It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Rev. Dr. Richard Erhardt

Have you ever wondered about the Unitarian Universalist love of Christmas? For a faith tradition that no longer identifies itself as being Christian in any orthodox way, our love of and celebration of Christmas may seem odd to outsiders.

And yet, despite our pluralistic theology, Unitarian Universalists love of Christmas has its roots in our involvement in the holiday in this country. Christmas in America looks and feels the way it does because of the Unitarian influence on the day. Nearly every major feature of Christmas exists because of the Unitarian influence.

Two major stories of Christmas, outside of the biblical narratives, are Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Clement Moore’s Night Before Christmas. Both men were card carrying Unitarians, and each one added new features to our understanding of the day. A Night Before Christmas introduced the idea of Santa Claus to the American consciousness. For better or worse, can you imagine Christmas without thinking of Santa Claus?

Dickens’ takes the idea of transformation and hope that has always been a part of the Christmas message and as a good socially conscious Unitarian crafts a story that is both about personal transformation and also about the idea of our social responsibility to each other.

We are all familiar with the text of A Christmas Carol, and its message of Scrooge’s transformation and ultimate salvation by character. It is no accident that Scrooge’s salvation is acheived through his change of heart and the transformation of his character, A Christmas Carol is a Unitarian story through and through. What we don’t always notice in the popular retellings of the story is that the point is not that Scrooge became a nicer person, but that he made a conscious effort to treat others with compassion and respect; to treat people with worth and dignity. And his changed ways played themselves out in the social realm, not merely in the private.

In an age where charities didn’t exist, Dickens’ urged his readers to take someone less fortunate under our wings. Scrooge looked after Tiny Tim and the whole Crachit family. While this "thousand points of light" approach may seem horribly regressive today, in Dickens’ time it was the height of radical liberality.

Another influence on the holiday is the Christmas Carol, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. It was written by the Unitarian minister, Edmund Hamilton Sears. In The Penguin Book of Carols, edited by Ian Bradley, the author has this to say about the carol:

The birth of Christ might at first sight seem an unlikely topic for a Unitarian to write about. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear does not contain any explicitly Christological references and could be sung with a clear conscience by those of a Unitarian disposition. Erik Routley notes that "as we sing it, in its original form, the hymn is little more than an ethical song extolling the worth and splendor of peace among men."

Theologically, this is as Unitarian as it gets. Let’s listen to the song’s full and original lyrics:

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.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing;
And ever o’er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.

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 which they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo, the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When, with the ever-circling years,
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song,
Which now the angels sing.

There are some aspects of this carol’s theology that bear examination. We may notice, that for a Christmas carol there is no mention of baby Jesus, but rather an inference to Jesus’ teachings. As Unitarians, this makes sense. Historically we have never felt the need to bow down and worship the man, but rather to attempt to live by the ethical precepts he put forth.

And what are the teachings? In this song, the idea that comes to the front is that of peace. This is not a hearkening back to some golden age, but I believe a very sober realization of what has happened and continues to happen in our world. In the third verse, we sing, "Yet with the woes of sin and strife/The world has suffered long;/Beneath the angel-strain have rolled/Two thousand years of wrong." Here is one of the major divergences between a Unitarian carol and a more orthodox one, there is an acknowledgement that for two-thousand years things have not been made right. Jesus mere birth and life pointed a way, but for the most part, in a largely Christian world we are not listening or applying those teachings. This is not a carol about waiting for some divine hand to set things right, but rather one in which we are told to do it ourselves.

The angels sing of peace, but are we listening? It is in our hands, are we taking responsibility?

Ian Bradley continues on with his commentary on the carol:

The editors of most current hymnals, while dropping verse 4, have been content to leave verse 5 as Sears wrote it, complete with its "prophet-bards", "coming age of gold" and somewhat naïve and un-Christian optimism. It is perhaps no bad thing to have some broadly humanist carols. At least this one has lots of angels — again, one might think, a strange obsession for a Unitarian — and there is a wonderful sense of reciprocity in the closing couplet, with humankind returning to the angels the song which they sing in Luke 2:14.

The carol is a broadly humanist one in that it puts its emphasis on what we do and of our responsibility for making our world a better place. It is a carol that sings of the human message of Jesus. (Tonight we’ll hear about Jesus’ divine message.)

The line about the coming age of gold is again Unitarian to the core. The best days are not behind us, but rather in the future; the future we build. It shows just how misunderstood our theological position is, that most commentators have called it naïvely optimistic. It is profoundly optimistic, but it is not naïve. It understands the relationship between actions and outcomes. If we truly get the idea of peace, if we work to make it a reality, then it will be so. The carol already admits that for two-thousand years of this message, we haven’t been living up to our end of the bargain.

If we look at the Five Points of Unitarianism as written by James Freeeman Clarke and recited in Unitarian congregations throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, the hymn touches upon all of them:

The Fatherhood of God,
The Brotherhood of Man,
The Leadership of Jesus,
Salvation by Character
The Progress of Mankind Onward and Upward Forever.

The final line, "The progress of Mankind Onward and Upward Forever," is what is referred to in the carol’s line about the "coming age of gold."

So what do we hear in this carol? We hear that we have known the way for many years, but we haven’t yet taken it seriously enough to follow it. We hear that we have the keys and the ability to make our own future. We hear that the golden age didn’t exist in the past, but rather can be created in the future. We hear that it is ultimately up to us. We don’t hear about Jesus the man, rather we hear about the implications of living his teachings. In short we hear a carol that in its old style language is still relevant and vital for us today.

It is a human message, urged upon us from the divine, but ultimately ours to accept or reject. It speaks to our common humanity. May we heed the messages from wherever they come. May we cherish in our hearts, minds and souls the message of peace, in this season and in the seasons to come. May we make our future brighter than our present. And may we take the responsibility to make our dreams come true. Merry Christmas. Amen.