Luke 2:15-20
There was a tap for attention. Everything was eternally still. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Everything was poised, ready. The Great Conductor looked around at the stillness, peered at the mute readiness, and then began the majestic sweep of the music, a symphony the Conductor alone had composed.
First, there was the soft sound of the trumpets, growing louder as light appeared and the darkness retreated like the ebb of a giant wave. Next, the violins painted a huge sky vault of blue around the light, the vault we call sky. With a point of the baton the Conductor called for the trombones to coax the appearance of dry land.
The clarinets told of the particular lights in the sky vault: the sun, the moon, the stars. The flutes and piccolos pinpointed the slippery fishes and winging birds. The drums and bass fiddles prodded the large animals roaming over the planet earth.
Then there was an infinite musical pause. Finally, the Conductor, with immense genius, drew the orchestra into one gigantic chord, sweet beyond telling, majestic beyond describing, unearthly and full of force as something of the Conductor himself seemed to pass into the music. Something of the Conductor's own personality passed into this chord, which burst into a whole new instrument, which we call man.
Hereafter, all things played their notes and produced their melody with perfection: the light, the sky, the land, the sun, the moon, the stars. The winged things and the roaming beasts on earth - all were flawless in their performance. The harmony was magnificent.
But especially pleasing to the Conductor was the Great Instrument, man, which played a most pleasing music, not only because there was something of the Conductor in him, but also because he was the only one there who could play freely.
Everything else was programmed, wound up as it were, by the Conductor and so simply had to play the tune. Man alone was left to himself. He was not made to play. He was indeed invited!
The movements of the symphony of creation flowed with rapture from one to another. It was beautiful music, giving delight and pleasure to all.
Yet - in the midst of a cascading crescendo, as the music rose to a thrilling climax, something happened! As obvious and indisputable as the sun in the sky, heard by one and all, a false note was sounded! The music, indeed everything, stopped dead. The Conductor stared, unbelieving. That false note - whence had it come?
Certainly not from the loud trombones, not from the blinking clarinets, not from the swimming flutes or flying piccolos, not from the heavy drum or the plodding bass fiddles. All of these instruments had been prepared by the Conductor to play what he designed they would play. They were pre-wound, automatic, helpless to play other than that which was foreordained.
With silent and infinite intenseness the Conductor understood that the false note originated: from the only free instrument that was invited to play, the only one that had choice and freedom to play a false note if he so wished: the Great Instrument, man.
The Conductor looked. The Great Instrument felt that look and was intensely ashamed that in a moment of pride, of madness, he deliberately sounded a false note.
But, now, what would happen? The instruments sat hushed, looking at one another, not daring even the most fleeting quarter note. They were silent, all of them, wondering: What would the Composer-Conductor do? There seemed to them two possibilities:
One: he would go on pretending that there was no false note. But that wouldn't work. Everyone had heard. Everyone knew. The insult itself was simply too obvious, too big, to pass by unnoticed. No, that false note cried out for apology.
Or the Conductor could simply scrap the whole score, disband the orchestra, do away with the whole symphony. Destroy it.
But no one counted on the genius of the Conductor, or perhaps we should say, the unlooked for mercy and love of the Conductor. For, putting down the baton, the Conductor did a very strange thing.
Carefully he reached out into the infinity and plucked the false note that would be forever vibrating in the atmosphere of time and eternity. The Conductor held the note before the orchestra and said to them: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply offended by this false note. Deeply offended? No, I should put it more strongly. My heart hurts. It hurts because the one instrument that was so much a part of myself was the one to produce this false note which I now hold in my hand.
"Now, what shall I do? Forget? You know that this is impossible. Shall I dismiss the symphony, destroy my masterpiece, angrily grind your instruments into nothingness? (At this the oboe emitted a low, plaintive sigh.] But, no, ladies and gentlemen, I shall do neither."
Then, after what seemed like an eternal pause, the Conductor continued: "What if I take this false note and build a whole new symphony around it? What if I rewrite the music to fit this note? Then it won't be a false note any more. It will be a part of the music. It will start a whole new melody. This, then, ladies and gentlemen, is what I shall do. I shall write a whole new piece of music around this note."
And this is what the Great Conductor did do - rewrote the score and produced a new masterpiece, a new symphony, and the beginning of that masterpiece is called Christmas.
The disastrous false note of our sins ruined the original grand design, but God has taken our falseness and made it the start of something new. Another theme is introduced: a new beginning enfleshed in the New Adam, the new human being, Christ. This Christ is our second chance. He gathers all of our falseness, our brokenness, and begins a new song of praise, a new creation. He is the living, concrete forbearance, mercy, and kindness of God. He strikes a new note of forgiveness, harmony, and reconciliation.
Yes, we can cry out: We are unworthy instruments! We are false notes! We are dissonant sounds! And yet at the same time, we can celebrate, for this God of ours loves us and has recreated a whole new symphony out of our falseness. Instead of emptying out the whole orchestra, this God emptied the God-head and became a helpless baby in a crib, and when that baby grew up he provided a whole new musical pattern of forgiveness and love.
All that is left for us at Christmas is to cry out with David's 103rd Psalm: "O Glory be to the Lord forever.... While life lasts in me, I will sing in the Lord's honor!" Or, we can join Luke's angelic choir and chorus: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests."
[Reprinted with permission from Telling Stories, Compelling Stories, pp. 55-58, copyright 1991 by William J. Bausch, Twenty-third Publications, Mystic, CT. This resource, as well as many others, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center. If you enjoyed this homily, you might consider purchasing the BAUSCH TREASURY, a complete set of his homiletic books, including his new ones The Yellow Brick Road and A World of Stories for Preachers and Teachers, as well as all of his previous publications: