4:13 | |
sent to save this world | 4:17 | |
and to give it a plenteous redemption. | 4:19 | |
He had no credentials but himself, | 4:23 | |
but what a credential. | 4:26 | |
We sometimes say that Christianity | 4:30 | |
is the religion of a person, | 4:32 | |
and so it is, | 4:35 | |
but not about a person so much as it is a person. | 4:37 | |
What the church believes is that 2000 years ago or so, | 4:46 | |
during the reign of Augustus Caesar, | 4:51 | |
the almighty God who created heaven and earth | 4:54 | |
sent his son into this world to be born of a woman, | 4:58 | |
to grow as a child, to teach and put in order | 5:03 | |
the things concerning his own kingdom, | 5:07 | |
after time to die upon a cross, | 5:11 | |
to be dead and buried, | 5:14 | |
to rise a third day, | 5:16 | |
and after a time interval of some 40 days | 5:19 | |
in which he told many more things, | 5:21 | |
and at first he told, | 5:24 | |
he as the creed has it, | 5:26 | |
ascended into heaven | 5:28 | |
from whence he has promised to come in due time | 5:30 | |
to judge the quick and the dead. | 5:32 | |
What a pilgrim. | 5:35 | |
What a stupendous belief. | 5:38 | |
All beginning at this birth in Bethlehem, | 5:40 | |
this Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. | 5:44 | |
Some years ago, if I may tell a personal story, | 5:50 | |
I was coming up from the South at Christmas time | 5:54 | |
on a long slow-moving train | 5:58 | |
which crawled across the midlands of our Southern country. | 6:01 | |
And I noticed that, across the aisle from me, | 6:07 | |
there was a man and a woman sitting. | 6:09 | |
They had been talking, but I had been reading. | 6:12 | |
I was not particularly interested in them | 6:14 | |
and they certainly were not in me. | 6:16 | |
And the evening came, | 6:19 | |
and in the early evening the train came to a stop | 6:20 | |
in some large town somewhere in Eastern Tennessee. | 6:23 | |
A town at this Christmas season | 6:28 | |
where they had a erected a Christmas tree. | 6:30 | |
It made rather a beautiful site there upon the platform, | 6:33 | |
with the tinsel and the lights and the glow. | 6:37 | |
And then in a complete hush that comes, or came, | 6:41 | |
as we speak of trains now in the past tense, | 6:45 | |
the complete hush that came | 6:48 | |
into a point when it really stopped. | 6:49 | |
I heard this man's deep voice say to the woman, | 6:53 | |
"Christmas is a good thing, you know. | 6:57 | |
It improves trade, brings on a good spirit. | 7:01 | |
What about Jesus and his being the Son of God? | 7:06 | |
Well, I don't know". | 7:11 | |
And then the wheels began to turn, | 7:13 | |
the roar came back, and I heard no more. | 7:16 | |
But I knew that that man was saying | 7:20 | |
what the world has been saying in other ways | 7:21 | |
in his half-musing, half-questioning manner. | 7:24 | |
And I know that the Church too has an answer | 7:29 | |
and does give an answer | 7:30 | |
when it speaks of the Christ of God | 7:33 | |
who came to bless and care for | 7:36 | |
and teach us of the heavenly kingdom. | 7:41 | |
And you know that the early mind of the Church | 7:46 | |
said itself to try to explain this question, | 7:48 | |
therefore there came forth the great creeds | 7:51 | |
which we learn in study. | 7:55 | |
There came forth the platitudes, | 7:57 | |
the teachings of various groups. | 7:59 | |
And we find an amazing thing, | 8:03 | |
that all believe in Jesus as a good man. | 8:04 | |
Other great religions, the Mohammedans, for instance, | 8:10 | |
our Jewish friends believe in Jesus | 8:12 | |
as an historic character. | 8:14 | |
What faith always sees | 8:17 | |
and prefers to believe and does believe | 8:19 | |
is, as Saint John expressed it, | 8:22 | |
as he concludes that fourth gospel, | 8:25 | |
telling of how many things Jesus has done | 8:28 | |
and how even the world itself | 8:29 | |
might not contain the books that might be written. | 8:31 | |
Saint John said many other things might be written, | 8:34 | |
but these are written, | 8:37 | |
that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, | 8:39 | |
The Son of the living God, | 8:44 | |
and that believing, or as I like to say, | 8:46 | |
and that believing, | 8:50 | |
you might have life through his name. | 8:52 | |
It's a stupendous fact that, according to our faith, | 8:56 | |
Jesus Christ was the only one who ever came to this world. | 9:01 | |
The rest of us get born here in time where we are. | 9:06 | |
But in our faith, the eternal God sent into this world | 9:12 | |
Him who declared to those who had avowed him | 9:16 | |
that he had been with the Father before all worlds. | 9:22 | |
Now, the modern Church does not pay too much attention | 9:28 | |
to what the fathers used to talk of | 9:30 | |
as the pre-existent Christ. | 9:31 | |
The mind of the present rather thinks, | 9:37 | |
almost unconsciously thinks | 9:39 | |
that Jesus took his origin in time, | 9:41 | |
in the days of Augustus Caesar, | 9:46 | |
when the | 9:49 | |
taxing was given over, | 9:53 | |
the (speaks foreign language), | 9:55 | |
the whole inhabited earth. | 9:56 | |
But if we were to agree to that, | 9:59 | |
what would there be about the example of a good man? | 10:03 | |
Where would the plan of redemption be? | 10:08 | |
What could a good man, | 10:11 | |
no matter how good 2000 years ago, | 10:12 | |
do to help me in my life and my sins and my troubles, | 10:14 | |
to help you in yours? | 10:17 | |
We lift our eyes to something wider, | 10:20 | |
something finer, something deeper. | 10:22 | |
And when faith once settles, | 10:25 | |
and it takes faith to do it, | 10:28 | |
when faith once settles | 10:30 | |
that this was the Son of the living God | 10:32 | |
then all sorts of things that come into shape, | 10:35 | |
all sorts of puzzling problems iron themselves out. | 10:38 | |
The scripture, as you know, | 10:43 | |
is filled with accounts of miracles, | 10:44 | |
with portents and wonders. | 10:46 | |
This very text from which, | 10:50 | |
this very passage of Luke from which I took my text | 10:52 | |
speaks of an angel chorus in the sky. | 10:56 | |
And the crass modern mind | 11:00 | |
in this skeptical century in which we live | 11:03 | |
says, "Well, there are no angels". | 11:05 | |
There was a different worldview then. | 11:08 | |
There was nothing unusual at that time. | 11:11 | |
And with the eye of faith one sometimes tries | 11:17 | |
to pierce and en-see and to understand, | 11:21 | |
but I repeat, while we can historically | 11:25 | |
outline the life of this Jesus | 11:27 | |
as was done by this writer, | 11:29 | |
what he did in this world, | 11:32 | |
the Christian faith, the Christian hope, | 11:34 | |
the Christian conviction says that, | 11:36 | |
except God be here, | 11:37 | |
unless God was that man, if you please, | 11:40 | |
then things will not be as he ought to be, | 11:44 | |
then the plan of redemption itself will not be present, | 11:46 | |
and the world would not have changed. | 11:49 | |
And the incarnation was the great miracle | 11:51 | |
with which started this career of our Lord in this world. | 11:56 | |
And do you know that while we Western people | 12:01 | |
rather feel and celebrate Easter as our great feast day, | 12:03 | |
the resurrection, the crucifixion, | 12:09 | |
the resurrection to the West | 12:11 | |
always has been the dramatic event in the life of Christ. | 12:12 | |
The cross symbol. | 12:15 | |
The Eastern Christians, the Greek Orthodox people | 12:17 | |
see the incarnation as a tremendous miracle, | 12:19 | |
that God could come to earth, | 12:22 | |
could assume our form, could live with us, | 12:26 | |
tabernacle with us, and go alongside mankind, | 12:28 | |
and so teach us what God was like | 12:33 | |
in his own godlike way among men. | 12:36 | |
And because I do believe | 12:40 | |
in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 12:41 | |
I am one who happens to believe | 12:45 | |
in all the miracles of the New Testament, | 12:46 | |
that is to say all those that are properly documented. | 12:49 | |
And I think, with exception of one, possibly two, | 12:53 | |
they all are, | 12:57 | |
if this be God, would we not look for portents | 12:59 | |
and mysterious happenings? | 13:04 | |
Would the son of God come | 13:07 | |
as any other person into this world? | 13:09 | |
If, in the beginning of the ages, | 13:13 | |
an even so tremendous were to take place, | 13:15 | |
might we not expect a star? | 13:18 | |
Might we not expect one to be born of a virgin | 13:22 | |
without the instrumentality, if I may so say it, | 13:26 | |
of a person this world, God did come | 13:29 | |
and dwell on earth with man. | 13:32 | |
I sometimes argue about the the virgin birth | 13:36 | |
with my friends, | 13:39 | |
the scholars I've had a great deal to do with, | 13:40 | |
some very magnificent scholars of this country, | 13:43 | |
and I appreciate them and the nobility of their lives. | 13:45 | |
And I say to them, | 13:50 | |
"I'm not going to read you out of the temple, | 13:51 | |
not let anyone else read you out of the temple, | 13:54 | |
but cause you cannot accept this particular story, | 13:56 | |
but I don't propose to have anyone | 14:01 | |
read me out of the temple of the intellectuals | 14:02 | |
because I do happen believe in it". | 14:05 | |
It all goes back to that fundamental postulate, | 14:08 | |
the original assumption, | 14:12 | |
was this God, or was he not? | 14:13 | |
The question is not, | 14:17 | |
"Was one born of a virgin in Bethlehem in the long ago?", | 14:19 | |
but "Who was that child?". | 14:23 | |
The question is not, "Did a man in a boat | 14:26 | |
on this sea of Galilee say to the wind, | 14:28 | |
'Be quiet', and to the sea, 'Be still', | 14:30 | |
and there came a great calm?". | 14:34 | |
The question was, well the disciples, they asked it, | 14:37 | |
"What manner of man is this?". | 14:39 | |
The question is not, | 14:43 | |
"Did the world go dark for three hours | 14:44 | |
while the horrid deed on the cross was done | 14:46 | |
in Jerusalem in the long ago?". | 14:49 | |
The question is, "Who was that man on that cross?". | 14:52 | |
And once faith gets hold of that question and its answer, | 14:57 | |
then I submit that things do fall into place, | 15:01 | |
and you can understand in a finite better more, | 15:05 | |
in a clearer way the truth of God, | 15:07 | |
even the truths of this holy gospel. | 15:10 | |
Now, to be sure, | 15:15 | |
let us admit that there are mysteries. | 15:15 | |
Let us recognize the fact | 15:19 | |
that the human mind cannot understand | 15:20 | |
or has ever been able to give a reason | 15:22 | |
why or how one could be both man and God. | 15:24 | |
The mind of the Fathers of the ancient church | 15:31 | |
wrestled with that. | 15:33 | |
And they came at it length with a tremendous creed | 15:35 | |
which we sometimes say | 15:38 | |
in our churches at the communion service, | 15:39 | |
a creed which sets forth in magnificent language | 15:44 | |
the utter truths here, | 15:46 | |
a creed which says that we believe | 15:50 | |
in God the Father almighty, | 15:51 | |
one God, maker of heaven and earth | 15:55 | |
and of all things visible and invisible, | 15:59 | |
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, | 16:04 | |
his only begotten Son, | 16:07 | |
begotten, not created, | 16:10 | |
God of God, light of light, | 16:15 | |
very God, a very God, | 16:18 | |
who for us men and our salvation | 16:21 | |
came down from heaven | 16:24 | |
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary | 16:27 | |
and was made man. | 16:31 | |
And like the long roll of a war drum | 16:35 | |
that creed seems to beat the battle. | 16:37 | |
And yet, and yet in it, | 16:39 | |
where was the simple Jesus | 16:43 | |
who went about doing good, | 16:45 | |
who grew hungry and ate the standing corn, | 16:48 | |
who grew sleepy and lay at rest in the boat? | 16:51 | |
Where was he? | 16:55 | |
And so, faith turns from one to the other. | 16:57 | |
The Church has always revolved | 16:59 | |
and swung from one extreme to the other, | 17:00 | |
seeing the tremendous transcendent Christ | 17:03 | |
and seeing at the same time the human Jesus, | 17:06 | |
and we won't let go. | 17:09 | |
We won't let go either conception | 17:12 | |
of this ineffable person. | 17:14 | |
A young minister in Maryland, some years ago, | 17:18 | |
wrote a hymn which we've got | 17:19 | |
in our own particular hymnal, Methodist hymnal. | 17:21 | |
Harry Farrington said this | 17:25 | |
in words I think are worth repeating. | 17:27 | |
Said he, "I know not how that Bethlehem's Babe | 17:31 | |
could in the Godhead be. | 17:36 | |
I only know that manger child | 17:38 | |
has brought God's grace to me. | 17:41 | |
I know not how that Calvary's cross, | 17:45 | |
a world from sin might free. | 17:48 | |
I only know that matchless love | 17:51 | |
has brought God's love to me. | 17:54 | |
I know not how that Joseph's tomb | 17:58 | |
could solve death's mystery. | 18:00 | |
I only know a risen Lord, our immortality". | 18:04 | |
Ah, "The heart has its reasons", | 18:09 | |
as Pascal said long ago. | 18:12 | |
"The heart has its reasons | 18:15 | |
which reason can never know." | 18:16 | |
And so there is a note of wonder here | 18:20 | |
which always comes into play | 18:22 | |
when we think of the things of God. | 18:23 | |
And I like to say to our people | 18:26 | |
that let us not forget | 18:28 | |
that, when we do deal with God, | 18:29 | |
let our hearts be open and simple. | 18:32 | |
And we may understand things then | 18:35 | |
that we perhaps will not comprehend | 18:37 | |
if we continue to remain so wise and so prudent. | 18:39 | |
Was it not the master himself who said, | 18:44 | |
"Except you become as little children, | 18:47 | |
you can't even enter the kingdom of heaven". | 18:51 | |
Give us a deep faith. | 18:54 | |
Give us a wonderful faith. | 18:57 | |
Then another note I find here | 19:00 | |
that I wish to stress for these moments, | 19:02 | |
is the note of joy, | 19:04 | |
of happiness, of delight in the things of the Lord. | 19:07 | |
We all recognize how the world has changed | 19:12 | |
since the coming of Christ. | 19:15 | |
You who deal with ancient history in this university | 19:18 | |
know what a dark and hopeless and gloomy place | 19:21 | |
the world was up till that time. | 19:25 | |
And we who go into this particular season | 19:29 | |
like to talk on what we call the Christmas spirit. | 19:31 | |
A time when a truth must be declared | 19:35 | |
between warring enemies. | 19:37 | |
A time when goodwill must be shown. | 19:40 | |
Charles Dickens, you know, | 19:45 | |
who created that unforgettable | 19:47 | |
and detestable figure we call Scrooge, | 19:52 | |
makes him shine all the more terribly | 19:56 | |
because he came at a Christmas season, | 19:59 | |
in the midst of "A Christmas Carol". | 20:02 | |
And I think we all are aware | 20:05 | |
that there is many a Scrooge whom we meet in life | 20:06 | |
and pay no attention to | 20:10 | |
for 11 months-and-a-half of the year. | 20:11 | |
But somehow we feel that, when Christmas comes, | 20:13 | |
when Christmas comes, | 20:16 | |
there ought to be this peace on earth, | 20:18 | |
goodwill toward men, | 20:21 | |
joy and happiness and peace and love. | 20:23 | |
And I'm one who does believe | 20:27 | |
that the Church itself must stress this note of joy | 20:28 | |
and this note of happiness at Christmas. | 20:32 | |
And I happen to be one who does not believe, | 20:35 | |
if I may express one of my own personal convictions, | 20:37 | |
I do not believe that the communion service | 20:41 | |
belongs on Christmas Eve | 20:43 | |
in connection with our Christmas festivities. | 20:46 | |
Now, the sacrament of the Lord's supper | 20:50 | |
is, of course, the prime symbol of the Christian Church, | 20:52 | |
to be observed fittingly at special seasons, | 20:57 | |
but not, I ween, at Christmas time. | 21:02 | |
It does not belong there, I say, | 21:06 | |
either theologically, or psychologically, | 21:09 | |
or even aesthetically I make bold to say, | 21:13 | |
for the incarnation, the birth, | 21:17 | |
is what we would celebrate then, | 21:20 | |
and not the transcendent act of Christ, | 21:21 | |
belonging to his own life, of course, | 21:24 | |
but coming a bit later in life. | 21:26 | |
What we like to see again, the star of Bethlehem. | 21:29 | |
We like to repeat the angels chorus. | 21:31 | |
We like to go back into the Old Testament and say, | 21:34 | |
"Unto us a child is born. | 21:38 | |
Unto us a Son is given. | 21:41 | |
And the government shall be upon his shoulder | 21:43 | |
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, | 21:47 | |
the mighty God, the everlasting Father, | 21:50 | |
the Prince of Peace". | 21:54 | |
Let the candles be lighted. | 21:55 | |
Let the processionals go about singing. | 21:57 | |
Let the happy voices of children ring out. | 22:00 | |
No gloom, but the joy of the Lord. | 22:03 | |
I used to be taught by a teacher | 22:09 | |
in my own deep south country, | 22:14 | |
who came from Massachusetts, | 22:17 | |
and who was a very good teacher. | 22:19 | |
I've always wondered how a Massachusetts lady | 22:22 | |
ever got into Southern Mississippi, | 22:24 | |
but that's where she was. | 22:25 | |
And she was a good teacher, and taught me many things. | 22:26 | |
But she said, among other things, | 22:30 | |
once that, in her home, and in her father's home, | 22:32 | |
they never celebrated Christmas with a Christmas tree. | 22:36 | |
They did not believe in hanging up stockings. | 22:41 | |
They belittled this Santa Claus story, | 22:45 | |
all these things being rather pagan, | 22:47 | |
as she felt, or she was taught. | 22:51 | |
Now we've gloriously brushed aside all that, | 22:53 | |
we can see today how we may use these things | 22:57 | |
wisely and well. | 23:00 | |
The yule log did belong to the Norseman, | 23:02 | |
in the days of heathen practices. | 23:08 | |
We've made it a cheerful fire in a home circle. | 23:09 | |
The Christmas tree was a symbol of pagan worship | 23:14 | |
in the forests of Northern Germany. | 23:17 | |
We make it the center of a happy home. | 23:20 | |
And hanging up stockings, | 23:24 | |
if we have stockings to hang, or places to hang them, | 23:26 | |
or if our ladies' stockings will stand hanging, | 23:29 | |
all that belongs in the something of the Christmas spirit, | 23:33 | |
something of the Christmas light. | 23:37 | |
Saint Paul wrote gladly, | 23:40 | |
"All things are yours, | 23:42 | |
and your Christ's and Christ is God's". | 23:44 | |
Perhaps the most famous of all the Christmas hymns | 23:49 | |
is the one we call in English, "Silent Night". | 23:52 | |
And there is a hymn which we have learned | 23:59 | |
has music and words most beautifully joined together, | 24:01 | |
so that they cannot be divorced one from the other. | 24:06 | |
And there's a climb in that hymn | 24:10 | |
of Christian thought, | 24:12 | |
even toward what we call over here in the school | 24:13 | |
a Christological thought. | 24:16 | |
Incidentally, I must tell the choir, | 24:19 | |
I'm at present serving on the Methodist hymnal commission. | 24:21 | |
And while we made a solemn promise | 24:25 | |
that we would tell nobody | 24:27 | |
what hymns we have voted out or voted in, | 24:29 | |
I can't say much except this, | 24:33 | |
if any church group would ever leave out "Silent Night" | 24:36 | |
from the Methodist hymn book, | 24:39 | |
or the Presbyterian hymn book, | 24:41 | |
or the Lutheran hymn book, | 24:42 | |
or any of the hymnals of the great churches | 24:44 | |
if any person would vote to leave those out | 24:46 | |
I think we'd vote him out to the fellowship | 24:48 | |
of all true believers. | 24:50 | |
But what I wanna say is this, | 24:52 | |
some years ago in New York City, | 24:56 | |
there came out a complaint | 25:00 | |
on the part of certain non-Christian leaders | 25:01 | |
that Christmas carols were sung in the schools, | 25:06 | |
and that these carols were taking away the faith, | 25:09 | |
or inculcating, | 25:12 | |
Christian faith, rather, | 25:14 | |
in their children. | 25:15 | |
They didn't like it. | 25:15 | |
They wrote letters to the newspapers | 25:16 | |
and to the school board of New York City. | 25:18 | |
And then in "New York Times", | 25:22 | |
the good, gray, "New York Times", | 25:24 | |
in its imperturbable way | 25:28 | |
came out against them with an editorial. | 25:30 | |
It said, "Why, don't be foolish. | 25:33 | |
These little hymns are simple little ditties | 25:35 | |
that belong to the whole world at Christmas time". | 25:38 | |
"Silent Night", the rest of them. | 25:40 | |
But you know, the more I looked into that, | 25:43 | |
the more I thought those people, | 25:45 | |
I was not with 'em, you understand? | 25:47 | |
But those people had something. | 25:48 | |
Look at this hymn. | 25:51 | |
It begins with a mother and child. | 25:52 | |
It ends with the divinity, | 25:55 | |
everlasting divinity of the Lord God. | 25:57 | |
A mother and child in quietness. | 26:00 | |
And the second stanza, "Darkness flies, all is light". | 26:02 | |
The third stanza, "Silent night, holy night, | 26:07 | |
Son of God, heaven's pure light. | 26:13 | |
With the angels let us sing, | 26:16 | |
glory to our Lord and King. | 26:18 | |
Christ the Savior is born, | 26:20 | |
Jesus the Savior is born". | 26:23 | |
And so, in the words of an old litany, or old liturgy, | 26:28 | |
let us say we adore thee, | 26:34 | |
we bless thee, we glorify thee | 26:38 | |
for the gift of thy son Jesus Christ, | 26:43 | |
our Lord and our savior. | 26:46 | |
Now we just stand. | 26:51 | |
And now, heaven and father, | 26:58 | |
unto thee behold honor and glory and praise, | 27:00 | |
for thy wondrous gift to us given. | 27:03 | |
Pray that we ourselves may, | 27:07 | |
in our own particular places and ways, | 27:08 | |
live our Lord's life after Him, | 27:11 | |
and be followers of God as dear children | 27:15 | |
and receive from thee | 27:18 | |
thine own blessed presence in this world | 27:20 | |
and to be numbered with our saints and glory everlasting. | 27:23 | |
And now be the blessing of God the Father, | 27:28 | |
and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit | 27:31 | |
be amongst us and remain with us always. | 27:36 |
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