A wordLESS Christmas
By Pastor Greg Wooten,
Lincoln Church of the Nazarene |
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[December 13, 2016]
Music
is, for me, one of the best parts of this season. Each year certain
Christmas songs capture my heart and nest in my mind. Sometimes they
are of the secular variety such as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for
Christmas is You.” Sometimes they are a bit, shall we say, goofy,
like Ray Steven’s “Santa Claus is Watchin’ You.”
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 Most of the time, though, they are the beautiful heart stirring
and thought provoking carols we sing in worship this time of year.
Words like Longfellow’s “… in despair I bowed my head. ‘There is no
peace on earth,’ I said” or Edmund Sears’ “… ye beneath life’s
crushing load, whose forms are bending low” have a way of resonating
with our own feelings about our lives, our families, our world.
Of course, thanks be to God, not every season is full of sorrowing
and sighing. Some really do sound more like “Joy to the World” and
“Good Christian Men, Rejoice!”
But what about this year? What song “fits” this Christmas?
Warning: I’m about to shift gears rather dramatically, so this is me
pressing on the clutch.
What a truly awful election season we’ve just witnessed! We have
seen unrelenting ugliness expressed by persons on both sides of the
political spectrum. Careless adjectives have been hurled at the
opposing candidates and their supporters. News outlets, all claiming
to be unbiased, have been throwing fuel on the fire from the
beginning with inflammatory accusations that have only deepened our
divisions. Social media has become a virtual cesspool of hate
speech. Words have been fashioned into weapons, and even though the
election is over (we hope) the war rages on and the casualty count
is still climbing.
Is there any way to de-escalate? What can we do to diffuse some of
this national unrest that might at least take us back to DEFCON 4?
I have a suggestion: we need to stop talking.
To clarify, I am not criticizing meaningful conversation or helpful
exchanges. But it became apparent to me during this campaign that we
all talk too much. Whether it was a 140 character tweet or a
Facebook post or a call to a radio program, it seems like everybody
had something to say and nobody wanted to listen. As I recall from
my freshman speech class in college, that’s not communication.
That’s just noise.
So while I’m not necessarily proposing a completely word-less
Christmas I think we could all benefit from a less-word Christmas.
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 As I write this I’m feeling a little hypocritical. After all, here I
am using all kinds of words to try to tell everyone to use less
words. It is a struggle for me each year to try to squeeze my
thoughts here into 1,000 words or less!
But what if the words that we normally associate with Christmas –
words like peace, love, joy, and hope were not spoken, but lived.
What if we translated them into action? What if they became active
goodwill expressed to hurting persons? Needy persons? Frightened
persons? Persons with opposing points of view?
And since Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” isn’t exactly
a Christmas song, this Christmas I’m leaning toward, “Silent Night”
instead.
God help us to talk less, love more, and worship your amazing Son in
word and deed!
Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth;
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.
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