"An Authentic Christmas for All:The Contrasts of Christmas"
God is both imminent and transcendent
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Text: Luke 2:25-35
There is something clandestine going on in the world today. Many of the things we hold dear and have taught ourselves to believe are true, and many of the values we espouse and think are laudable, are being undermined even as we speak. They have been undermined in many ways for 2,000 years, ever since a little Jewish boy was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
In his great book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis described this clandestine work as an invasion. American writer, Dallas Willard, suggested it is also a subversive work. Emile Brunner, a great 20th century theologian, described Jesus' birth as an encounter that changes the world at the point of its unbelief. God, in God's Son, came into the world to forever change the way we think, the values we hold dear and those things to which we ascribe honour and power. By the grace of a child, he sought to change what the world holds dear.
They called this child Emmanuel - “God with us.” “God with us” still comes into our world like a subversive invasion to challenge, change, and make new. The Son made the decision to come in what the Apostle Paul called “the fullness of the time” - in the right place and historical circumstance. He decided to carry out a role, and to come ever new into our lives every Advent.
Recently, I have been reading about the many movie stars who, by virtue of their pride and sometimes arrogance, didn't take parts they were offered. Burt Lancaster turned down a little part in a little movie called Ben Hur. Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandolf in The Lord of the Rings because he thought no one would be into hobbits, and he would look a fool if he took part in such a movie.
In perhaps the biggest turn-down of all time, Cary Grant declined the role of a man called James Bond and 007, thinking the series was shallow and would go absolutely nowhere. Well, he was partly right. It is shallow, but it has gone a long, long way. Similarly, Michelle Pfeiffer turned down the lead role in a movie that she thought no one would watch because it was too dark. It was called The Silence of the Lambs.
Isn't it amazing that even great minds and astute figures can decide not to take on important roles when they are offered them? But Jesus took the role of the Son of God - a role that he knew would end in his own death. Incarnate in human form, he bore the weakness of humanity and, in a clandestine way, dwelled among us, full of grace and truth.
I want to explore the difference that coming in person really made. We often read scripture in what we know academically as a pericope. We get a glimpse; we focus on one story from one of the gospels from which we derive ideas. Another method of studying scripture, concatenation, links various pericopes so we can see the whole. I think it's a great loss that we do not look at the Christmas story as a whole. Advent gives us the opportunity to look at the annunciation to Mary, Zacharias' song, the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, John's high theology, right through to the presentation of Jesus to Simeon in the temple.
I have been reading this Christmas story anew this year from beginning to the end, and I have realized something: It is full of contrasts that reveal a lot about the coming of Jesus into the world. The first contrast is in how Jesus was worshipped. Matthew shows the high worship of the Magi, who presented Jesus with expensive gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. As I suggested a few weeks ago, Matthew wanted to show the royal Christ, the high Christ who is worthy of adoration by monarchs, the wise, the insightful, the illuminati.
In contrast, Luke traces the announcement of Christ's birth to shepherds on a hillside doing their ordinary, everyday tasks and living their ordinary, everyday lives. In the midst of the ordinary, Jesus arrives. Angels announce, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom God is well pleased.” So the shepherds present themselves in holy awe before Jesus of Nazareth.
When we join these two pericopes together, we see the high Christ being worshipped as the Lord, Saviour and monarch, as well as the low Christ, who meets us in the ordinary and the everyday. It is staggering to think that this Jesus is worthy of the praise and the adoration of both monarchs and ordinary people.
Not long ago, I read some statistics about the Queen's last visit to the United States of America. When she came with her entourage, she brought 4,000 pounds of luggage with her, which makes me seem very light when I travel, I must admit! Four thousand pounds of luggage! She brings 40 pints of plasma with her just in case there is a medical emergency. I always knew that royal blood was a little denser than average, but 40 pints is kind of over the top. She also brings specially lined toilet seats (which I didn't need to know about) and her last visit to the United States, when you factor everything in, including travel and security, probably cost in the realm of $20 million. Staggering!
I watched the Queen at the celebration of her wedding anniversary. The camera focused in on her and there she was on her knees in front of the Bible and prayer book reading as she listened to a sermon on I Corinthians 13. After a prayer of blessing and the benediction, the camera focused on her again, with her head bowed. I couldn't help but think, here was a monarch - probably the most noted monarch on earth, who spends millions of dollars whenever she goes somewhere - on her knees, praying to the Child of Bethlehem. I was in awe.
Even today, kings and queens still recognize this Child from Bethlehem. But it is not only the high and mighty who worship. Ordinary people find an affirmation in worship and in Christ that gives them a sense of wellbeing and hope. About seven or eight years ago, I met a group of people who were homeless and living in a special place. It is now being knocked down and the area is being re-built. I got to know some of them and in the last few years, some have found jobs, some are living in apartments and some are still on the street and in shelters. They really were a community.
I decided that every Advent I would take them somewhere for afternoon tea. They all seem to know where to find each other. It is an amazing connection! A number of them showed up - fewer than last year, but nevertheless they came. We had afternoon tea and cake, laughed and told stories and found out how everyone was doing. They all made fun of me and we had a wonderful time. As I often do, I asked if there was anything that I, or our church, could do for them. Four of them said, “We'd like you to take us for a drive in your car.”
I said, “Well, er, are you sure?”
“Oh yes, please,” they replied. “We want to go for a drive in your car.”
So I agreed, reluctantly, and said, “Pile in!” Then I asked, “Where do you want to go?”
They told me they wanted to go to a particular hotel and I thought, “This is not good.” But I agreed, not knowing what they were going to do, or why.
We went to a very well-known, high-end hotel and I drove through the semi-circle around to the front door. All of a sudden, the four of them got out of one side of the car. The bellman held the door for them and they ran around the car, and then got back in the other side!
They said, “Quickly, drive away!”
So I pulled off down the road in a great hurry, smoke pouring out of my tires. (That's an exaggeration, but I got out as quickly as humanly possible!) Meanwhile, the bellman was still standing there in his coat and hat wondering what on earth had just happened.
I asked them, “What on earth are you doing?”
They said, “Someone like that would never hold the door for someone like us until we did something like this.”
They felt so proud of themselves - this made their day!
We drove down the road, decided to have another coffee - I needed to de-program - and we stopped and chatted. I realized something in talking to them: One of the things they crave most is for someone to recognize who they are. They are not just anonymous; they are not just faces in the crowd, to use that awful phrase. Each of them is somebody!
I can't help but think that worship provides exactly that kind of recognition for many people. For the lowly, humble and poor - wherever they might be in this world - when you enter a church, when you worship Christ, you realize that you are known. The Babe of Bethlehem affirms that you are loved, known by name and recognized. Worship is the response to the One who knows; it is the response to the One who says, “I love you and I have come, in a clandestine way, to let you know that.”
Another contrast is revealed in God's methods versus the world's. Caesar Augustus decreed that there should be a census and everyone had to appear in the town of their family name. Why? It was because the Roman Empire wanted control. A census was a way of knowing who was who; it was a way of having social control over places that had been subjugated.
I contrast that with the words of the angels: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom he is well pleased.”
One lifts up power, authority and prestige; the other reveals grace, love and the presence of God. One uses force to ensure that people comply; the other demonstrates love, that people may follow. One uses arms; the other uses peace.
When Christ came into the world, he demonstrated that the methods of God were not the methods of this world. No one saw that more than Simeon. He said, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”
Simeon understood that God's method would bring down those from high places who elevate themselves above God's justice and truth. Those who hold on to values and mores that are contrary to the Kingdom of God will fall in the presence of this child. It is staggering when you think about it. Isn't it amazing that Caesar Augustus, and the great Roman Empire that so many thought would last for thousands of years, have evaporated into the sands of time, but the Christ Child, the Holy One of Israel, is the source of our praise this morning.
Last Christmas, someone loaned me a DVD. She said, “You really should see this. It is a magnificent story.”
So I watched The Polar Express. It is an amazing story about a young boy who wants to go to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. He boards a train, and has many adventures with a little girl. As the train climbs a very steep, slippery hill, the conductor and the two children go to get more coal.
The conductor warns them that it is very slippery and to watch out for the ice, but the young boy slips and falls. The conductor grasps him and saves him, then shares a story about his own close call.
The conductor says, “Years ago, on my first Christmas Eve run, I was up on the roof making my rounds when I slipped on the ice. I reached out for a hand of iron, but it broke off, and I slid and I fell. Yet I did not fall off the train.”
The girl asks, “Someone saved you?
“Or something,” the conductor replies.
“An angel?”
“Maybe.”
Then the boy says, “Wait, wait, what did he look like? Did you see him?”
The conductor answers, “No. Sometimes seeing is believing, and sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we cannot see.”
In the Babe of Bethlehem, there was a Saviour at work that many could not see. Yet, in a secret, mysterious way he came to challenge all authorities, powers and kingdoms. He came to overthrow the force of evil and the power of sin. He came quietly as a child, in a clandestine way, to overturn the old order and bring in the new. This was a contrast of both joy and judgment. More often than not, when we speak of Christmas, we like to think of joy. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!; Joy to the world! The Lord has come: Let earth receive her King! We sing these carols.
But Christmas is more than that. Perhaps an illustration from science would help. There is a sense in which, at Christmas, a centrifugal force is at work - one that pushes out from the centre. But there is also a centripetal force at work that brings things to the centre. It is like a stone at the end of a string: One force works away from the centre, the other holds the stone near to the centre. Christmas is like that: There is a centrifugal force at work in that God is high and distant. God is somehow beyond what we can conceive, a God who is mysterious, but a God at work.
Sometimes God is the centripetal force, a God who is at the centre; a God who is near; a God who came as a child and dwells among us: Emmanuel, God with us. It is that tension between the centrifugal God and the centripetal God that makes God and Christmas so special. God is with us intimately, but God is at a distance. God gives us joy, warmth and wellbeing because he is with us, but God also reminds us that he is above us and stands in judgment over us.
The great New Testament scholar and Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, wrote:
Christmas is not about the living God coming to tell us that everything is all right. The Gospel is not about Jesus speaking the truth and everyone saying, ”˜Well, of course, why didn't we realize that before?' It is about God shining his clear, bright torch into the darkness of our world, our lives, our hearts, our imaginations, and the darkness not comprehending it. It is about God - God as a little child speaking words of truth, and nobody knowing what he is talking about.
This is a God that comes, as Simeon said, and questions what is in our hearts.
This Christmas, we must allow God to be with us, to question our hearts and to challenge us. It is not enough to simply sing nice songs and have kind thoughts. Christ has come that our lives might be transformed into his likeness and be obedient to his will. He comes to us as both joy and judgment. He comes to us as the king and sovereign. He comes to us as the Holy One, one among us. He comes to us in the high places, and in the dark places that he might reveal his light upon us.
For us to have an authentic Christmas in a truly powerful and meaningful way, let us realize that this Child comes in secret to change us from within that we might be made into the likeness of his Son. What a contrast this Christmas message brings! Amen.