What Do You Need For Christmas?
Christmas Eve, 2011 (Luke 2:1-20 with Isaiah 9:2-7 & Isaiah 11:1-9 in the b.g.)
May the Son of Mary, the Word become flesh be born among us tonight (Pause)
What do you NEED for Christmas?
In some ways I may or may not be talking about stuff or things. Last Christmas my friend Kevin was waiting for a heart and double lung transplant. Those were organs he absolutely needed to live. This past year someone or perhaps even 2 people died. And now my friend Kevin in receiving the gift of life from them, lives. I mean he really lives, cherishing each moment, each step, each note of music he plays and breath he takes.
So I ask again, what do you need for Christmas?
Think about our lives. To be sure there is some beauty in each of our worlds and in the world at large. There are things and people that amaze us. At least I hope so for you. Just yesterday morning I met a young girl and her dog in a park. The first thing I noticed was that she had some physical and mental disabilities. But then I looked closer. I began to be swept up by the joy of life she had with her dog and my dog, even with talking to me, a complete stranger. So I began to wonder, just who is disabled here?
And tonight there is wonder: amazing music, people's love and excitement. There is also a story that is so much more than story. It can catch us, lifts us, even transform us.
Yes, there is much that is good in the way things are: creativity, beauty, wonder, love.
But unfortunately that's not all there is. There is also in our reality that which is less than beautiful, good, caring. There is the reality of inequity, prejudice, profiling by class, ethnicity or vocation. There were the shepherds living in the fields. They may well have been homeless. Their society viewed them as shiftless, as unreliable, often dishonest, useless, dirty.
There were also Mary and Joseph. They were forced to leave home for taxation purposes. It mattered not that Mary neared the end of her pregnancy. Who cares? The law's the law –at least for the poor. Well, the rich may have been able to call in a favour.
Inequity continues between rich and poor. We know this. Watch the news. Visit your local food bank. Speak to social workers, street priests. Watch the world news. Travel to other countries. Attend court. You will be appalled at the inequities you encounter.
There is also violence. Mess with the Roman Empire - you could find yourself hoisted on a cross outside the city wall. But we are more sophisticated than that, aren't we? Regardless, a mother is shot in her car while her toddler is in the back seat. How safe are we from violence, especially when we least expect it?
To be sure, both then and now much resignation reigns, despair grows. In the Roman Empire, taxes greatly benefited the "haves", while the have not's though taxed, rarely saw many of the benefits of taxation. That's the way life was, is and will be forever. Who could do anything to change that? If lots of people fall through the cracks – well qu'est sera, sera, just so long as we are among them.
I am not sure that it makes any difference whether one is a mechanic, a farmer, unemployed or a CEO. For all of us, there's both "good" and "bad". It may be impossible to fully comprehend this until we have walked in the "other's" shoes for awhile.
But to all these realities of love and wonder, joy and celebration, brokenness, disappointment, suffering, questioning, despair and pain, SOMETHING HAPPENS. It's something amazing, really GOOD NEWS. Did someone you know win the lottery? No! Did the shepherds find a better job, suddenly becoming upwardly mobile? No! Were taxes forever ended for everyone? Get real! What is this GOOD NEWS then?
While herding their sheep the shepherds hear a voice. No, they weren't into extraneous amounts of schnapps early that night. There is someone speaking directly to them. And that voice is most definitely conveying GOOD NEWS, not only to and for them, but to and for ALL PEOPLE!
Can you imagine? GOOD NEWS FOR ALL! Is such GOOD NEWS even possible? Or is such a message like those calls you receive over dinner causing you to immediately hang up? Their claims are so outlandish that you just know they can't possibly be true.
Nevertheless those shepherds hear that voice. The speaker is right there in front of them. It's as if they are compelled to listen, but not in a freeing way. They hear the message. GOOD NEWS, GREAT JOY for all people. Make no mistake. These shepherds know about lies. They are realists. There are winners. There are losers. They know where they have always been situated.
Could there be good news of great joy for them? The angel continues speaking to them: "For to you is born in the city of David, a baby". That's right, A BABY! But babies are born all the time. Even if we are to grant the miraculous nature of each birth, the truth is that many babies aren't even wanted... Suddenly the angel's message is completed by an amazing heavenly chorus singing, "Glory to God".
Now the shepherds respond in an amazing way. They get up to go see this baby for themselves. They find the baby. Then they tell the mother and her man what they themselves have heard and seen. Did you notice? Mary treasures what they say (even though "they" are shepherds). She ponders all these things in her heart.
Do you ever ponder - mull "things" over with all your being? What do you really need? Or are you, are we, like those shepherds prior to hearing the message that night – with its accompanying music, possibility, promise beyond any human explanation?
So I ask, "Why are you at church tonight:? Because somebody loves you? Because someone has told you this story and it has become your tradition or matters deeply to someone you love? Whatever the case, thanks be to God!
Let me tell you some amazing news. That baby, the one the shepherds first heard about so long ago, IS BORN! The story of that baby's birth is being told today, being heard by at least 1 billion people, over 2000 years after the fact. This story is being told again because that baby grows up, lives in a unique way and then is executed. Yet, after he dies has followers from all who over the world claim that has been raised from the dead in order to limit evil and death, to flesh out the the power of God's love and forgiveness.
This baby, growing, living, suffering, dying, being raised somehow grabs hold of people's minds and hearts. And the world has not been the same since. There are still all the realities - of wonder and love, creativity and birth. But there are also the realities of violence and hatred, jealousy and envy. Yet that baby's followers say that because of him, those realities will not have the final or the lasting say. Indeed, their own lives sometimes reflect such reality.
The baby Jesus, whose birth we announce again and celebrate tonight comes TO US AND TO THE WORLD, to make a huge difference, to make all the difference, beginning with us. God alone can change hearts, minds, perspectives. God may not choose to do that in the way we would. But God is God which necessitates that we are not God.
Tonight the message of the angel and the angelic host first received by the shepherds can be heard again by us. Some think it's nostalgic or cute. Some feel it's unbridled superstition. Some wonder if it can possibly hold any truth. But the message of that baby being born – of that baby somehow actually also being God in the flesh, coming to love the human race individually and collectively unconditionally – of seeking to so change us so that we seek to live in that same caring way. Well that begs us to be open to the miraculous, to let go of our endless attempts to control, to manipulate to fully understand. The birth of Jesus is God's chosen way of bridging the gap between God, the Creator of the universe and we, creatures of the earth. It is this message which comes to you tonight.
Dare we listen?
TO YOU IS BORN A SAVIOUR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD!
As unbelievable as it seems God refuses to give up on you or me, or this crazy, wonderful, horrible world either. Amazing.
What do you truly need for Christmas? Amen.