Christmas Eve, 2004
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Taneytown, Maryland,
Pastor Nicholas Brie
A store owner in a small town had a large sign in the window
reading: "Mary Christmas." A tourist called the owner's attention
to the error and asked, "Hasn't anyone told you about it before?"
"Oh, to be sure," replied the owner. "Many folks have. But when
they come in to tell me, they always purchase something before
they leave."
I considered putting it on the outdoor sign board, wondering
how many folks would stop in to tell us it was incorrect. Of
course, we have nothing to sell, only to give away-the gift of
love in our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. The actual meaning
of the name, Jesus, is: the one who saves. So, through Jesus, we
give the gift of love-love, the only thing that will save us all.
Recently I asked a little boy what he wanted for Christmas.
"Two Teddy bears," he said. "Why two," I asked. He replied, "So I
can share."
The wonderful thing about sharing the love that comes to us in
Jesus is that as soon as we share that love it is replaced. We
don't need any more than the love we receive. As soon as we share
it, we have just as much again to share.
A stranger arrived at a church on Christmas Eve to talk to the
pastor. "Pastor," he said, "I've been floating around long enough.
Could I join your church and settle down?" "Why, yes, of course,"
the pastor replied. "Let me just ask you a few questions to find
out how much you know about the Bible and religion." Since it was
Christmas Eve the pastor naturally started by asking, "Where was
Jesus born?" The man answered, "In Pittsburg." The pastor shook
his head and the man tried again, "In Philadelphia?" Again the
pastor shook his head, and not wishing to embarrass the man any
further he said, "Jesus was born in Bethlehem." Quickly the man
declared, "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it was someplace in
Pennsylvania."
Well, we don't have to wonder about where Jesus was born. We
know, today, that Jesus is born in our hearts, not just a
Christmas, which reminds us of the fact, but born in our hearts
every day that we let him enter in. Just as we sing in a Christmas
Carol, "…where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ
enters in."
Jesus was also called Immanuel (spelled with an "I" or an "E,"
one being the Greek spelling, one the Latin). And, as Matthew
tells us in his Gospel, Immanuel means "God with us."
Sometimes we don't feel like God is present with us at all.
Sometimes the harsh realities of life leave us feeling
disconnected from God. Make us feel as though God is somewhere far
off, not always reachable. We feel there's a gap "between what is
and what should be, between what we long for and what we
experience." Often this gap seems so profound, so deeply personal,
that people experience depression.
Recently I read an article by Daniel B. Clendenin, the tile of
which I used for my sermon, "Bette Midler Was Wrong." In the
article he expressed some things I have felt for a long time, plus
a feeling about a song which Bette Midler made popular, which I,
like he, really like. In the song "Bette Midler captures this
deeply human but ambivalent sense of longing. From a sanitized
"distance," life feels safer and better than what we experience up
close and personal. The song is "From a Distance." I quote it now.
From a distance,
The world looks blue and green,
And the snow capped mountains white.
From a distance,
The ocean meets the stream,
And the eagle takes to flight
From a distance,
There is harmony,
And it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope,
It's the voice of peace,
It's the voice of every man.
From a distance,
We all have enough,
And no one is in need.
And there are no guns,
No bombs and no disease,
No hungry mouths to feed.
From a distance,
We are instruments,
Marching in a common band,
Playing songs of hope,
Playing songs of peace,
They are the songs of every man.
From a distance,
You look like my friend,
Even though we are at war.
From a distance,
I just cannot comprehend
What all this fighting's for.
From a distance
There is harmony,
And it echoes through the land.
And it's the hope of hopes,
It's the love of loves,
It's the heart of every man.
Chorus:
God is watching us,
God is watching us,
God is watching us,
From a distance.
"Such is life at arm's length, or at the dramatic 'distance'
between human longing and our experience of reality."
It's the chorus of that song that has always bothered me.
Everything about the song I feel deeply, but the chorus, the last
line of the chorus, spoils the song for me. It puts God at a
distance. We need to experience God "up close and personal," not
at a distance. We need to feel some sort of resolution to our
longing so that our hope is not based on wishful thinking. The
song tells us that God is watching us, not up close, but from a
distance. From afar. From way off in heaven somewhere. Almost
unreachable, untouchable. Watching us from a distance.
"The truly Good News at Christmas is that that Bette Midler was
wrong. Whatever else our Christian God is, he is NOT a distant or
detached God." We celebrate that fact at Christmas: Immanuel-God
with us. God came to us in human form, in the form of a very
vulnerable baby, and came to us under circumstances that were less
than hospitable; born in a very difficult setting, not warm and
cozy or friendly, but in a cold barn, midst the smell of stale and
stained hay. Yet he came to us even under those circumstances
because he wanted us to know how much he loves us. Wanted us to
know he experiences our harsh realities. Wanted us to know he was
reachable, touchable. Wanted us to know we are worth loving, no
matter what it took to prove that to us- Immanuel. We are worth
loving.
"God is not silent, aloof or remote. The "Distant God" is a sad
relic from 18th century ideas, which held a firm belief in God but
then relegated him to the status of absentee landlord who never
meddled in human affairs. In the Gospel from Matthew, when Matthew
searched for a way to bring the essence of the meaning of that
first Christmas, he reached back 700 years to a single verse, a
single word from Isaiah 7:14: The virgin will be with child and
will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel. And
then Matthew translates that word for his readers: 'God with us.'
"In that single Hebrew word, Immanuel, God with us, resides the
essence of what Christmas is about, what Christians believe
happened at the birth of Jesus. God took on human flesh and
entered our world to embrace and redeem us. Whether we feel his
presence or not, he is near us. Even though we all stumble in many
ways, he is near us. Nothing we say or do could draw him closer or
drive him away. Regardless of what we have done or left undone,
said or left silent, God is near to us.
Confident of God's nearness, for each of us individually, but
also for all the world, Christians should be the ultimate
optimists. We believe that God's nearness signals a world of
positive possibilities as we share the love of God, strengthened
by Christ in our heart, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
A good Christmas prayer for this year comes from the words of a
Christmas Carol by Phillips Brooks, one of the country's greatest
preachers of 1800's. "O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we
pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today. We hear
the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell; O come to us,
abide with us, our Lord Immanuel."
Bette Midler was wrong: God is not at a distance, because God
is with us, Immanuel.
Amen.