A Christmas Sermon

A Christmas Sermon The Dover Church
December 24, 2009 – Christmas Eve
Scripture: Isaiah 9: 2-7, Luke 2:1-20

“This will be a sign to us? A miracle? A portent of God’s plan? A child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger? This will be the sign of God’s deliverance? The answer to our prayers? Everything we’ve been hoping and waiting for? Another poor baby born in Bethlehem, so poor that for some reason or another his parents have placed him in a livestock feeding crib? That’s the sign? Come on, how can THAT be the sign?
I mean, here we are, poor shepherds that we are, out here on this hillside in the cold, the kinds of people that the busy and prosperous folks in town don’t even notice, maybe don’t even know exist, and you, an angel of God shows up to tell us this thing and you tell us that YOU’RE NOT THE SIGN? That this baby in a manger is the sign, is our Savior? No offense, but angels of the Lord just don’t show up on cold hillsides to people like us. Maybe in the Temple in Jerusalem. Maybe in the royal palace or to the rich and wise…we’ve heard about that in the Bible, but US? And YOU? And the whole heavenly host praising God? Right here and right now? And you tell us that THIS IS NOT IT, that the real sign is down in some barn in Bethlehem?”
I am trying to imagine what would be going through my mind if I had been one of those shepherds. I am not overly skeptical and hardly cynical at all, but it seems to me that an angel in the hand is worth two in the bush, or a baby in the manger for that matter. If am angel appeared to me and told me such good news, only to followed by a host of angels praising God…well, I’m only human…it would be hard for me to imagine that they were only there to point out the really amazing thing God was doing.
But that is the point, isn’t it? The entire Christ event, from birth in a barn in Bethlehem, in a cave where animals were sheltered is actually more precise, to no details worth mentioning youth in rural Galilee, to walking around Galilee and Judea with a dozen guys just like him, even to Palm Sunday and Good Friday, the whole thing was pretty inconspicuous. No one else in Bethlehem was aware that something special was going on on that hillside or in that cave that night. They were all safely tucked in their beds. All the stories we have from the Gospels happened off the beaten path, out by the lake, in the fields, under trees by the roadside, in peoples’ homes, except for perhaps the feeding of the multitudes and the healings. Even those happened in the countryside and not in Jerusalem. And speaking of Jerusalem, we know from history that Jesus’ triumphal entry on Palm Sunday happened at the same time Roman Legions were marching into Jerusalem on the other side of town and thousands of Passover Pilgrims were filling the old walled city to the brim. Jesus parade was a sideshow at best. The Last Supper was a small event in a private room. Even Jesus hanging on a Cross would have looked just like another poor, unlucky Jew who had somehow fallen afoul of the Roman authorities.
All very unremarkable, at first glance, when compared with all the important things going on in the world….except for the fact that this was and is God’s salvation. God, you see, does not force anyone’s hand. God offers gentle invitations. God pops up here, pushes a little there, pokes a finger through here, nudges there, and every now and then bursts forth over here or kindles something new over there, connecting people with each other seemingly by coincidence.
God invites us to get up and go to the Bethlehems of our lives to see what is really going on, to be part of the new and abundant life which is already being born all around us. This is truly Good News. We do not need to wait for angel to show up and literally cast us to our knees in fear and amazement, while we quickly try to get out IPhones so we can capture it all for posterity.
I think that you know it’s true. So many of you have told me of the times you have experienced God in your lives, and no one has yet told me about a heavenly host appearing to them. It’s almost always the surprisingly little things, the brief moments of presence, the sudden windows opening into eternity, the glimpses of so much more, the relationships with others, the moments of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, new hope, gentle care.
And then what do we do? We rush off to do the million important things we have to get done. We double book, multi-task, rush here and there, overspend which keeps us longer hours at work, over eat and then try to exercise it off in between appointments, redecorate, reorganize our closets, throw out the old and bring in the new, turn the page on the calendar, knocking old things and adding new ones to our honey-do lists, and we wonder where God is…if we even manage to find the time to slow down long enough for that stray thought to find its way into out overcharged minds and lives.
I am not condemning you because the life I describe is the life I wrestle with, juggling work and family and children’s time and marriage time and personal time and professional advancement with personal fulfillment and so on, and so on, and so on, until some weeks rush by in a blur and I don’t know what became of my life it’s been living me so intensely.
“Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the messiah, the Lord.” It’s already going on right now in your lives. God is in there with you. The only standing between you and the glory of God is…well, you.