December 07, 2025
• Rev. Dr. Rob Fuquay
St. Luke’s UMC
December 7, 2025
Advent Series(2)
Where Are You Christmas: The Message Behind the Songs
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Isaiah 11:1-10
Today we consider the Christmas song “Do You Hear What I Hear?” I didn’t realize until reading one of Glenn McDonald’s devotions last year that this song isn’t all that old. It was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the world held its breath wondering if the United States and the Soviet Union were about to launch a nuclear war, which very nearly happened.
The song was written by a married couple named Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne, and what brought them to write that song is an interesting story. Noel was an immigrant from France. When the Nazis took over the country in the early 1940’s he was conscripted to fight in the German army, but while serving, he joined the French resistance, leaking secrets about planned German attacks and locations. On one occasion he was responsible for his German unit being ambushed. Regney was actually shot in the fighting, but some say it was to keep his involvement hidden from the Germans. But what stuck with him was seeing the enemy soldiers around him falling dead because of him. The horrors of war were etched in his mind.
Soon after this, he deserted the German army and lived underground in France until the war ended. In 1952 he moved to Manhattan and found jobs composing music for television shows and commercials. He met and married a pianist, Gloria Chayne, who was also a song writer. They spent the next decade collaborating on songs, some of which became well known. And then came the Cuban missile crisis.
The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba and the United States threatened military action if they weren’t removed. The US formed a blockade of ships around the island to prevent further supplies from being delivered. The Soviets countered by sending war ships that faced off with the Americans while back channel communications went on between President John F Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev. A single gun shot would have started a war. As news of all this became known, the world began to panic. After 13 days negotiations prevailed and war was averted, thanks to an amazing act of a Russian sailor which I’ll come back to in a few minutes.
What Regney remembered from that time is the incredible tension he saw on the faces of people. Walking around New York, no one smiled. He recognized this fear. He understood what it meant to live facing the possibility of death.
A record producer asked him to write a Christmas song, something that spoke of peace and joy. This seemed to be what the country needed that year. Regney didn’t feel any inspiration to produce such a song. And then walking back to his apartment one day, he saw two mothers with babies in their strollers. The babies were smiling at each other. They were the only ones he saw smiling, and something came over him; something that filled him with hope and inspiration and lyrics started coming to him. He raced home and shared them with his wife who started putting them to music, and what resulted was this… https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/december-2017/do-you-hear-what-i-hear-the-story-behind-the-song/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CDo%20You%20Hear%20What%20I,today%20as%20it%20was%20then.
That song was inspired by smiling babies. Babies inspired the hope of peace. But notice the progression of voices in the song. A “night wind” speaks to a little lamb that speaks to a shepherd boy who speaks to a king who makes the final declaration “pray for peace people everywhere.” It flows from little to great. You would think it would go the other. That great to least.
And then consider how fanciful the whole idea is. Wind speaking? To a lamb? That speaks to a shepherd, who somehow is able to go directly to a king? Why did the songwriters portray peace in such a make-believe way?
I wonder if Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne were familiar with the dream Isaiah saw? Not the song we heard early, but the actual dream in Isaiah 11. You see, it’s a song. It’s poetry the prophet used to paint a picture of peace in a very tense time.
Israel had been a divided nation for 200 years—the tribes of Israel to the north and Judah with Jerusalem to the south. By the 8th century BC, the empire of Assyria already conquered Israel. Ahaz, king of Judah, is pretending that they can withstand Assyria by the king’s cunning ability to negotiate and Judah’s military strength. But the prophet confronts the king with reality. The king has made bad choices that do not reflect God’s character and do not trust in God’s power. Judah will be conquered, “but,” says the prophet, “a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.”
What does that mean? Well, just like stumps can appear dead, sometimes you see a shoot appearingshowing there is still life there. Jesse was the father of David. The shoot is the belief in a future Messiah. This where the prophecy came from that a Messiah will come from the line of David. That shoot will eventually become a branch.
This was why it was important for Gospel writers to note that Jesus came from Nazareth. The word Nazareth means branch. The village perhaps took that name in the hope that the future Messiah would come from there.
But that’s jumping ahead. Let’s stay with Isiah and his prediction of what this Messiah will do. According to Isaiah’s dream he will “judge for the poor,” and “decide with equity for the oppressed.” We have so much debate today over equity but that’s almost all the prophets talk about in the Old Testament.
The prophet, though, makes clear that all this talk about judgment, equity and righteousness is for the purpose of establishing peace. And here is where the prophet waxes poetic.
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them. (11:6)
It’s fanciful, right? Peace is described as a pipe dream. It’s not based on reality. Why is peace described in such a way? Because the prophet is saying to us indirectly that peace is unnatural. The nature of a wolf is to eat the lamb. The nature of a lion is to devour.
The prophet describes peace in such fanciful ways to subtly communicate that if we think we can bring about peace by making up our minds that we can make it happen, we’ll be disappointed. Human nature will win out. Peace is too big for us. We must have God’s help.
John Wesley had a unique dynamic of theology: pessimism of nature, optimism of grace. He preached that human nature is born in sin. We are broken and cannot save ourselves. But we also believe in the optimism of grace. God offers help to us and that is our source of hope.
We see this theological dynamic is a series of paintings in the early 1800’s by a Quaker clergyman, Edward Hicks. He painted a series of portraits based on Isaiah 11 known as The Peaceable Kingdom (1). They capture events of the world and his church. This is an early image with the beasts looking safe and in harmony together with a little child leading them. In the far left corner is a picture of William Penn signing a treaty with the Lahote tribe, something that was believed to symbolize the goodness of human nature. Also, The Quakers were facing a divide and Hicks wanted to encourage leaders to be inspired to look for peace. But human nature prevailed.
A later picture (2) is not quite as light. You see some bare branches, the animals and children look more apprehensive. Some say this reflects the changing realities of the world.
By the last picture (3) it becomes stark. Much darker. More bare branches. The cheetah baring its teeth. Some believe this reflects Hicks outlook on events like the US not honoring its treaty with the Lahote. And the Quakers experiencing a schism that split their church.
According to Victoria Jones, who studies Hicks’ life and art, these paintings came to reflect his outlook on people, but he kept painting as an act of faith and clinging to the promise of Christ, the true source of peace on earth. Pessimism of nature, but optimism of grace. https://artandtheology.org/2016/12/06/the-peaceable-kingdoms-of-edward-hicks/
This recognizes that we live between Two Advents. The first Advent was the anticipation of a Messiah. It’s the time between Isaiah and Jesus. It has a fulfillment. There was an arrival. BUT, Jesus’ work isn’t finished. We are to continue that work until he returns. This is the time of the Second Advent. When we actively wait for is not finished. What is not complete. The question is Which Advent am I keeping? Do I need an Advent that’s predictable? Something I can manage? Where I can see where it all leads and how it turns out? OR, can I keep doing the work of Christ in an Advent that is very much unfinished and at times may even look like it never will be?
Lovett Weems tells about a group of Christians who went on a mission trip to South America. They had been briefed thoroughly on the conditions in the country but they weren’t prepared for what they found. Children being buried every day. Hunger. Political oppression. They became so emotionally down within a few days they could barely function.
One day a local Christian leader observing this said to them, “You Americans, you only know how to help folk when you are winning. (But) look in our faces and you will see faces of hope. Not because we are winning, we’ve been losing all of our lives. These are our children we are burying. These are our stomachs that are empty, our necks that have the heavy foot of political oppression upon them. But when you look into our faces you will always see faces of hope. We are not hopeful because we are winning. But we are hopeful because we are convinced that we are being faithful to what God is calling us to in this moment and because of that we have hope that when the victory comes, it will be ours. It may come tomorrow. It may come in 300 years. But when it comes, it will be ours.” (Pulpit Resource, December 1995, p46)
That is living in the second Advent! Being faithful to God when you can’t see the victory. When you can’t see a fulfillment or have any way of knowing that what you do will pay off. You only know deep down in your soul that it’s right. That it is what God would have you do. And one day, some day, you believe the victory will come.
That’s why we need music. That’s why we need vision and dreams of a beautiful, fanciful world, because it gives something to hold onto in the midst of chaos and division. It gives something better. It calls out the better within us.
Sometimes we can get into such patterns of fighting with people, even people we love, that we no longer offer the kind word, the gentle touch, the apology because we can’t see that it will make any difference. Why bother?
We can get so jaded by all the stories of people scamming and taking advantage and hurting others, we just keep a permanent guard up that says its not worth trying to help anyone these days.
We can get so disgusted by the political process today we can start to think that all politicians are just self-invested and power hungry. But oh I wish you would have been here Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. Our state senator came. He’s Muslim by faith. He didn’t speak as a politician. He talked about coming to Indianapolis after Hurricane Katrina took everything he had. He and his wife and baby were homeless, dependent on the kindness of strangers and that’s what they found. He said all he wants to do is help people get that back. Get back to caring for each other and with God’s help we can.
What if we make it our aim for the rest of Advent to do at least one thing each day that makes for peace and spreads goodwill. One thing. What might that be?
Writing a letter to someone? Sitting down with someone you differ with to learn what they feel. Maybe it would be volunteering in a place where there is need. The Food Pantry. The Diaper Drive. The Immigrant Center. Just something that keeps you from despairing about how bad things are.
Just don’t let your motivation be whether you think it will make a difference. Don’t look at how it’s received. Remember, peace is unnatural. Peace will always require courage. It comes from listening to the Voice that says, “Do you see what I see? Do you hear what I hear?”
That song was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We didn’t know how close we came to destruction until 2002 when surviving military and political leaders met in Havana for a 40th anniversary. That’s when the Russians revealed that one of their nuclear submarines almost triggered World War III. The US blockade fleet detected the sub’s presence and began dropping depth charges. Fortunately the sub was too deep to be harmed, but the sound of the explosions made the crew believe hostilities had broken out.
The sub’s captain decided to launch a nuclear torpedo at the nearest US aircraft carrier. It was necessary for the third senior officer, a young man named Vasily Arkhipov, to agree. He refused. He didn’t believe it was the right thing to do. Who knows what that cost him, but as Thomas Blanton of the US National Security Archive said, “A guy named Vasily Arkipov saved the world.”
Peace when its most needed is never easy to show, and you have no idea how your actions will turn out, you just trust in a dream that it will one day it will lead to victory.
Amen.