Watch Night 2010

Baptist churches in my childhood had an option for the godly on New Year’s Eve night. Instead of attending parties where we might be tempted to partake of an alcoholic concoction, we could attend a Watch Night Service that lasted until midnight. Safe in the company of other Christians, we would usher the New Year in with hymn singing, praying and preaching. The custom has died out for obvious reasons. Not only is it hard to compete with New Year revelry but nursery care for babies and toddlers is the equivalent of combat duty. Even at that, I miss some of the qualities of Watch Night.
We would gather for a pot luck supper first with all the necessary food... three or four different kinds of deviled eggs, ham and fried chicken, potato salads of all sorts, green beans and real creamed corn, fruit salads, biscuits and yeast rolls, coconut and chocolate cakes with icing so deep you could sink your finger in it, lemon meringue and sweet potato pies. No one ever brought fast food chicken or slaw from the grocery store. Only your best recipes and the best of what you prepared was offered to the church family. The unveiling of the food, setting up the sweet tea station, laying out the dessert table, gathering for the blessing, trying to keep the children corralled until the blessing was finished, letting the very old and the very young start the line down the laden eight foot tables piled high with beautiful food prepared by loving hands. It was a celebration of more than enough. In our church there were some who struggled to have enough but this time together was a time set apart for wallowing in the goodness of the God who had called us together. After a time of fellowship for the adults and game playing for the children, we walked over to the sanctuary.
In our little church, the pastor read the story in the gospel about the disciples falling asleep while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gesthemane. The story of the bridesmaids waiting on the groom, some who were prepared with enough oil for their lamps and others who were caught short, was a crowd pleaser, too. The punch line was always the same. Don’t just sit there... be prepared for you never know when Jesus is coming again... be ready... take stock and change what needs changing in order to be ready... don’t fall asleep at the switch. Gathered in that white concrete block building, children asleep with their heads in mamas’ laps, we did the best we could to look back and look forward, trying to be faithful to God’s call in our lives.
My New Year’s Eve came and went in a haze. We were still recovering from the trip to Alabama and H.O.’s funeral. A good friend got married in another state and we were on the road for his wedding that weekend. Now that the dust has settled a little, I am going to spend some time in reflection and preparation for the New Year that is already here. One month is almost gone and time flies now that I am sixty three. The sense of urgency Brother Kannon used to invoke in his Watch Night sermons has become a part of my sense of life’s fleeting quality. I don’t want to waste any of this precious gift of life now that I am in the last part of my time here.
Wendell Berry says it best. “We are alive within mystery, by miracle. ‘Life,’ wrote Erwin Chargaff, ‘is the continual intervention of the inexplicable.’ We have more than we can know. We know more than we can say... Finally, we live beyond words, as we also live beyond computation and theory.” My Watch Night prayer, couched in words that do not begin to capture the deepest longing of my heart, is to live nearer to God this year. Taking an inventory of all I have done that I wish I had not done, surveying all the good that is in me and seeing all that still needs transformation, giving thanks for this most miraculous gift of life and love, I remain a follower of Jesus. Thanks be to God.