Christmas Eve Sermon

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

December 24, 2007

Text: Luke 2: 1-20

In Luke’s beautiful story, when the shepherds, upon arriving in Bethlehem, began telling people what the angel has told them, the result was that people “wondered at what the shepherds told them.” I would imagine so! Angels singing to shepherds? Shepherds were considered crude, viewed by the city-folk as low-class and uneducated.

Get off the major highways and drop into a Dairy Queen and you will likely see modern day shepherds---who may be oil field workers, truck-drivers, servers, domestics, immigrants from south of the border----and maybe some shepherds.

Of course, we now romanticize the working class, too---and some spend big bucks trying to look working class! But picture the above people showing up for a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Long Center. Or, better yet, picture a first-class choir going out to the small-town Dairy Queen to perform the Messiah! Then, you may get a little of the incongruity of an angels’ chorus singing out good news to shepherds.

Magnificent choirs were usually reserved for the Caesars of this world. Caesar Augustus (the great one) was widely regarded as a son of a god (his daddy, Gaius, the previous Caesar), as savior; his birthday was the occasion each year for celebration and in all the religious places would be filled with singing choirs. Augustus established the Pax Romana, a time when all of the factions were united, and there was relative peace on the earth.

But, Luke tells us, the true God and his true Son did not rely on earthly power. They came among the broken, the poor and the “waiters,” the longing, hopeful faithful, those humble poor Jews who faithfully anticipated deliverance, for the fullness of God’s reign, for the Messiah, the anointed one of God.

The popular Christmas in our culture today begins in mid-November. It really includes Thanksgiving. It is a time for parties, gift-shopping and family reunions. I am not a bah-humbug sort of person. I figure that anything which brings out charity and joy in people cannot be all bad.

It can also be a stressful time. Getting the right gifts for everybody. Preparing just the right meals. Visiting with relatives when the only things you hold in common are blood and marriages. Then there is the nostalgia quotient, so thick you can swim in it. Christmases remembered, friends and family who have passed on. The combination of gladness and sadness can be exhausting.

The larger world impinges on us, too. Our earth, our island home in speace, is torn by war and terrorism. Refugees flee their homes for safer places, only to find themselves at risk again.  Grinding poverty destroys fullness of life. The contrast between our wounded world and the images of Christmas could not be more stark.

But finally this night arrives. Tonight, here in this place, at the Lord’s Table, the only thing you have to bring is your self. We remember and we rehearse again what God has done.

 Here, tonight, we are all shepherds. We may be well-dressed shepherds, cultured and educated shepherds, successful shepherds, but shepherds nonetheless.
Which is to say that we do not expect to be singled out for an angel visit. Is this because we have it all, all that we need?  “I can go buy the Three Tenors Christmas CD if I want angels.” But you don’t have to believe in angels to receive a visit from one! God gets through to us in many different ways: prayers, thoughts, e mails, music, stories, and surprising encounters. You don’t have to have a mystical side to appreciate Christmas! You just have to be alert to possibilities and surprises. We are shepherds in our needfulness, our common human frailty and confusion.

There are nights in lonely places, even in crowded malls, when we may know that the most important things we need for the deep happiness for which we long must come to us from outside. With this awareness we can celebrate Christmas like little children awaiting gifts. Everything else falls away when we know our heart’s hunger for God. Then we are ready for angels’ choruses which cannot be bought.

William Willimon has written that “the first word of the church born out of so odd a nativity is that we are receivers before we are givers.”

What do we receive from God in Christ Jesus?

We are given freedom to begin a journey inward and a journey outward
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JOURNEY INWARD

It is written that Mary the mother of Jesus “pondered” about the meaning of her son’s birth. Christmas brings out this pondering in us, too.

We bring ourselves, just as we are, to the manger.

****We bring our spiritual and emotional woundedness to the manger. Someone has written that we are shaped more by what wounds us than by what has blessed us, especially if the wounds are deeply lodged. Christ is God’s gift of healing strength. In the light of Christ’s love, we can begin the journey toward wholeness.

****Destructive relational patterns and addictions are brought to the manger and the Higher Power in Christ Jesus can bring us, step by step, one day at a time, into our right minds.

****We may bring our hard hearts to the manger, hearts that feel nothing for the poor, hearts that have been shaped by a crude social Darwinism to believe it is foolish to take responsibility for anyone but your own self. We bring our hard hearts to be replaced by hearts of flesh. We are freed to love the neighbor as we love ourselves.

****We may feel worthless, that we have nothing to offer anyone. And Christ Jesus lifts us up and blesses us, saying to us and we stand upright as the persons made in God’s image, with gifts to share.

****We may come to the manger with a bad case of price tag anarchy: the very things that we have worked hardest to own have turned to dust in our hands. And Jesus opens our eyes to see that the Kingdom of God is the pearl of great price.

*****We may come to the cradle of Jesus because we are hungry for friendship, for community, for belonging. The fellowship around the cradle of Christ, we discover, includes people like we are and forms a redemptive family of support and accountability.

The journey inward which Christ offers to us is a continuous transformation toward the abundant life we are created for.

JOURNEY OUTWARD

Alongside this journey inward with Christ, we are invited to a journey outward. As with Mary and Joseph, we have also been created for a purpose in life, to make a difference for the better by who we are and what we do. We will find our callings, our piece of God’s vision of Shalom for the world.

****With the gifts you have and the opportunities that arise, how can you bless others? Frederick Buechner wrote that your calling is where the deep needs of the world and your deepest joy intersect. Works of mercy for the wounded; works of justice, to change the conditions in which people keep getting hurt and beaten down. Works of beauty which open truth to us and breathe life into us. Everyone counts in the body of Christ.

Tonight, to visit the baby Jesus is to visit the man Jesus grew up to be. For Mary and Joseph’s son became God with us, not just for an evening, but for a lifetime. Jesus is the pioneer, our mediator, our friend, our savior. Like the shepherds, come to the manger. Begin or re-start the journey inward, the journey outward, accompanied by the Word become flesh, even Jesus Christ our Lord!

“Thou heavenly Brightness! Light divine!
O deep within my heart now shine,
and make me there an altar!
Fill me with joy and strength to be thy member,
ever joined to thee in love that cannot falter;
Toward thee, longing doth possess me; turn and bless me; here in sadness, eye and heart long for thy gladness.”

(“O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright,” Hymn 247 in United Methodist Hymnal. Words by Phillip Nicolai, 1599,translated by Catherine Winkworth, 1863. Music: Phillip Nicolai; harmonized by J. S. Bach, ca. 1731)

One has written: “The Gospel is heard where the path of self-satisfaction has been followed as the way. Where the path of self-mastery has been taken as the way. Where people have tried the path of self-destruction as the way. Where the path of self-absorption has been heralded as the way. Where the path of self-superiority has been idolized as the way. Where the path of self-abdication has been taken as the way.”

“To all of those wearied by trying to save themselves, Isaiah makes a startling promise this Holy Night: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who have lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined" (9:2). The Light has shined and perhaps shined most poignantly on the ones who have bet their lives on all paths but the Gospel path. These are the ones who are ready to receive the way, the truth, and the life that Christmas declares is born today…. They are ready for the Kingdom to come, on earth as in heaven—to come in Jesus. They are the ones willing to accept the "scandal of the crib" as well as the "scandal of the Cross."

Elizabeth Achtemeier has written that we are drawn to Christmas by “the fact that our little realms are invaded by something beyond their borders, the fact that there floods into our darkness a light not dependent on our tarnished glories, the fact that some Spirit of wisdom and strength and understanding whispers in our hearts that perhaps there is hope for our tattered lives also.” (Elizabeth Achtemeier, “Romanticism, Reality, and the Christmas Child,” in The Twentieth Century Pulpit, Volume 2, Abingdon, 1981, pages 14-15)

In Luke’s story, the shepherds’ telling of what they heard and saw was met by wondering. At least. Not necessarily belief, trust, faith. But wondering is a good beginning. “I wonder all all this talk of Savior is about?” It is certainly an odd message: a baby born of poor youngsters, with a manger as his first cradle. This one is a Savior? A King? God with us?  I wonder. I invite you to wonder, too.

Then go and read about the man this baby grew up to be. I tell  you that when Jesus speaks, it is God we hear. When he acts, it is God we see. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” This Jesus, “the carpenter who died on the cross…..[has] become for us the answer to the whole question of the meaning of our [lives].” Carl Michaelson, The Witness of Radical Faith,” page 58.

And we dare to believe that the light which has shone in our darkness in Christ Jesus has not been extinguished in our common life as citizens of this globe. We dare to hope that God continues to raise up from among the nations those who seek peace; that God continues to raise up leaders who seek justice for the wretched of the earth; that God works through the deliberations of politicians for the preservation and flourishing of the natural order. Lord, Give us eyes to see and join in your mission for the salvation of the earth.