The
story of Christmas is actually three stories. It’s been
said that everyone likes a good story and these are no exception. They
are a prominent part of the Bible, and even if we don’t know
them by heart the images will be familiar. My responsibility will be
to restate the stories and to connect them, and your responsibility
will be to imagine how these stories have affected your life, how they
have meaning for your life.
I want
to start with describing the last story first. That’s
not the usual way unless you’re in the habit of reading the last
paragraph at the end of a book to see how it all turns out. This is
the story of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the
Christian story of how it’s all supposed to turn out at the end.
Now anyone who has tackled the Book of Revelation knows it’s
hard work. In point of fact it did not have an easy time making it
into the New Testament. I don’t recommend it for bedtime reading
because it has some of the “Stephen King” about it, full
as it is with malevolent beasts and apocalyptic horrors. Revelation
is the vision, or series of visions, that came to an early Christian
named John who had been exiled to the isle of Patmos because of his
belief that Jesus rather than the Roman Emperor was the son of God.
The visions include angels and the birth of a child and a world in
turmoil between good and evil. The outcome is described in the next-to-last
chapter,
Then
I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth; for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the
holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…and
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of
God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their
eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no
more, for the first things have passed away.
These words are familiar to us in how often they are read in funerals,
signaling our hope for those who have died, our hope for a place or
an existence of peace and comfort and welcome.
But the reason it comes to me that this has something to do with
Christmas is because for John the story ends not so much with our being
moved to some other world, but rather with the Kingdom of God, the
heavenly city, descending to U world. It is a picture of this world
made right. It is a picture of creation completed.
This
leads us then to the second story, which is actually found in the
first book of the Bible, Genesis, the story of Creation. Those who
were privileged to be here for our pageant last Sunday saw that story
enacted right here with an innocent Adam and an innocent Eve—otherwise
known as Andrew Murdoch and Matilda Montgomery—and a very beguiling
serpent, otherwise known as Crystal Hawley. We were reminded that the
garden into which God had placed them was a place that could fulfill
their every need. Everything that was a delight to the eye and to the
other senses were provided by God and I can imagine to the point of
sensory overload. But if the story of Revelation depicts a world made
right, the story of Genesis leads us to a world gone wrong. It is in
fact a story which raises the question of evil, the question of sin
and free will, the question of why life can be so harsh and disappointing.
And yet it reminds us that God’s intention at the beginning was
goodness, the image captured in Isaiah’s “ Peaceable Kingdom,” where “the
wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the
kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little
child shall lead them.” But it remains an elusive image not just
in that part of the world Isaiah had in mind, namely the Middle East
with Israelis and Palestinians at each others’ throats, but also
in that place other writers of the Bible had in mind when they pictured
the Garden of Eden, namely somewhere near today’s Baghdad with
Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds and insurgents and American GIs forming
anything but a peaceable kingdom.
And
so we are led to the third story of Christmas, the one with which
most of us are most familiar. If the first story has to do with a
world made right, and the second story has to do with how it is the
world went wrong, this third story provides us with a decisive transition
whereby we can realize the words of our hymn, “The hopes and
fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” This story,
too, was enacted in our pageant with Mary (aka Grace Anaclerio), Joseph
(aka Coleman Harris), and even Jesus (aka Lauren Millar) playing their
parts. There were in fact lots of parts to be played, beginning with
the Garden of Eden and including Isaiah’s Peaceable Kingdom,
as well as the prerequisite shepherds, sheep, choirs of angels, and
a very impressive voice of God (aka Jim McGee). It was such a great
pageant, but I wonder if there aren’t some who would lump it
all into the excess of the Season. Quite the opposite I’m sure
most would say. In fact I’ve had nothing but rave reviews. And
yet the religious and the secular Christmas have become so intertwined
it’s hard sometimes to know what the heart of the matter really
is.
About
twenty years ago in Edmonton, Canada, the local newspaper went on
a crusade to get rid of what they called the “blight” of
Christmas which I assume meant ordinary homes looking like Las Vegas
casinos or the constant blare of Christmas music (I should say “holiday” music)
that starts as soon as Halloween is over, and the entire commercial
atmosphere we are all so familiar with. One columnist objected to the
objection and had this to say about the Edmonton Journal’s crusade:
It has
failed. Despite this odd challenge, the festive occasion remains
what it always was in the capitol of Alberta—outrageous to
the secularist, disgusting to the pure spiritualist, abominable to
the pure Marxist, and inexorable to the purely common man. Humanism
fails to fulfill, therefore we make a very poor God. But if man cannot
worship himself because he is too close to the subject and knows
it for what it is, and yet cannot worship God either because God
is too far away and he knows what God is, then what can man worship?
Behind the tinsel of Christmas lies an astonishing answer. God has
become man. He has shouldered the human burden, played the human
game to its bitterest possible end, and emerged triumphant. In him,
therefore, every human finds his purpose, every life its fulfillment,
every soul its God.
And
that’s the story. The real manger on Christmas Eve is the
human heart, which is to say that the real story on Christmas Eve is
your story and my story. And so everyone be quiet for just a second.
Let’s capture this moment of grace and truth with the realization
that God loves you so much that he sent his only begotten son, born
in a manger but to be born again in you and in me.
And
then let’s think back to that hymn text and how it represents
what we might be feeling or how we might react to those three stories
of Christmas having anything to do with our story. Let’s pretend
that we are in that little town of Bethlehem,
….how
still we see thee lie.
Above
thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.
Yet
in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting light;
The
hopes and fears of all the years
are met in thee tonight.
Right now, your life and my life are characterized by the fears we
bring with us and the hopes we would take with us. No one comes here
tonight without stories of hurt or heartache or disappointment or even
despair. In some ways the excesses of the season are compensation for
those holes in the human heart, as if jolliness and revelry can take
the place of being wanted or needed. Many of us bring with us tonight
a fear of being unwanted or even an experience of outright rejection.
But
Christmas is the traditional time for churches to find various homeless
creatures, human or otherwise, presented at our doors. At Christ
Church we’ve had a dog we named “Nick,” and
a bat who will remain unnamed, who found their way inside. The bat
was not as welcome, however, but we trust he’s found other bats
in whatever belfries where they might have a merry Christmas. Lots
of people were touched by twin three-week-old children found in a Lutheran
church downtown. I’m told they have been named Mary and Joseph.
These stories touch something in us, a fear, perhaps, that on some
level those stories could be our story, are our story.
But
tonight our fears and our hopes are met in the child that was God’s gift to us. It is our hope like the book of Revelation
of a world made right, and a hope for our own selves that we are known,
valued, and cared for. I don’t want Santa Claus to bring me presents
because I’ve been a good little boy; I want God to love me just
because I am. That’s my hope tonight, but that’s my gift
tonight. And it’s God’s gift to each and every one of us
if only for this one moment of recognition that what God has done in
Bethlehem, God is doing for us.
O holy
child of Bethlehem,
descend to us we pray;
Cast
out our sin and enter in,
be born in us today.
We
hear the Christmas angels
the great glad tidings tell;
O
come to us, abide with us,
our lord Emmanuel!
