Sermons from First Congregational Church of Southington

Transcription

1 Sermons from First Congregational Church of Southington Christ Climbed Down John Christmas Day December 25, 2016 The Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Brown John In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father s only son, full of grace and truth. I. I thought we had dodged a bullet. If you ve been with us through Advent you will know that Rachel and I did a sermon series using images from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. That meant we didn t have to deal with the person practically ever preacher dreads during Advent John the Baptist. We re trying to get ready for Christmas and turn the corner early in Advent and who is standing there waiting for us? It s the one character that never appears in anyone s nativity set, John the Baptist, and he s hopping mad an ax in one hand and a pitchfork in the other and the sparks are flying. John is not exactly Christmas card material. He's standing knee-deep in the river and delivering a hell-fire and brimstone sermon.

2 You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Merry Christmas! I thought we could avoid that, but here it is, Christmas Day, and John the Baptist still stands in front of us. But the Gospel of John doesn t seem concerned with the Baptist blistering sermon. Instead, John is more concerned with telling us who John is not. The gospel wants us to be clear that John the Baptist is not the Messiah, but simply came to bear witness to the Christ. He is not the light he came to testify to the light. The true light was coming into the world. And into the world that light has come. Christ our Savior is born this day. The fiery sermons only paved the way. When Christ is born God s love takes over. Jesus is never what we expect him to be. We put up trees, buy presents to give to others, remember those less fortunate, listen to the beautiful carols of Christmas and we think we have seen the Christ Child again. But when Christ is born, it seems to me, it is always in unexpected places. It is always in the dark places, and the darkness cannot overcome the light born this day. And that light can show up even in the darkest places. II. In his wonderful book, Man s Search for Meaning, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, tells a story of how God s light can shine even in the most terrible of circumstances. During World War II he was imprisoned in a German concentration camp. His wife had died there, but he spoke with her still in the midst of the darkness. We were at work in a trench, he writes. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. I was again conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious Yes in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. Et lux in tenebris lucet and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very

3 strong: she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me. Nothing can put out God s gentle light, not even what we ve done to Christmas with all its commercialism and glaring light that tries to convince us we need something more than God to convince us the existence of our ultimate purpose. III. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a wonderful poem that illustrates our vain attempts to figure out who Jesus is, and points us to where we might truly find him. The poem is called Christ Climbed Down and here is part of it. there were no rootless Christmas trees hung with candycanes and breakable stars there were no gilded Christmas trees and no tinsel Christmas trees and no tinfoil Christmas trees and no pink plastic Christmas trees and no gold Christmas trees and no black Christmas trees and no powderblue Christmas trees hung with electric candles and encircled by tin electric trains and clever cornball relatives... no intrepid Bible salesmen covered the territory in two-tone cadillacs and where no Sears Roebuck creches complete with plastic babe in manger arrived by parcel post the babe by special delivery and where no televised Wise Men praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

4 and softly stole away into some anonymous Mary's womb again where in the darkest night of everybody's anonymous soul He awaits again an unimaginable and impossibly Immaculate Reconception the very craziest of Second Comings 1 That is how Christ comes and every year, in the darkest night of everybody s anonymous soul, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. IV. I want to conclude with a story about how God s gentle light scattered the darkness this very Christmas. It happened at South Church in New Britain, where I used to serve as pastor and now my wife, Jane, is pastor. South Church is in downtown New Britain and has many programs to serve people without homes. One of them, Feed the Need, serves a hot breakfast every Tuesday morning to anyone who is hungry. Al Kennedy is one of the finest people I know. Al volunteers for Feed the Need, and on the first Tuesday in November he hung his coat on the coat rack at South Church in Britain and was serving breakfast to the neighbors gathered there. When he finished and went to get his coat, it was gone. His keys were in the pocket. What a pain. That s the thanks he gets for trying to help. Then something remarkable happened this past week. One morning last week, Al s phone rang. He normally wouldn t answer an unknown number, but for some reason he thought he should answer this call. The caller had a heavy accent. After several attempts, he finally understood. I have your keys. How do you know that they are my keys? Al asked. I took them to CVS and they read your CVS card and gave me your name and phone number. Al was stunned and said, What do you want from me? The man said, I want to return your keys. Al asked, "Where did you find the keys?" "I found them in front of a church on Broad Street in Hartford. But they were stolen from a church in New Britain. He said he found them and gave them to the pastor of the Broad Street church to see if anyone would claim them. Nobody did. That's when he decided to investigate through CVS. Al told him he could meet him during his lunch break. Al s colleagues at work had warned him to be very careful in that neighborhood. When he arrived there was a man, waving at him. Hi! I'm Jose Reyes, and extended his hand with the long lost keys and a broad smile. Al immediately felt at ease, and thanked him profusely. Al reached into his wallet to give him a reward for his efforts, but he said he didn't need that. So Al said "Give it to 1 Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Christ Climbed Down, in The Roads from Bethlehem, eds. Pegram Johnson III and Edna M. Troiano, (Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press, 1993),

5 your favorite charity." He said he would give it to his grandchildren. Al shook his hand and told him that he is a good man! We were two very happy human beings at that moment. The light shines in the darkness, because God s love is being born into the world today every day, when we are still enough and quiet enough to see God s gentle light in the cry of a baby. And it may be the very craziest of second comings. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, cannot overcome it.