The Christmas text is Luke 2: 1-20, found by clicking here.
The sermon:
Sermon for Christmas
Eve, 2012
When’s the
first time you realized life wasn’t in your control?
Maybe it was when your first
crush didn’t work out. Did your parents
keep cooking liver and onions when all you wanted was mashed potatoes? Were you treated unjustly by a teacher? Got fired from a job? For many of us it happens when we get sick,
or even just older…confronting our own mortality. Or maybe not our own mortality, but mourning
the loss of a loved one whom we wish was here on this holiday. For some it happens in the most tragic of
ways, like for our brothers and sisters in Connecticut and Oregon whom we
remember tonight. Life out of your
control can be dangerous, fearful, sometimes horrifying.
That’s part of why we find
the Christmas story comforting, isn’t it?
A baby arrived! What could be
more innocent and pure than that? There
sit a couple in a manger, a small, intimate setting. Alongside lie some cows, sheep. Here come some visitors…a couple angels,
later three wise men. A star shines from
above just on this spot, no other. It’s like the manger is a little haven,
separated from the rest of the world.
And look how we celebrate
Christmas. We go out and grab the
world! Presents, exotic foods, strange
and wild trees…we bring the world into our house for the benefit of our family. Goose!
(Does anybody eat goose anymore?
Oh well. Anyway…) Goose:
flying wild and free, soaring through the skies. Nab, grab…now it’s goose sitting in a pan on
the table for our consumption and enjoyment.
Tree: great minion of the forest,
living for decades under the sun and rain.
Saw saw saw. We hang little glass
balls and lights on it. Isn’t it
cute? Presents: things we couldn’t imagine getting on any
other occasion, yet somehow they appear under our tree, just for us…just for
the people we love most. It’s small,
intimate, tame, and totally under our control.
How we love this Christmas story!
Except that isn’t really
the Christmas story…not all of it anyway. We’re talking about a mother and
father forced out of their home by a tax-collecting dictator, forced to travel
an astonishing distance by foot just at the time their child would come. Except it wasn’t entirely their child, or at
least it wasn’t his. He wasn’t the bio
dad. This thing had come and disrupted
his life despite his wishes and dreams.
Nor was this an expected pregnancy for mom. An angel showed up one day and said, “Guess
what?” And the first thing she said in
response was a polite version of, “Why me?
Nobody’s going to believe this is true.”
And the angel gave a holy version of, “Too bad…it’s happening
anyway. You’re the chosen one.”
Then this couple finally
gets to town just when the baby is coming and there’s no room in the inn. Even when they explain and beg they get
shoved out into the stable. Not only
can’t they control the baby coming, they can’t control where it’s going to be
born.
The baby comes and they
make it through that uncontrollable wave of everything. (Don’t even ask!) Then they have to deal with cows and sheep
making noises and smells. Weird shepherds—themselves terrified by an
uncontrolled appearance of angels--and foreigners come in at all hours to stare
because somebody leaked the news and now suddenly Mary and Joseph are Bethlehem’s
William and Kate. Later on the local
king will decide that he wants their baby killed so they’ll have to flee to the
strange land of Egypt as exiles.
And then there’s the child
itself…a baby like any other. It’s
helpless, unable to feed itself, unable to change itself, unable to communicate
outside of basic cries and coos. It
doesn’t know anything of the world. It’s
totally dependent on mom and dad for protection, for sustenance, for
everything. It doesn’t control anything,
not even itself.
This is the actual Christmas
story…the part we don’t talk about as much.
It’s not intimate. It’s not
snuggly. It can’t be acted out by
precious four-year-olds in donkey and sheep costumes. It’s scary, inconvenient, dangerous, and
totally out of the control of everyone involved. Hearing it turns our conceptions about the
meaning of Christmas on their ear just as the event itself turned over the
lives of everyone who participated in it.
In times like this
questions arise…the same questions we ask every time we feel out of control no
matter what caused it: “What’s the
meaning here? What purpose to all of
this? What do we believe?” Some ask these
questions in academic fashion but others—those who have experienced the tragic
part of “out of control” firshand--ask it with an anguished cry that no
snuggly, safe Christmas story can answer.
Do we believe? That’s the question that surrounds
Christmas. Have you noticed that every
movie or show about Christmas deals with this theme in one way or another? Oh, they seldom talk about Jesus himself,
preferring the goodness of humanity or Santa or what have you. But the same question resonates through all
of them. “Do you believe?”
We answer this question so
poorly, too…not only in the movies but in real life. We want to believe, to find some significance
in our belief, but we’re robbed of the chance because we define “belief” in the
impoverished, plastic way the world has taught us. When we ask, “Do you believe?” we mostly
mean, “Do you credit this as being real? Do you think it exists?” No goodness or
growth comes out of answering that question positively or negatively.
Try this on for size. Everybody all at once look at me. Now believe really hard that my rapidly
receding hairline doesn’t exist. Come
on! Work at it! Do I have the mane of vibrant and curly hair
I once had as a youth? What?!? You couldn’t make my receding hairline not
exist with your belief? What kind of
not-believers are you?
Now turn to the person you
came with tonight…spouse, family, friend, whomever. Turn to them now, put your hand on their
shoulder, and say this: “I believe you
exist.” There you go. Everybody happy? Have you changed or deepened your
relationship? Have you learned anything
new about the person? What would you
think if people started coming up to you and saying, “Congratulations! I believe you exist!” Your first response would be, “So what?” Your second, “Who are you and why are your
beliefs so important that you think they are the litmus test of my existence?” Answering the question accomplishes little.
Belief doesn’t mean
screwing your head up in this or that fashion or coming to some kind of
academic conclusion about the validity of something. You know what belief means? Trust.
Mental certainty can only come when you’re in control, when you can
apprehend everything, stand above it and make a judgment. Trust happens in those moments when you’re
out of control, when you have little other choice.
Joseph and Mary and the
Baby Jesus, the shepherds and wise men…they didn’t have any kind of mental
certainty that this was going to turn out well.
In fact every step of the process so far had told them the exact
opposite, from the weird and unplanned pregnancy to the barn-based delivery…let
alone dealing with the baby. Who looks
at their newborn child and says, “I am academically prepared for every possible
contingency and I am certain that my parenting of you will be superior and that
all things will turn out well in every instance”?
They didn’t have that kind
of belief. It’s not possible, no matter what movies and cynics tell you. All they had was trust. “I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t
control what’s going on, in fact it seems to be going wrong most of the
time. But I trust. I trust you mom and dad, that you will feed
me and take care of me. I trust you,
spouse, that you’re not going to leave me alone with this screaming child. I trust you community of shepherds and wise
men, that you’re going to help us through this crazy time. I trust you, God, that as mixed up and
sometimes tragic as all this is—and remember this baby’s life would one day end
with a summary execution on a cross—that you will take care of us and bring us
all to goodness.”
Now try this. Turn to that same person you did a minute
ago. This time look at them, take their
hand, and say, “I trust you. Things
won’t go perfectly. Life will be out of
our control. We won’t always be
happy. Sometimes we might be so mixed up
that we can’t see straight. But I
believe in you and I trust you, no matter what.”
Now what have you
done? Can you see the difference? And guess what? As we trust we remember that most of the best
things in life also happen in ways beyond our control: the love you feel for a spouse that causes
you to marry them, the love for your children that draws more out of you than
you ever thought you could give, the zest for life that causes you to risk things
instead of clinging to surety…the trust God had placing his only Son in the
hands of mixed-up people like us, and the trust we have that that same Son
delivers and saves us, bringing us to goodness no matter what circumstances,
even tragic ones, define our lives. It
does get better. Light shines in the
darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.
That is our trust.
And that is the real
Christmas message, not a story of an isolated, pristine manger disconnected
from reality, but a birth and a resulting web of relationships, grace, and love
that touches all of life…all of our lives…transforming them, embracing and
holding their sorrow yet somehow also bringing out their beauty and joy.
Whether this is the
happiest or saddest Christmas you’ve ever known, whether it’s the full or
lonely, whether you have what you want or you’re still seeking, this day is for
you. Beauty beyond your control or
desire is entrusted to you and nothing…nothing…will
take that gift away.
A blessed Christmas to
each of you. May God’s love shine in
your heart, and through you to a world that needs it. Amen.
--Pastor Dave
