At Christmas, music for strings seems more apt than music for brass. Don’t get me wrong. I love brass music. Each year, I listen with great pleasure to the spine-tingling brass arrangements of Christmas carols by the late Sir David Willcocks. But at Christmas, I really prefer music for strings.
It must be the intimacy of string music that I associate with the mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of the eternal Word of God becoming flesh and dwelling on earth. String music is chamber music, music for close quarters and cozy spaces. Brass fanfares are for palaces and cathedrals. Brass instruments seem to herald the coming of a king with the acclamations of crowds of people. And a King does come to us this time of year, but this King comes with little fanfare. He comes quietly in a manger, unknown to the crowds outside the stable. He comes with human tendons and sinews flexing into new life. He comes with the music of strings that are energizing themselves into the frequences of music.
Have you ever watched a string musician making music? As a keyboardist and former trumpet player, stringed instruments fascinate me. I do have a sense of what it’s like to know one’s instrument, of forming one’s mouth into an embouchure to send vibrating air through brass piping, or of resting one’s fingers on the keys of a piano or organ, feeling exactly where middle C is. I can recall sensations of instruments that just didn’t feel right, of horns that produced a dull sound or of pipe organs where the keys resisted a precise touch.
But I know nothing of the relationship between a violinist and her violin, where her head rests gently on the chinrest, inevitably feeling the resonance of the instrument. I know nothing of the way a violin would sound with an ear so close to where the music is coming alive. The connection between a violinist and violin is so close that many violinists bear a visible mark of that proximity on their skin. While an unmusical pianist could stoically run his fingers over the ivories, how can a violinist not feel the intimate connection with her instrument, as her head snuggles up to the sound of wood and strings vibrating with life?
In the beginning, there was divine music, a perfect music of love between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It was always there, beyond time and space, and it will always be there, beyond time and space. But on a certain day in a certain year and in a very specific place on earth, this music, always present within the life of God, was perceived within human time and space. It was like music composed within one’s head that was notated and played in audible form for the very first time. It’s as if God lifted his bow, cradling all of creation next to himself as intimately as possible, in the crook of his neck, and the bow touched the strings. And the music sounded forth.
It was perfect music resonating within the soundwaves of imperfect time. For once, humanity could hear the perfection of this music, if it chose. The divine music came so close to creation that creation was inflected by true life, and yet creation refused to receive this life. It’s almost as if this life was rejected precisely because it was so close. It was so near to human beings that they missed it.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. All of creation resounded with the glory of God in audible form when the bow touched the strings. But God came so close to his beloved children that they pushed him away. Maybe they couldn’t believe that God Almighty would deign to cradle them in the crook of his neck and play his divine music on the strings of their lives. And when the first prayer seemed to go unanswered, it was assumed that God had lifted his bow from the strings. When the first instance of suffering happened, it was because God was playing humans like a fiddle, manipulating their lives and yanking them around arbitrarily. When more and more tragedy occurred, it meant that God and his divine music were removed to a remote corner of heaven while humanity was left with cold silence below. Or could it be that God swooped down from on high in that year when the Word became flesh, playing the perfect music for thirty-three years until the world cut the strings of the violin and shattered its wood? Perhaps, people speculated, the music ceased, and God went back up into the sky. The divine music was so unbelievably close that the world couldn’t hear it, like our own heartbeats in our chest.
And yet, despite the world’s deaf ears, the incomprehensible mystery of Christmas remains, which is that the divine music never stops even in our time and space. It has never stopped. It will never stop, although it seems unthinkable to us that God would continue to cradle us near his heart, that he still allows our warped strings to resonate with hints of his divine music. It’s inconceivable that God would touch his bow of life on the reluctant strings of our own frail humanity to make music through us. Can this happen even after the crucifixion? Can these broken strings still produce the music of life?
In our loneliest moments or in the most difficult times of our lives, we may feel like warped wood, like strings that won’t flex, or like a cracked soundboard on a violin. God’s perfect music is inevitably distorted when sin damages the material of our lives. While the truth of Easter is that nothing in our lives is beyond repair, the truth of Christmas is that the restoration of divine music is possible even in the brokenness of our lives, all because God is closer to us than we care to perceive. With God’s grace—especially if we recall how close he is to us—our strings can soften and flex into divine music once again. Our soundboard can be mended. We can give voice to the music that God is animating from within us.
In the prologue to his Gospel, St. John makes a claim so astounding that it’s frequently tuned out by much of the world. Because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we have the miraculous power to become children of God. Because we are God’s children, God’s Church, God’s beloved ones enlivened by the power of the Holy Spirit, St. John tells us that we are capable of doing greater works than we can ever imagine. Even on the cracked soundboards and brittle strings of our lives, God can make wondrous music.
Living as if we have the power to become children of God is the art of music, but it’s more than honing technique or blindly observing rules. It’s living as if the true Light of the world has enlivened every fiber of our being, warming cold strings to vibrate with the glory of God. It’s living as if we do believe that God continues to cradle us in the crook of his neck, close to his bosom, settling his bow on the strings of our lives.
We can feel the warmth of his love against our skin. We can sense his divine bow not coercing us into life but drawing life out of the hardened strings of our existence, mending the cracks in our soundboards, and coaxing sweet sounds out of bitterness. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God’s bow touched strings of flesh, and divine music resounded.
On this Christmas day, we celebrate the nearness of the divine music, so near we might refuse to hear it or might be prone to ignore it. But however dark your world may appear right now, however warped the wood and however calcified the strings of your life are, you’ve been kissed by grace. You’re still cradled in the bosom of God. You’re still granted the power to become children of God, made to bring forth divine music, despite your imperfections. So, nestle yourself in the crook of God’s neck, let his bow draw glorious music from your lives, and let them resound with the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
December 25, 2024