“The Bell Still Rings for Those Who Truly Believe”

December 19, 2004

Scripture Reading:  Luke 1:46-56

 Rev. Dr. Carol L. Kerr

Blue Point United Church of Christ

 

“At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them.  Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound.  Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.”

This is how the book, The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg, ends.  It is also a great movie this season with Tom Hanks.  The movie ends with these lines too.  Who has seen the movie or read the book?  The ending says that only those who hear the bell are the ones who truly believe.  I have been wondering how that works.  Have you?  Why is it that those who truly believe can always hear the bell no matter how old they get? 

To start with, I don’t think the book means that the boy heard the bell out loud.  The book says that when the boy got older fewer and fewer people heard the bell.  Not Sarah, not his parents, not his friends, not his school teachers, not his grandparents.  If he heard the bell out loud and they didn’t I think they would think he was pretending, or making a joke, or needed his ears checked, or just crazy.  What would you think if I rang this bell…(shake a bell that doesn’t ring.)  What would you think of me if I said, “Listen to this great sounding bell!!”  You would think I was crazy too. 

I don’t think the boy was crazy though because I don’t think he heard the bell out loud.  I think he heard the bell because he was really good at remembering what it sounded like.  The others were bad at remembering what it sounded like.  In fact, a lot of people forgot that it ever rang in the first place.  They got so busy doing things like the laundry, and complaining about the nightly news, worrying about paying bills, and hoping that their shoes looked good with their earrings that they forgot about the bell altogether.  They were too busy with those silly things in life that are a lot less important than the bell.  In fact everything in life is less important than the bell.  I think the boy remembered that the bell was the most important thing in life and so he never let all that other stuff push it out of his mind.    

How do you hear something when it is not out loud?  I do it all the time in my head.  I bet you do too.  For instance, if you remember a song you really love then you can hear it in your mind almost as well as if it was played out loud.  I love the song “Away in a Manger.”  How many here love that song too?  It goes Away in a manger no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head…  I love that song so much that I will never forget it as long as I live.  Sometimes I sing in to myself in my head without making any noise.  I don’t even whisper or hum.  I sing the whole song in my head silently.  I bet you can do that too.  Let’s all try it.  Close your eyes.  I’ll start out loud, and everyone finish it in you heads.  If you forget some of the words that’s o.k just hum the tune in your head.  When you are done (one verse only please) raise your hand.  Ready?  Away in a manger no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head…”…

That is a first!  “Silent congregational singing.”  I have an idea!  Who has a hard time going to sleep on Christmas eve because they are so excited that Santa is coming?  Do this if you are having a hard time sleeping, sing “Away in a Manger” silently in your head like we just did.  Your parents won’t even hear it.  So, they can’t holler up, “Quit singing and go to sleep!”  Then when you are singing it silently in your head, and you are looking out your bedroom window at the stars sparkling in the night sky and you are all alone and everything is quiet, you can think that there is someone else from this church, somewhere in town singing it silently in their heads too!  It will be our Blue Point Church Christmas Eve secret.

You know what else happens when I sing my favorite Christmas carols silently to myself?  I feel a funny good feeling inside.  It is like warm blue bubbles on a summer day.  Or, it is like when my dog licks peanut butter off my fingers.  The church, us Christians and ministers, have a word for this warm good feeling.  It is “joy.”  Here in church we think that joy is very important because it is a sign that we are getting closer to God.  Jesus said things like… I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete… (John 15:11)

I think when the boy heard the bell in his mind a great feeling of joy came with it.  And, sometimes when the boy got older he began to think the sound of the bell and the joy was the same thing.  Joy sort of took over the sound.  He would feel joy and sometimes think he heard the bell.  Then he wasn’t sure if he heard the bell or not.  It use to bother him.  But, then he figured it didn’t matter.  The joy was just as good as the bell. 

Let me explain this further.    Let’s pretend that you had a really cool dream on Christmas eve and this was what happened.  You dream that you went outside and on the roof of your house was not Santa’s sleigh but a huge magnificent reindeer.  It was not one of Santa’s reindeer exactly, because his sleigh had come and gone already.  Santa’s reindeer were off delivering more presents.  No, this reindeer was sort of on his own.  He just showed up on your roof.  He was huge, about twice as tall as the tallest Dad here in the church.  He had the most incredible antlers on his head too.  They spread out about five feet and at the end of each tip there was a lit candle.  You can see the white puffs of breath coming out of his nose.  The reindeer turns his huge head and looks at you as if he wants to say something.  Then he blows on you a long stream of white puffy air.  It covers you like a warm sweet cloud.  Can you imagine it?  Breathe in deeply.  What do you smell?  It is like peppermint, and wood smoke and the smell of your cats fur in a sunny spot.

That would be a great dream, yes?  But, suppose you woke up and you couldn’t remember what happened in the dream.  You couldn’t remember the reindeer, or the antlers with the candles, or his wonderful warm breath.  The only thing you could remember from the dream was the feeling of joy it gave you.  Has that ever happened to you?  You can’t remember the dream, but you can remember the feeling it gave you? 

When this happens you really really want to remember the dream.  You knew it had to have been a great one because the feeling of joy that you got from the dream is so great.  But, no matter how hard you try you just can’t remember what happened.  So you just hang onto that feeling of joy as long as you can. 

For us here in church, joy is our secret language with God.  When we feel joy, it is like our saying “Hi!” to God.  And God saying “Hi!” to us.  We can do this silently even when other people don’t’ know what is going on because they are too busy with all those silly things in life like reprogramming the remote so they can watch even more news to complain about. 

People who don’t understand about this joy feeling might think you are a little weird if you say suddenly, “I feel joy!”  Your best bet is people who go to church.  Especially anyone here who has heard this sermon.  We will get what you are talking about.  So you can whisper it to your Mom or Dad when they are in a good mood and have turned off the news and are reading.  “Hey Mom, I’m feeling that joy feeling.”  They might even say, “Me too!”   

I love bells.  There is the bell in the story The Polar Express.  Maybe it sounded like this.  Pretty much any bell sounds wonderful.  There are different sounding bells but they all sound great.  Santa’s bells sound different that church bells.  Did you know that farmers use to ring a bell to call people in from the fields to eat dinner?  I bet that bell sounded really good to those hungry field people. 

I have an idea, maybe bells sound so wonderful because when God made the light of the first dawn of the first day, God was so full of joy that God didn’t want the feeling to go away.  He wanted to remember it for always.  So God shattered it into a million pieces and stored these bits of joy in bells.  So, whenever you hear a bell ring that’s a piece of joy of the first day of creation. 

I wonder if the boy was always on the look out for bells the rest of his life.  Not just Santa’s bells, but any bell.  His friends are talking to him at school and he hears bells in the music room.  Or, he is in the back seat of the car and they pass a church with a bell tolling.  Everyone else is looking straight ahead but the boy looks at the church.  He sees a fat lady jumping up and down pulling a rope to ring the bell.  Is she jumping for joy?  He wonders.  Or the Salvation Army bell ringers that are on street corners at Christmas.  I bet the boy hear their bell and stops and puts some money he had left over in his pocket into their bucket for people who are in need.  Even though his sister yells at him to hurry up, he feels a warm blue bubble feeling, joy. 

This is another secret thing we can do as a church.  Along with singing “Away in a Manger” silently in our heads Christmas Eve, we can listen for bells and remember joy.  On the surface we will be a normal looking group of people.  You parents will be wearing their normal looking sort of boring coats.  We will be all driving our normal looking cars, no one here has a Farrai that I know of.  We will be eating normal sandwiches like peanut butter and jelly.  On the surface we will look normal.  But underneath we will all be doing something a little not normal.  We ill be  listening for bells and remembering joy.  The feeling of joy just like you would feel if in the dream the reindeer with the candles on his head was just about to let you touch his fur.  The feeling is a combination of excited, hopeful and a little scared too because it is just so cool.  (By the way, did you know when we get to heaven, we will all be able to remember all of those big joy dreams perfectly?) 

If you are with anyone who goes to this church, your sister, brother, Mom, Dad, friend, and you both hear a bell ring, you can turn and wink to each other.  Let’s practice it right now.  I am going to ring this bell, and we all turn and wink at someone.  That’s our secret sign about joy. That’s how we will help each other remember the secret language of God.  When we feel joy we say “Hi” to God.  God says “Hi” to us.     

At the end of The Polar Express it says “At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them.  Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound.  Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.”

Joy is the reason why the boy could still hear the bell.  Joy is the reason why Though we grow old, the bell will still ring for us also,  as it does for all who truly believe.