I enjoy looking at world news from different perspectives. I often read the headlines from BBC England as well as a few articles from that source. Yesterday, having a bit of time on Christmas morning, I listened to Queen Elizabeth’s address to the United Kingdom. The annual Christmas address from the monarch is a long-standing tradition. I’m not much on the monarchy, and I’m not a big follower of the royal family, but I have a bit of admiration for the plucky 95-year-old queen, and a bit of compassion for her this Christmas as she faces her first Christmas as a widow. I know that the holidays can be rough when one is in the midst of grief, and the loss of a loved one can make a big difference in how one views the season. The queen was frank about her grief, but she chose not to dwell upon that grief in her address to the countries of the Commonwealth. Instead, she spoke of hope. She quoted the old Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem:” “The hopes and fears of all of the years are met in thee tonight.”

One of the things that must be in the Queen’s mind as she addresses her people is that the world faces a great number of problems that simply will not be solved in here lifetime. There are wars and conflicts in the world that show no signs of ending quickly. Global warming and an increasing environmental crisis present challenges that are frightening in their scale and will require major shifts in governmental policy and personal choice. Refugees stream from one country to others in search of safety and some way to begin anew after losing all that they have had. The list of challenges of the coming years is long and it is clear that addressing those challenges will require the dedication and commitment of many lives. As she enters the second half of her nineties, and the death of her beloved husband, Philip, she must be well aware that part of what will be soon required is a transition of leadership and power from one generation to the next. She will not see with her own eyes the changes for which she hopes. She must invest in important initiatives that will play out only after the span of her own life has ended. The hopes and fears of all the years - the hopes and fears of all generations - come together as she reflects on Christmas with her people.

The news of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, leader of so much change and hope in the world is yet another reminder of the passing of generations. Tutu was a leader in the mostly peaceful transition of power in South Africa that brought an end to official government sanctioned segregation and racism in his homeland. The world must be aware, however, that there is much work remaining and we will need to be about that work without his leadership now. The hopes and fears of all the years will be focused on the memorials that will follow his death and the realization of how much remains to be done.

In year C of the lectionary, our readings for worship take us on a breathtakingly fast journey through the life of Christ. Today, on the second day of Christmas, we will hear the story of Jesus’ remaining in the temple to speak with the leaders when he was a boy of 12 years old. Like the gospel itself, there is a whole section of the journey from infant to 12 years old left out of the cycle of readings. There simply are no scriptures that tell us of that part of Jesus’ life. As I imagine the boy sitting with the elders of the temple, discussing the meaning of life and faith in the midst of a country that is occupied by a foreign power where personal freedoms are limited and wealth is exported from the nation to Rome. They must have been well aware of the meeting of the generations. The temple leaders must have known how tenuous their political position was. The temple itself was threatened by the volatile political mix of Roman oppression and a growing Jewish resistance. The livelihood of temple priests and officials was threatened by the talk of Zealots and revolutionaries. The compromises demanded of them in order to curry sufficient support from Roman authorities to remain in their positions must have weighed heavily upon them. They likely did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah, but they couldn’t help but be amazed by his answers and the intelligence of his conversation. I imagine the confidence of the twelve-year-old and the lack of fear about having been left behind by his family combined to make him a child that could not be ignored. The hopes and fears of all the years met in Jesus.

The words to the Christmas carol were written by an Episcopal priest in Philadelphia. Phillips Brooks wrote the words in 1868. One of the stories of the carol is that it was written as a Sunday School lesson for children. Phillips Brooks asked Lewis Redner to write a tune for the verses. Redner was slow to come up with the tune and he and Brooks thought that the simple carol was probably destined for a single use in their church. Brooks and Redner’s carol is beloved and familiar all across North America. However, in England, the words were soon set to a different tune, “Forest Green.” I was reminded of the difference in tunes yesterday as the carol was sung at the end of the Queen’s address to the tune familiar in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The words, however, ring in my ears as I prepare to worship with our congregation today. “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

The years have quickly passed for me. Although I am not yet as old as the Queen, I know that I am among the elders of the church these days. The future rests on the shoulders of those who are much younger than I. Still, I lay my hopes and fears upon theirs and there are moments of meeting when all of our hopes and fears come together.

May we never lose sight of our hopes and fears as we celebrate the coming of a new generation of leaders.