I learned
a couple valuable lessons at the earlier service tonight, the 4pm family
service that I hope will make this a better sermon. One, I think I will avoid all but one attempt
at stupid jokes. One of the great things
about working with youth is that they are so trusting and so literal. One of the bad things about youth is that
they are so trusting and so literal.
Imagine this scene, I’m standing at the rail and going to offer a young
boy a blessing, his mom and dad to his right, and he stops me and asks if I
really almost dropped my son but then gained control and spiked him like OBJ
catching a touchdown pass. Now I have
your attention, right? Spiking babies
like OBJ in a Christmas sermon? Who does
that? In my defense, I did not name a
receiver. Was I to name one, I would
have naturally gone with a past or present Steeler great like Lynn Swan, AB, or
even JuJu. But we will get to that in a
moment. The other lesson was the nearly singular
focus on the Incarnation. Christmas and
Easter sermons are tough on preachers.
Many feel incredible pressure at those times to wow the folks
present. Vestries are always looking to
add new members. Members want their families
to be impressed with their choice of church.
And, let’s face it, for many preachers, those two services are their
opportunity to preach to the most people.
So, next time you suffer through a theology dissertation disguised as a
sermon or have to put up with some horrible out of touch jokes from a pulpit,
show some grace. I hope you won’t have
to tonight, but if you do, please show some grace.
What is
the story of your birth? If we were
sitting over in the parish hall finished with tonight’s liturgy and I asked you
that question over egg nog, what would be the important notes about your
birth? What, nobody warned you I made
those gather participate? Ok, I get it,
y’all are far too modest to talk about yourself. Let’s try something easier. If you were sitting around the dinner table
tomorrow afternoon and your kids asked you about their birth or your grandkids
asked you about the birth story of their parent/your child, what details would
you share?
We all
have birth stories, don’t we? Those of
us of a certain age grew up listening to stories how a prior generation had to
go up hill through snow over winding mountain roads both ways to get to and
from the hospital. I’m not wrong. I see your faces and hear the chuckles. It looks like a few of you have heard those
stories, too. Those of us from a younger
generation, particularly after they let dads in the room during the birth, may
have different details to share that stories than those told from the
perspective of a waiting room. Am I
wrong? Who does not laugh at the stories
of Dad passing out?
Adventers
know I have seven children. That means I
have seven different birth stories. I
shared with the kids at the earlier service a couple of them. My oldest, a daughter, was for the first and
only time in her life, I’m pretty sure, was early, 3 ½ weeks early to be
exact. She was so early that I had not
yet gotten a crib, a changing table, or diaper genies or whatever else I had to
get. And poor Karen had to trust her
nerve-wracked husband would buy the right stuff with only her mother to check
my naturally wrong impulses. Hmmm. That story must resonate on some level with
the moms here, given the murmuring. I’m
guessing it’s the “early” comment and not the purchasing habits of their
husbands.
My second
son also could not wait to get here. We
had a nurse who, for the first time, was working without a net in a birth in L,
D, R. Once you pass three kids, you find
that hospitals love to use you for training purposes. Karen went from 4cm to Robbie crowning in a
split second. The nurse could not get
the doctor to come because he’d just checked Karen and the baby. So, I had to catch Robbie. If you have ever seen a newborn baby, they
are quite messy and bloody or amniotic fluidy or whatever. That white stuff that helps them come out is
probably the best lubricant I have ever encountered. Why is it not used in engines? Wait, y’all are laughing before I get to the
joke! Robbie came out into my hands, I
nearly dropped him, but I finally controlled his little body in my hands. Adventers who know me know I played football for
fourteen years, including a couple years at a D3 college. You don’t know how deep muscle memory goes
until you are fumbling a kid, you gain control, and then you go to spike your
newborn son while doing your best Billy “White shoes” Johnson imitation! Those faces that are nodding thoughtfully are
simply acknowledging that now they know why Robbie is the way he is. I should add, the real joke was on me. When the doctor arrived, I told him that
would be $6000 please. He said, “what?” Back then a birth cost around $6000. Since I had done his job, I figured I
deserved his pay. That joke, of course,
was on me. Somehow, Karen did the hard
work, I did the doctor’s job, and he still got paid!
David was
our child born in an actual blizzard and the one whose birth impacted church services. He was born in the middle of a Saturday night
. A couple of my kids came out
sunny-side up, with one breaking the tip of Karen’s tailbone with his
face. One was born in Dallas, three in Des
Moines, Iowa, one outside Pittsburgh, PA, two in Davenport, Iowa. One had perhaps the absolute worst neonatal
attending in the world. It’s possible there
may be worse ones, but he wins the “worst bedside manner” trophy, for sure.
You are
intrigued, aren’t you? If I showed up at
your celebration dinner tomorrow unannounced, we might avoid that uncomfortable
silence we both get when I, or any other pastor or clergy, is present for
social functions. Now we have something
about which to talk, something that allows us to relate to one another. Now you know part of the reason why you and I
are given so many details tonight.
The feast of the Incarnation, the Nativity
of Jesus, is a story that transcends reason and predictability. What we know of God, His character, His
power, His mercy, and all those other attributes, we know through His
revelation. The Bible exists to teach us
about God and about ourselves. What
would cause such a God to become fully human?
Is becoming fully human important in the narrative of salvation
history? To be sure, part of the remembrance
tonight is mysterious—we call it a holy mystery—and the angles testify to its
supernatural root, but the details are recorded, as the births of nearly every
baby born into a loving, cherishing family for two important reasons, reasons
which are as important to those who heard the story for the first time more
than 2000 years ago in Bethlehem as they are in modern Nashville.
So often,
when folks speak of God, they speak of Him as an external force or external
presence. It is, understandably, hard
for us to get our finite minds around the existence of an infinite being, so
our language tends to increase the chasm that exists between us an God. God knew even before the events in the Garden
that sin would be the real barrier between us.
So, His great rescue plan, which was conceived before He even made the
cosmos, all that is, seen and unseen, reached the beginning of its end during
the events of this night. Before the
beginning of the service, I read what is known in the Church as the Christmas
Proclamation. The Proclamation is read
as both a transition from the season of Advent into the season of Christmas and
as a reminder that this event occurred in history. What we celebrate and remember tonight is not
a theoretical event. It really
happened. After Creation, after the
Flood, after Abraham and Moses and David, in the 194th Olympiad, in
the 752nd year of Rome, and in the 42nd year of Augustus’
reign, Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem.
It really happened. We know this
from both Church historians but also ancient, secular sources. It happened.
Luke, of
course, fills in other details for us.
We know that Joseph and his fiancé are traveling to Bethlehem late in
her pregnancy because the emperor has ordered a census. We know Mary gives birth where the animals
are kept, likely beneath a family dwelling.
I know, many of us grew up on the “full inn” story. It makes for great theater and plays. But how many of you know a Jewish or other
Middle Eastern matriarch that would not make room for a pregnant “daughter”? I’m trying to picture our Armenian sisters
telling a “daughter” she had no room for them.
Such a notion flies in the face of their devotion to family and
hospitality. Besides, the animals would
be protected and provide some extra heat for the dwelling, but that’s another
suggestion. The baby is born, wrapped in
bands of cloth, foreshadowing for some the purpose for which He came into the
world, and placed in a feeding trough (a foreshadowing of “bread” of life, as
one Adventer asked earlier?).
Meanwhile, angels appear to shepherds to announce the birth. The bands of cloth figure prominently again
as they will be the signs of the Child which they will seek. Then the angelic choir signs, and the glory
of God is, for a brief time, perceivable by those present to their voices. The shepherds go to see this sign made known
to them—it’s always a good idea when God or His angels tell you to go see a
marvel to do as He or they instruct--, and then they share what was told them
by the angels. The crowd is amazed, and
Mary ponders these things in her heart.
The story
is well known. Folks who do not come to
Church, who count themselves among atheists and agnostics know this story
well. Those of us who are fans of
Peanuts probably hear it in Linus’ voice telling the story in our own
heads. Yes, the story is as well known
to us as our own birth stories or those of our children or grandchildren. Why?
Why, do you think, are we given these details? Why, if Scripture is God breathed, are these
details considered so significant? What is
it about this story that causes our hearts to long, that causes our
imaginations to dream? A significant
reason is that the story helps make God more relatable to us.
I said
earlier that there are a couple reasons upon which I want to focus our
attention this Holy Night. The first is
that the story teaches us a great deal about God’s character. Those Adventers who come to church regularly get
a dose of Ancient Near East cosmology all the time. The gods of the ANE were every bit as
capricious and unpredictable as human beings.
In fact, the gods are often portrayed as human beings with greater
powers. If you or I or any typical human
were going to be born into a world, how would we go about it? If you could be God for a second, what
details would you have caused to attend your birth?
The
children at the earlier service were not at all bashful about how they would
have been born. They would have been
born in a palace or big temple. All the
important people would be there. They’d
have a real crib and they’d have those soft footy/onesy things rather than a
manger and bands of cloth. They’d want
it to smell nice, too. My guess is that
those children, who have not yet been conditioned by society to hide some of
their selfish impulses, speak for most of us.
Even those of us who are faithful, or those of us who struggle with
trying to be faithful, have ideas as to how the story could be tweaked to make
it easier to believe. Maybe we want more
folks to see and hear the angels? Maybe
we think the Babe should have been born in Caesar’s palace or the Temple. Maybe we just want the night to mark that
exact moment when all the evil, all the injustices, all the broken
relationships, all the diseases, and all the tears in this world stopped.
In this
birth story, though, we get wonderful insight into the character of God. Truthfully, it merely confirms for us what we
already know about God. When God
thunders about His power and magnificence, when God reminds us of all that He
can do and has done, what remark appears on the other side of the descriptive
comma. I the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth; I love the widow and the orphan. Sound familiar? It should.
Nearly every time that God proclaims His might and majesty and power He
proclaims His love for those on the margins of society. Those of you who wonder whether you are
beneath the notice of God, what does such a reminder do for you? Does it not give you hope? Does it not make you dream? Does not your soul long in ways you cannot
fully understand or discuss? Some of you
gathered here tonight have known the death of a loved one, a spouse, a parent,
a child. What does such a proclamation
by God do for you?
And it’s
easy, right, in our separated-ness from God to say to ourselves or others, “yeah,
right. Sure He does” and try hard to
maintain our cynicism and disbelief so that we won’t be crushed when we learn
that such is not truly the case, that God just lies to us like politicians or
family members or friends. The
Incarnation, my friends, is the exclamation point on God’s description of
Himself. How do we know He really loves
us? How do we really know that He has
not forgotten us? He came to live among
us. He really is the Emmanuel that He
promised He would be. Yes, the
Incarnation serves other purposes, yes there is a systematic theology that
flows from it, but this night we are reminded of the wonder and awe that love
might cause God to come and to enflesh Himself among us!
While the Incarnation teaches us much about
God, it should have an incredible impact on us.
When a god is an impersonal force, beyond our ken and experience, how
well do we relate to it? That’s right,
not very well. But here, we are reminded
that God became one of us, not one of the exceptional us, but one of the
ordinary us. There was no silver spoon
in His mouth, though maybe there was some hay.
There was no paparazzi noting His birth and looking for that first
picture, just marginalized folks. He was
not born anywhere near the cultural centers of the day. It was worse than being born in West Virginia
or eastern Tennessee or anywhere in the Appalachians in this country
today. Nobody in the civilized world
wanted to live in Jerusalem, except the Jews.
The Greeks and Romans and Assyrians and Persians and Babylonians and
even the Egyptians all looked down on them.
Yet God became human in an out of the way village in an out of the way
province in the civilized world. Dad was
a carpenter; mom was a carpenter’s wife.
Is there anything or job more insignificant?
And yet
this birth is significant for us because it allows us to see that God really
loves us and really knows, really knows, what our daily life is like. In nine chapters or so, Luke will recount the
disciples of the Babe asking Him how they should pray. He will teach them a version of what you and I
know to be the Lord’s Prayer. And in
that prayer you and I will be taught that we should have the boldness and
shamelessness to approach our Father in heaven for whatever we need, be it just
food for the day or something we esteem more significant for a time. We can approach Him and complain of hunger,
of poverty, of broken relationships, of injuries, of illnesses, of injustices,
or anything else we feel the need, and the Creator of all that is, seen and
unseen, will listen to us as a Father. Can
you imagine the audacity? Do you know
the comfort of such shameless and boldness?
Why do you think the Lord’s Prayer is a part of our spiritual DNA, even those
of us who long ago gave up on God?
The
scandal of the Incarnation my friends, and make no mistake it is a scandal, is
that you and I learn a great deal about the character of God and, through that
knowledge, become a bit more encouraged, a bit more emboldened, to seek Him and
His will in our lives and in the world around us. Birth stories are often passed down because
they are so full of possibilities, of promise, and of roots. Our birth stories remind us of our beginnings,
our roots, and, if your dad spiked you, why you are who you are. This birth story does the very same
thing. It reminds us who hunger for
peace and long for justice and crave love that God is all about bringing those
into our lives and the lives of all those around us. True, He seldom acts in ways that we ask or
imagine. Who among us would have ever
conceived of this story leading to the Cross or beginning its ending in the
Resurrection and the Ascension? This
story serves as God’s most important reminder that He is always acting, always
working, always redeeming. And such
makes marvelous and wonderful sense this night, this Holy Night, when we remind
ourselves of THE birth story, the birth that makes it possible for us to be
delivered from the bondage of sin and receive power to become children of God,
and go even unto Bethlehem to hear again the story of the shepherds, the
angels, and the marvel of God’s Son our Lord, coming to dwell among us as one
of us.
In His Peace,
Brian†
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