If you were here this past
Sunday you would have heard the Herald Angel say
Emmanuel...God with us. On this night, we celebrate the
fact that God has come to live among us…that the
glorious light of the eternal has chosen to walk upon
the earth beside us as man. But you would also have
heard the three angels talking amongst themselves asking
a very important question…why? Why would Jesus degrade
himself like that? What could he possibly accomplish by
being human? One angel even commented that she would
have given up on those humans after the flood.
Well, we might ask the same
questions. Since the world still reels daily from human
acts of aggression and misunderstanding. How do we
substantiate the claim that God is with us? Lately,
Christians have watched with dismay as the symbols of
our faith are one-by-one removed from public view and
our ability to declare this faith is hampered by another
person's legal right NOT to hear it. Even our annual
celebration that honors his birth and joyfully heralds
our anticipation that Christ will come again in majesty
is complicated with so many secular practices that most
children and adults haven't got a clue that Christmas is
about Jesus and his long awaited second coming. It has
turned into a marathon of shopping, baking, and a series
of parties that begin the day after Thanksgiving and end
for many on December 25th. Then off they go for a week
of relaxation, fun in the sun, or skiing down the snow
covered slopes of Colorado. Totally missing the fact
that December 25th marks the beginning of 12 days of
royal celebration culminating with January 6 when the
Magi come and declare that the nations of the world
recognize that Jesus is the ultimate ruler of this
earth. WOW. But fear not, we are not the first
generation of Christians to see that Christ somehow gets
lost in the shuffle of wrapping paper and tinsel.
The celebration of Christmas has
always been complex. So much so that in days of old the
church actually attempted to have Christmas banned. It
was in England during the time of Oliver Cromwell. His
Puritan Party passed legislation outlawing Christmas. In
England there would be no more lavish and raucous
celebration, no more commercial exploitation, there
would be no more Christmas, period. Viewed by the
Puritans as superfluous, not to mention threatening, to
core Christian beliefs, all activities to do with
Christmas, both domestic and religious, including
attending church, were forbidden.
But the people were outraged.
There was rioting in the streets. Secret Christmas
celebrations broke out all over England. Parliament
decreed penalties of imprisonment for anyone caught
celebrating the holiday. Town criers went through the
streets a few days before Christmas, reminding people
that "Christmas and all other superstitious festivals"
should not be observed, businesses should remain open.
There were to be no displays of Christmas decorations.
The Puritans although surprised
by the strength of popular resistance to their
anti-Christmas policies would not alter them or
compromise their principles. They simply went down to
defeat in the next elections. The Puritans were thrown
out of power - and Christmas was back. Except in cold
New England, the zeal of the Puritans persisted long
after it had faded away in England. The holiday that we
know as Christmas remained outlawed in Massachusetts
until the second half of the nineteenth century. Anyone
caught celebrating would pay a fine of five shillings to
the county.
Well obviously, the Puritan
fervor did not take hold here. I look out among this
congregation and it is apparent that we come with a
sense that there is something more to Christmas than all
the wrapped presents and all the festivities. We have
come this night not to argue about whether our holiday
customs are correct or appropriate. Our society is as it
is and our lives are intimately interwoven. We have come
instead hoping that we will be filled with the Spirit
that came into the world so long ago…a spirit that
enables us to move among all the customs of the world
and find what is holy and good and anchor our witness
there. There is nothing that makes any one of us any
more spiritual or any more loved by God than another
sitting in this sanctuary, any cathedral, or humble
prayer space in the world. We are here because God has
called us here. Called us out of the frenzied pace of
this season to spend time with Jesus and fill us with
peace.
When you walk out this door
tonight, there will be feasts, breakfasts and dinners
waiting for you in someone's home. But there is not a
feast more important than the table that you have set
before you where Jesus sits as host. You will be greeted
merrily in the coming days by friend and stranger alike
but none more graciously than he who says welcome to
this place.
The questions asked by our
pageant angels can be answered only with the word
"Love." Imagine the greatest love story you have ever
known. Envision if you will the things that make the one
you love so special. Or what you believe it would be
like if you truly could love someone. This is what our
God is like. Willing to know us so intimately that
becoming like us, experiencing our lives with us would
be the one way we could know that a relationship with
the eternal can exist.
Perhaps we regret that we have
not been more vocal as our nation began to devalue its
religious heritage and separate the spiritual from the
mundane. But if we bemoan our lack of involvement then
we have placed our faith inappropriately. It is not we
who are responsible for bringing about the kingdom.
God's kingdom came in God's own time and it began in a
stable in Bethlehem. It was announced with the greatest
of royal fanfare to the lowliest of society. Shepherds
who slept more nights with the animals and under the
stars were the first to see the heavenly lights and hear
the hosts of angels. How wonderful that God found it
fitting to come to those of meager esteem. This night is
for society's outcasts for this is when the heavens
declared that God loves. Jesus, born in a stable felt
the courseness of homespun, found warmth in the cattle's
breath and was cushioned by a bed of straw. Allow this
humble love to be born in you this night.
Author, educator, and pastor
Howard Thurman put it this way. "The spirit of Christmas
- what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of
the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is
the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from
its mother's womb, it claims its right to live. It is
the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making
crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired
hearts refreshed, dead hopes stirred with the newness of
life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of
every day, the movement of life in defiance of death,
and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that
right is more confident than wrong, that good is more
permanent than evil."