O Little Town of Bethlehem -
Micah 5:2 - But you, O
Bethlehem Ephrathah, Here
are only a small village among all the
people of Judah.
Yet a ruler of Israel, whose
origins are in the distant past,
will come from you on my behalf.
Phillips Brooks was the Episcopal
Pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Boston when he wrote the now famous Carol “O
Little Town of Bethlehem.” A few years
before he actually composed the tune, he had visited the Holy Land and had
taken a side trip by camel to Bethlehem.
He actually found himself in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on
Christmas Eve and was inspired. He wrote
a poem that would eventually become the lyrics to the beloved hymn. He writes:
“I remember especially on Christmas
Eve, when I was standing in the old church in Bethlehem, close to the spot
where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with
the splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I
could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the ‘wonderful night’ of
the Savior’s birth.”
He was not a music composer, so he
had asked others to help him set his poem to music so that he would have a song
to teach the children about the nativity.
The night before Christmas Eve, he still did not have a tune. While laying in his bed, a tune kept going
through his head and that tune became the tune for “O Little Town…” He called
it a “gift from heaven.”
What strikes me about Brooks life is
that we now know him as simply the author of a popular Christmas Carol. However, in his day, Brooks was known as one
of the most widely respected intellectuals alive. He delivered one of the most eloquent
eulogies of President Abraham Lincoln ever given. Her’s an excerpt from that
speech that seems as timely now as it did in the days following Lincoln’s
assassination:
“While one man counts another man
his born inferior for the color of his skin, while both in North and South
prejudices and practices, which the law cannot touch, but which God hates, keep
alive in our people’s hearts the spirit of the old iniquity, [slavery] is not
dead. The new American nature must supplant the old. We must grow like our
President, in his truth, his independence, his religion, and his wide humanity.
Then the character by which he died shall be in us, and by it we shall live.
Then peace shall come that knows no war, and law that knows no treason; and
full of his spirit a grateful land shall gather round his grave, and in the
daily psalm of prosperous and righteous living, thank God forever for his life
and death.”
Brooks was a prolific author. He
was not only an eloquent preacher, but a teacher of other preachers. He was a Harvard graduate with honorary
degrees from Columbia and Oxford. He
oversaw the construction of Holy Trinity Church in Boston, which upon opening,
was considered one of the most stunning sanctuaries in America. He eventually became the Bishop of
Massachusetts and is still remembered in Episcopal Churches every year on
December 23rd.
Late in life, he mentored a young
Helen Keller. They visited each other often and wrote back and forth until he
died. Keller would write the following about his death:
“I have lost my loving friend, Bishop Brooks. Oh, it is very
hard to bear this great sorrow; hard to believe that I shall never more hold
his gentle hand while he tells me about love and God and goodness! Oh, his
beautiful words! they come back to me with sweet, new meanings. He once said to
me, ‘Helen, dear child,’ that is what he always called me, ‘we must trust our
Heavenly Father always and look beyond our present pain and disappointment with
a hopeful smile.’ And in the midst of my sorrow I seem to hear his glad voice
say, ‘Helen, you shall see me again in that beautiful world we used to talk
about in my study. Let not your heart be troubled.’ Then Heaven seems very near
since a tender, loving friend awaits us there.”
It is significant to me that early in
life, Brooks thought that, “my life should never amount to much.” His enduring claim to fame would be a song
about Bethlehem, but the ripples of his life and work are still being felt
today. It seems that his humility
mirrored that of the “small village among all the people of Judah,” but like
Bethlehem, his impact cannot be overlooked.
May the same be said of us all.
Question: What is the
work before you that no one else can do?
Prayer: God, you
chose to enter the world in the most humble of ways and ask us to be like
you. Help us humbly do the work you
called us to do in this moment.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for people who do jobs every day for which no one will ever thank them.
Song: Frank Sinatra -
O Little Town of Bethlehem
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