Christmas Eve 2015 St Martin in the Fields Church The Reverend Dr. John F. McCard Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. That s not Darth Vader, my wife said, as she looked at the woman in Target holding the large oversized Storm trooper. That s not Darth Vader, she repeated once more as the frazzled mom stared blankly back at her. Prior to this conversation she had overheard the mom telling her friend how much her son wanted a Darth Vader figure for Christmas and how lucky she was to have finally found one even if it was white. This went on for a few minutes and my wife soon found that she just could not contain herself, hence the exchange which led Cynthia to interrupt their conversation. That s not Darth Vader Now before going on with my story, you need to realize two critical things about my wife First, she doesn t like Star Wars and second, she only suffers through science fiction movies because she is married to me. 1
And yet she could not stand by and let this potential Christmas catastrophe happen as the angels fearlessly announced the birth of our savior, my wife courageously proclaimed that this woman was holding on to the wrong toy. Of course, her story of mistaken toy identity got me thinking of how we often assume that everyone knows the particulars or the characters of a well-known tale. Don t we all know that Snow White lived with Seven Dwarves, and that Cinderella had a wicked stepmother and a back up glass slipper? And even this evening as we listen to the familiar story of Jesus birth, we should not take for granted that we all hear the story in the same way or even remember there is a difference between King Herod and Pontius Pilate. Trust me, both still bad guys. The Christmas story is familiar to most people through children s pageants, books and movies. But tonight I want to spend a few minutes revisiting this tale and talking about our own roles in the Christmas story. There is certainly no denying the story continues to have a strange haunting power over our hearts and souls that draw us each year to this place, this church. And that power I suspect is not just a nostalgic longing for Christmases past. What draws us most compellingly is hope: hope for this present Christmas, and hope for our future even as we find ourselves in the 2
midst of our own stories that seem so fraught with peril and danger The unfolding of our Savior s birth in the events of Christmas speak to our deepest longings as human beings there is something in this story that we all desire In this familiar story of shepherds, angels, and that simple birth; we see the triumph of the power of love over the love of power; In this story we hear again the proclamation that peace, compassion, and forgiveness are part of God's good news for all people; Even in the commercialized, over-blown sentimentality of television specials and coffee commercials -- there is something in Christmas that we want, something we are seeking. The Christmas story helps remind us that we are a people desperate for incarnation, desperate for God to come to God's world again and to bring the peace and love that this world is unable to provide. We want things to get better; we want this birth to happen again, to keep happening -- in our broken lives and in our world. 3
And the good news of Christmas is that it can keep happening, and it does happen. God has not deserted us; God has not left us alone. God can still come to us, as God did that first Christmas; and that God is still trying to reach out to us and to our world. As I have read various posts on Facebook leading up to this evening s service, many of my clergy colleagues appear to be wringing their collective hands at the state of the world. They make the common mistake of assuming that Jesus world did not have terrorism it did not have violence, hate. or storm troopers or even a couple of petty Darth Vader s claiming power, inciting fear and feeding off of people s hate and mistrust of one another. Truth be told, things this evening are not really different from the first century. Our hopes and our fears of all the years are about the same now as they have always been. Life is more comfortable for some, less so for others, maybe more complicated for most of us. And still, we tell the story of God reaching out to us through the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. At this point in my sermon, you might be saying to yourself, what does it really matter then? Has Jesus birth made any difference? Is the human story just one endless cycle of hate and violence down through the centuries? 4
While it might be tempting to give into this kind of pessimism, I want to suggest to you that there are some critical differences between the first Christmas night and our celebration of that birth this evening. First is the simple fact that we are here, the church is here, you are here. That makes a difference, my friends. As the word becomes flesh to dwell among us, as God reaches out in love to this world and our lives, it matters that we are here this holy night. Because we are here, as a friend of mine once wrote, the manger is closed, and the angels have been sent elsewhere. Now what does it mean when we say this? First, the manger was there, because there had to be a place for the birth of our savior. It had to be somewhere, and as Scripture reminds us "There was no room for them in the inn. Actually that s probably not true. There was plenty of room at the inn -- if the people who were there had been willing to share; to move some of their stuff, and some of their worries, and some of their fear, over to one side and so make room in that place for Mary, Joseph and Jesus. But nobody did. After all, Mary didn't look like she was going to be famous. She looked like any other tired, scared, young woman who had just traveled 90 dangerous miles, left her family behind, and was about to have her first baby by herself. Young women like Mary were a dime a dozen in those days. The world took one look at her and, next thing you know, the inn was full and no one is willing to lose something for her. 5
So, that first Christmas, the manger was open. The manger was the place that God provided for that birth to occur, since no one else had any room in their inn or their hearts. But the church is here now, and the manger has been closed. You see, it is our calling, our task, to create that manger, to be that place where there is room for Jesus to be born. We are to make that space within ourselves, and within our world for God s love to be present to God s people. To us is given the task to make sure that we are not so weighed down by stuff, so consumed by anxiety, so caught up in the tasks at hand, that there is no room for the birth of hope in our shattered lives. That is what we are to be about. The manger is closed this year, but we are here -- and still God comes into our world. The other difference is that the angels, the ones who told the good news to the shepherds, have been sent elsewhere. They have other responsibilities you see. You ll remember that the angels were the ones God sent to tell the good news to the shepherds. They were sent because nobody else would do it In those days, shepherds were considered unclean, dishonest, and poor. In fact, the shepherds were almost certainly the least appreciated, bottom of the barrel people within walking distance of Bethlehem. So, of course, they had to be told first. 6
And of course they had to be invited. That is how God works. God goes into the fields and highways to insure that "the least of these" hear the good news first of God s love and compassion for all people. So, that first Christmas, the angels were sent to sing the good news to the outcasts, the unpopular, the unlikely recipients of God's love and concern. But the church is here now, we are here now, and the angels have been sent elsewhere. Now the business of proclaiming God's grace and mercy to those the world loves the least is ours-and God still insists that these be told. We all know that there are plenty of shepherds still out there, some even like us, who despite our loneliness, our pain, our suffering long to hear the good news the angels and the church now bring. Their song is our song to sing. This role of ours, the business of being a manger and being the angels, is the gift that God offers each Christmas. It is the way God calls us and helps to make us part of his gift to the world. As I said before, what we want most from Christmas is hope; and that hope my brothers and sisters is real. Real when we provide a place for Jesus in our lives and real when we share the good news of how this simple birth changed our world. The word has indeed become flesh to dwell among us let us rejoice and sing this song anew to our weary world. Merry Christmas. 7