A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
One of the wonders of creation is the coexistence of opposites. A heap of dead compost can bring forth new life as plants feed off the nutrients it produces. Death and life are intertwined. Children can be the most vulnerable among us, needing us to feed, clothe, and protect them. Yet the spirit of a child can be one of the most powerful forces on earth.
Such is the case in our faith. The birth of the Savior that prompted the night skies to erupt in angelic song is quickly followed by the death of the Innocents, with the nighttime stillness being broken instead by the wailing of grieving mothers. The grisly death of Christ on the cross brings new life to the soul of humanity. How does one make sense of it all? Paul Bresnahan will write the main article, with Carlos Wilton providing the response. Illustrations, a liturgy, and a children's sermon are also included.
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Paul Bresnahan
It is amazing what children can endure. There is an inspiring story of a young man who survived a bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. After both of his parents were slaughtered in the butchery of that time, he was then forced to serve the horrors of military service. Somehow he managed to survive. After a litany of adventures, he ended up living in New York City with a loving adopted family and has now written a compelling book about his experiences that will be published next month. And thus we acknowledge the indomitable spirit of the child now in a young man whose name is Ishmael Beah.
He is not the only child in human and sacred history that endured the rigors of vulnerability when so very young. So too we read of Mohammed, orphaned as a child, Moses cast adrift in the bulrushes; and Jesus who had to flee with his family to Egypt when just days old.
The prophet Isaiah writes:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:5)
Isaiah had these amazing visions. He saw a world where nation would not lift up sword upon nation. It was a vision where we would not learn war any more. And in this particular vision, we have a little child born out of the stem of Jesse. We are told that the Spirit of the Lord shall be with him. He will judge the poor with righteousness and he shall stand up for the meek of the earth. And it will be the Child that will lead them. His name, we are told will be "Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
And so at Christmas a child is born in Bethlehem. Wise men from all over the world still come to him and bring him gifts. So moved are our hearts by this child that we give our most precious and thoughtful gifts to our loved ones as tokens of the hope we have of abiding affection that will endure throughout our lives.
And yet the reality is that the Innocents are slaughtered and even the child will eventually die on a cross for us all. How shall we come to understand the hope of the child and then the reality of such unspeakable cruelty especially when the two occur so closely together in time?
THE WOLRD
The world we live in can be cruel to children and their caregivers. There can be such terrible child abuse. Children can be treated with such violence. They can be neglected and abandoned and given up for adoption. There is a well-documented reality of human trafficking and children are often the primary victims. Forced servitude of both a domestic and a military sort is also well documented. And the children are caught in the crossfire of war and civil strife.
In our own country, we can turn our backs on the children of the Mississippi Delta. It is an act of neglect that I will never understand for as long as I live. I know too many people who have worked diligently in that area who are utterly bewildered as I am by the national impotence, unwillingness, and incompetence when faced with the aftermath of Katrina.
On the other hand, we see the indomitable spirit of the child rise again and again out of the waste places of human cruelty and degradation. They can overcome great odds and make something of themselves. Some go on to make a name for themselves in the sports and entertainment worlds... others merely go on to make good lives for themselves.
THE WORD
The prophet Isaiah begins this Sunday's lesson with the stirring words "Arise, shine, for your light has come" (Isaiah 60:1) but then immediately introduces a vivid contrast by saying "for darkness covers the land, deep gloom enshrouds the people" (Isaiah 60:2). It is in this contrast that we see an old theme such as Dickens tells of in A Tale of Two Cities, the opening line of which is; "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." We are still waiting the time when "the nation will come to God's light and kings come to the brightness of God's dawning" (see Isaiah 60:3). But this is the dream of God, no doubt when all the power on earth finds its focus not on the will of man, but on the will of God. It has been a long time coming, but may it come nonetheless.
The psalmist also stirs the human heart with a notion that the kings of the earth will mete out God's justice and that they will "rule the people righteously and the poor with justice" (Psalm 70:2). That's not quite what we see before our eyes right now. Instead the "special interests" of those with the greatest power and wealth and power find that their interests are most likely to be served at the expense of the very poor the "king" is supposed to be serving. Somehow the entire ethical standard of the biblical mandate has been stood on its ear in so much of Western Society. And so much of it is done, in the US, anyway, in the name of a God who seems to favor the bountiful over the poor.
We have a long way to go before God's light will arise and shine!
Paul points out an even more extraordinary contrast. In the gospel mandate Paul serves from prison, he becomes the Apostle to the Marginalized. I use the word "marginalized" advisedly here, because literally the word "Gentile" means "outsider". In Temple society, there were so many who had become "outsiders" and "marginalized". And it was Jesus who sought out these very ones, as all the gospels make so universally clear. To the embarrassment, and horror of the Pharisees, and Scribes, Jesus consorted with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, and commoners! If he were a prophet, he would know "what sort of persons these were". Interestingly enough, the early Christian community got the point immediately. They sought out the very ones that the Levitical priesthood barred from the Temple. Thus Jesus was on a collision course with the Temple authorities, and Paul and other early followers of Jesus made their way to jail and sometimes to death. It was all done for the sake of "the marginalized", "the outsider"... and may God's church always have the courage to continue faithfully to reach out so!
Ultimately, the wise men came to a manger and gave homage and worship to a little child. Lofty kings came to a humble place with animals and an unwed mother who had just brought forth her little child. There the Star of the East came to rest; it was there that the light did come to rise, for God's light had at last come. The wise men came to realize what had happened there somehow and recognized too that this light was to come to all the nations beyond just a tiny nation in the Middle East. This good news was for all people in all nations and the presence of these three kings was destined to represent forever the embrace of God for ALL!
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The Little Child
It is said that Christmas is for children. That is true enough on one level. All the presents and decorations and even the snow outside is seen as a mystical and magical time for those who are very young. Those of us of "riper" years don't always see the magic in these matters, especially the snow!
But there is another sense in which Christmas is for children. Christmas is for the birth of the baby Jesus and for the worship of him by the child in each of us. The manger scene in our church stand in front of the altar, and when we sing "Silent Night" by candlelight on Christmas Eve something warms the heart of the worshipper far beyond the capacity of words or music to tell. My very soul exults in the hope that this child brings to the earth ever year.
No matter how old, dangerous, and conflicted this world gets, the Child comes to us each year and he seeks to lead us. And I find myself wanting to follow with all my heart! And when the wise men move toward the manger and bring their gifts, I pray for the time when the kings of the earth will come to their senses and recognize that this child is indeed the Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
To the contrary the kings of the Earth, now just a batch of presidents, dictators, and prime ministers, just go about with warfare as the kings have always done. Often under false pretext, they claim defense while seeking control of oil or other sources of power.
It is easy to become simplistic about the realities of international geopolitics, and we don't want to trivialize religion into a kind of milquetoast non violent movement. But the child in us wants to be a bit more creative than self interest seems to require of our current set of diplomats.
The child in us wants to discover how to deal with our enemies who can and do wish us such significant harm. The child in us would like to know how to turn their hearts to us and how to turn our hearts to them so that we can become more of a family on earth.
This is harder said than done when our own families feud so easily over something we cannot always even remember. There's a case I know of where a woman with Alzheimer's could no longer remember why she was angry with her sister. She also could not remember her sister, and unfortunately did not always know who she was herself.
But this child is born each year. And the child is the parent to the adult as some of our best literature teaches us. This child grew and taught us to love one another. He had such a capacity for love that he could even reach out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross so that all of us would come within the reach of his saving embrace.
Somehow we knew that even when he was born. There were so many angels around that night. The star shone brightly. The shepherds and the Kings hastily made their way toward the place where he slept so peacefully. We wanted so much for him to the Anointed One!
So many children suffer now, from abuse, trafficking, and forced military service. We didn't want to see it then about this child, but it was inevitable. The same mother that held him close that first Christmas Eve and then lay him in the manger, would eventually also be the same mother who would hold him in the Pieta, the dying form of him who gave his life for me, and then she would lay him in his tomb.
Somehow we knew all this intuitively on Christmas when the child was born. We know it today on Epiphany, even as the Kings come to bring their gifts. We know about the power of the child in our lives. We know of the hope the children bring into the world when we, however feebly try to protect them.
Ultimately there is but one hope. It is in that one Child who is the Word of God made flesh among us. By chipping away at the heart of stone with which so many are made, someday we will turn to him. Ultimately there is no other way. A little Child shall lead them some day and in that day the light of God will arise and shine!
ANOTHER VIEW
Carlos Wilton
Every Christmas brings its list of hot Christmas gifts: the "must-have" items all the advertisers are talking about. Oftentimes, it's a toy -- anybody remember Tickle Me Elmo? Last year, it was the Nintendo Wii game system (that's still a hot one this year, I'm told).
Another gift item that was really hot this Christmas was a toy that's more for adults: a global positioning system for your car. These things have been out a few years, but the price keeps coming down. Judging from all the displays in the stores -- not to mention all the junk e-mails I've been getting -- this Christmas, it seems, the powers-that-be have decreed that 2007 is the Year of the GPS.
When I was out in California last August, helping our daughter move into her college dorm, I got one of those GPS systems in our rental car. I didn't know the California freeways, so I figured it would help.
Boy, did it ever. Those things are amazing! You don't even need a map. All you have to do is punch in the street address of your destination, and it connects with a satellite, calculating the exact route you should follow. The route shows up on a little map on the screen in front of you. Not only that, a mechanical voice tells you when the next turn's coming up. If you make a mistake and miss the turn, not to worry. It recalculates the route, telling you the best way to get there from your new location.
I wonder about those GPS systems, though. Sooner or later, most new cars will have them, installed at the factory. When that happens, I wonder if anyone will still remember how to read a road map? Will map-reading become a lost art, as rare as engineers who know how to use a slide rule?
Maybe it will be a lost art, like whatever method those three wise men used to find the Christ child. We really have no idea how they did it. Matthew tells us, "there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was" (Matthew 2:9). It couldn't have happened exactly that way, of course, because stars don't hover and move across the sky like that. We now know that stars are celestial bodies vast in their dimensions that display their blazing glory hundreds of thousands of light years from earth. The pinpricks of light we see in the sky are but remnants of leftover starlight, many years old by the time they reach us. For the image of a star to slide across the dome of the sky, then settle in one place, beaming down over a baby's bed like some great spotlight, would require God to so disrupt the order of the universe that it would constitute the biggest miracle ever.
I think it's far more likely that Matthew simply wasn't much of an astronomer. The story came down to him of these mysterious visitors from the east, who found their way to Jesus using the stars, and he understood it to mean that a star moved through the sky, like some beacon, and pointed them directly there. If that had been the way it was, the magi would have had no need to stop at the palace of Herod.
More likely, the magi were astrologers of some sort. The Bethlehem star, whatever it actually was -- a comet, a supernova, a confluence of planets (who's to say?) -- didn't so much guide them to the Christ child as tell them something very significant was happening in that part of the world. They journeyed westward, hoping to pick up other signs of the child's birth -- which they eventually did, at the palace of Herod the King. The chief priests and scribes told them of the ancient prophecies of the Messiah.
We, too, come to Jesus as outsiders. The story of the magi gives us hope.
I was struck, reading the story of the magi again this year, by the role played by the scribes of Israel. The magi go to Herod's palace, and there they find out from the chief priests and scribes where the Messiah is to be born. Now, you'd think those scribes would be the first in line to follow the magi down to Bethlehem. But no, they're not. They stay right where they are. Of all the people who ought to be running to welcome the Messiah's birth, they hold back.
Maybe there's just a little bit of the scribe in all of us.
God hasn't seen fit to issue us with a spiritual GPS system -- any more than God gave the magi a blazing beacon in the sky (despite what the Christmas-card artists would have us believe). Then, as now, something called discernment is needed: the God-inspired ability to look for hints of our Savior's presence in the world, separating those signs out from all the background noise.
The word "epiphany" means something like "revealing." Let us be attentive, in these days, to hints of the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world!
ILLUSTRATIONS
We need to remember how much children can suffer when they and their families are living in poverty. Julia Dinsmore, the author of My Name Is Child of God: Not "Those People": A First-Person Look at Poverty, grew up in generational poverty in South Minneapolis, lacking many things that most of us would consider necessities. Nevertheless she managed to finish high school and put herself through several years of college.
Later, after she married and she and her husband had three sons, he deserted them, and she began working two, or sometimes three, jobs to try to keep the rent paid and food on the table.
Now, when she learns that the place where they formerly lived has been found to be heavily contaminated with arsenic, she wonders, amid all their other problems, how this exposure to arsenic might have affected her boys.
* * *
The type of housing that children grow up in can have an effect on how well they grow and learn, but many US cities are falling far behind in making low-cost housing available for their low-income families.
Various studies have shown that the rate of recidivism -- the number of former prisoners who go on to commit more crimes and are sent back to prison -- correlates with the shortage of low-income housing.
In addition, the reading scores of third-grade boys are used to plan the capacity of future prisons.
-- Lutheran Woman Today, October 2007
* * *
There's good news for all the children on our planet who are living in poverty: various companies have recently announced plans to produce low-cost personal computers--some costing as little as $100 each--with the hope of, as soon as possible, providing a computer for every child, in every country, around the world. A hand-crank can provide the power for those living in remote areas, and the screen can be easily read, even in bright sunlight. And the computer will be ruggedly built, able to withstand an unusual amount of rough treatment.
Suddenly, children who have had few opportunities for education will find the whole world open to them via their laptop.
Yahoo! selected this as one of the Ten Most Inspirational Stories of the year 2007.
* * *
This past Thanksgiving weekend, I was standing -- along with a whole lot of my neighbors from our town -- in the middle of one of our busiest shopping streets. The street had been closed off, for the town's annual Christmas-tree lighting. We enjoy watching the families with young kids, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa on his fire truck.
This year, the person presiding over the festivities did something different. He read the beloved Clement Moore Christmas poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, in a slightly different way. The speaker paused at certain points, turning to the audience to supply the missing words. "'Twas the night before Christmas," he'd say, "and all through the _____." At which point, the audience would shout out the word, "house." He did that for line after line of the famous poem, with children and grownups alike shouting out the missing words. Claire and I were calling out the answers along with everyone else.
The thought occurred to me: what if, instead of reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, the speaker had read from the second chapter of Luke instead? What if he had been saying, "In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by _____ (night). Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the _____ (glory) of the Lord shone around them"? Would there have been so many who could have called out the answers? I wonder...
* * *
Lots of us are familiar with the cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's a favorite thing to watch on TV this time of year. I learned something interesting about that making of that cartoon, from watching a documentary on the Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz. Remember the scene when the kids are getting ready for a school Christmas play, and Linus is up on stage? Remember how he begins speaking the words from Luke, chapter 2, in his innocent voice, and everyone in the auditorium falls silent? For many people, it's their favorite moment in the whole show.
What I learned was that moment nearly didn't happen. Charles Schulz had written it into the script, but the network executives wanted to cut it. The scene was too religious, they thought. The American public would never go for such a blatant display of religiosity in prime time.
Charles Schulz stuck to his guns, though. He'd insisted, in his contract, that he retain creative control over the whole project -- and because he was the best-selling cartoonist of all time, the network dared not say no. Schulz dug in his heels, the reading from the Bible stayed in -- and a Christmas TV tradition was born.
* * *
Today is Epiphany, but it's also a time when many of us are still thinking about New Year's resolutions. Keeping resolutions -- making them stick -- is all a matter of focus. There goes a great idea, scrolling across the computer monitor of our minds... and there goes another one... and another! All we've got to do is grab hold of one of those great ideas -- just one is all it takes -- and do something with it. But all too often, we're content to remain mere observers of our own lives: enjoying the sight of resolutions as they fly by, but failing to follow through. It's all a matter of focus: bringing not only the mind -- but also the will -- to bear.
There's another meaning of that word "resolution" -- and it, too, is all a matter of focus. In the world of consumer electronics -- especially with those flat-screen TVs that were all the rage this past Christmas -- high resolution is the holy grail. The more pixels -- those tiny units that make up images -- the engineers can squeeze onto the screen of an electronic gizmo, the sharper will be the image the consumer sees. Some old-timers can remember the days when TV screens were smaller than a foot across, displayed black-and-white images only, and lived in some kind of monstrous wooden cabinet that resembled a piece of oversized Victorian furniture. The image on that little screen? Low-resolution! ("Is that Jackie Gleason we're looking at there? Or Sid Caesar?") Today's consumer wouldn't give that humble, black-and-white screen the time of day. Yes indeed, it's all a matter of focus.
It's all a matter of focus, too, for those wise men from the east, who travel far to worship the newborn Jesus.
* * *
"If we are not going to deny our children the darker side of life, we owe it to them to show them that there is also this wild brilliance, this light of the sun: although we cannot look at it directly, it is nevertheless by the light of the sun that we see. If we are to turn towards the sunlight, we must also turn away from the cult of the common man and return to the uncommon man, to the hero. We all need heroes, and here again, we can learn from the child's acceptance of the fact that he needs someone beyond himself to look up to."
-- Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1984).
* * *
"To be responsible means precisely what the word implies: to be capable of giving a response. It isn't only the Flower Children or Hell's Angels who are opting out of society. A writer who writes a story which has no response to what is going on in the world is not only copping out himself but helping others to be irresponsible, too. I mentioned that all of us on the Children's Book Committee do give our response to the world around us in our books, even if only by implication... To refuse to respond is in itself a response. Those of us who write are responsible for the effect of our books. Those who teach, who suggest books to either children or adults, are responsible for their choices. Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surround us or we light a candle to see by."
-- Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1984).
* * *
"How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God! Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain. They would not allow this, but follow out what they say, and it comes much to this.
"Brothers, have you found our king? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There he is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on his bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well. The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were -- no, not a truer, for the other is false, but - a true type of our God beside that monstrosity of a monarch."
-- George MacDonald, Creation in Christ (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 2004).
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Thom Shuman
Call to Worship Leader: Jesus came as a baby,
to bring laughter to children;
People: he came for young adults home from college,
and for newborns at their mothers' breasts.
Leader: Jesus was born in a stable,
to bring hope to the poor;
People: he came for those who have more than they need,
and for those who could give away more than they dare imagine.
Leader: Caroled by angels,
worshiped by shepherds,
gifted by kings:
People: the Christ Child is born!
Let us follow the star to find him.
Prayer of the Day
They waited
until your star appeared,
and then rushed to find you,
bringing expectant hearts,
rejoicing in the light that guided them,
hoping that all their dreams
would come true.
We thank you for the waiting,
God of Advent.
They rejoiced
in the simplicity of a stable,
when no homes were opened to them;
their hearts celebrated your birth
as the shepherds
gathered around the manger,
they hoped their dreams
would come true.
We thank you for the joy,
Child of Christmas.
We are drawn to your light,
like moths to a flame;
our emptiness is filled with your grace
as you glory shines in all nations;
we are led to the wonders of hope,
as the light of faith reveals the way.
We thank you for revealing the mystery,
Spirit of Epiphany.
God in Community, Holy in One,
we thank you for the gift of the star,
as we pray as Jesus teaches us, saying,
Our Father...
Call to Reconciliation
The light has come, but we still seem to
prefer the shadows of temptation and
desire. Let us confess our sins to God,
so the light will fill every corner of our lives.
Unison Prayer of Confession
In truth, God of Epiphany, we come to
worship you, but our motives (like Herod's)
are not pure. We want you to reward us
because we are here, and not someplace
else. We want you to gift us with health,
with wealth, with answers to our questions.
We want you to overlook our unfaithfulness,
rather than shining the bright light of the
Christ Child in our lives.
Forgive us, Star Shaper, that we are not more like those wise ones of so long ago. In following a star, they found hope; in gifting a child, they received grace; in seeking your signs, they discovered life. Be with us, in mercy and joy, as we journey with your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in the season of light.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: Come, stand up, on your feet! God's grace
has dawned in our hearts, eternity's light
shines in our souls.
People: The light of the world shines in our lives,
delivering us from evil, gracing us with
hope and joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Kneeling down in prayer
Object: the knees of the children
Matthew 2:1-12
Good morning, boys and girls. Isn't it neat that God made you in a certain way? (let them answer) All of our body parts have a certain job to do and each one is very important. Let's take a look at our hands and think about what they can do. They can open doors, throw a ball, pick up food, and carry a glass of water. What do ears do? (let them answer) Very good, they let us hear but they also hold up our glasses and let us wear earrings. Feet are for walking, running, and wearing shiny shoes.
What do you think knees are for? (let them answer) They bend and help us walk better. I like what the Wise Men did with their knees. Do you know what the Wise Men did on their knees? (let them answer) They worshiped the baby Jesus. The Bible tells us that when they entered the house where Mary was, they knelt down and worshiped the baby Jesus.
How many of you kneel when you pray? Before we go to sleep, many of us kneel and thank Jesus for such a wonderful day. We also pray for others like our mothers, fathers, relatives, and friends. If we have something very special to ask God we use that time while we are on our knees to ask him to consider it. The other night when I prayed I asked God if he would consider helping me with a problem. I explained the problem to him and prayed that he would have an answer for me. I haven't heard yet what God's answer will be but I know I will find out.
The Wise Men came a long way to worship Jesus. They followed a star for many days until it led them to where the baby Jesus was beginning his life with us. They knew that God sent signs and the star, called the star of Bethlehem to lead them right to his bed. Mary was surprised to see such grand visitors but it was another sign to her that the baby Jesus was something special. She also knew how special he was when they got down on their knees and worshiped Jesus.
Let's all take a moment to kneel down and worship Jesus. We can pray to God and thank him for sending us the love in such a wonderful Savior.
The next time you look at your knees remember what the Wise Men did when they came to the house where Jesus lived as a baby. They knelt down on the ground and thanked God for sending the Lord Jesus.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 6, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
Such is the case in our faith. The birth of the Savior that prompted the night skies to erupt in angelic song is quickly followed by the death of the Innocents, with the nighttime stillness being broken instead by the wailing of grieving mothers. The grisly death of Christ on the cross brings new life to the soul of humanity. How does one make sense of it all? Paul Bresnahan will write the main article, with Carlos Wilton providing the response. Illustrations, a liturgy, and a children's sermon are also included.
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Paul Bresnahan
It is amazing what children can endure. There is an inspiring story of a young man who survived a bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. After both of his parents were slaughtered in the butchery of that time, he was then forced to serve the horrors of military service. Somehow he managed to survive. After a litany of adventures, he ended up living in New York City with a loving adopted family and has now written a compelling book about his experiences that will be published next month. And thus we acknowledge the indomitable spirit of the child now in a young man whose name is Ishmael Beah.
He is not the only child in human and sacred history that endured the rigors of vulnerability when so very young. So too we read of Mohammed, orphaned as a child, Moses cast adrift in the bulrushes; and Jesus who had to flee with his family to Egypt when just days old.
The prophet Isaiah writes:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:5)
Isaiah had these amazing visions. He saw a world where nation would not lift up sword upon nation. It was a vision where we would not learn war any more. And in this particular vision, we have a little child born out of the stem of Jesse. We are told that the Spirit of the Lord shall be with him. He will judge the poor with righteousness and he shall stand up for the meek of the earth. And it will be the Child that will lead them. His name, we are told will be "Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
And so at Christmas a child is born in Bethlehem. Wise men from all over the world still come to him and bring him gifts. So moved are our hearts by this child that we give our most precious and thoughtful gifts to our loved ones as tokens of the hope we have of abiding affection that will endure throughout our lives.
And yet the reality is that the Innocents are slaughtered and even the child will eventually die on a cross for us all. How shall we come to understand the hope of the child and then the reality of such unspeakable cruelty especially when the two occur so closely together in time?
THE WOLRD
The world we live in can be cruel to children and their caregivers. There can be such terrible child abuse. Children can be treated with such violence. They can be neglected and abandoned and given up for adoption. There is a well-documented reality of human trafficking and children are often the primary victims. Forced servitude of both a domestic and a military sort is also well documented. And the children are caught in the crossfire of war and civil strife.
In our own country, we can turn our backs on the children of the Mississippi Delta. It is an act of neglect that I will never understand for as long as I live. I know too many people who have worked diligently in that area who are utterly bewildered as I am by the national impotence, unwillingness, and incompetence when faced with the aftermath of Katrina.
On the other hand, we see the indomitable spirit of the child rise again and again out of the waste places of human cruelty and degradation. They can overcome great odds and make something of themselves. Some go on to make a name for themselves in the sports and entertainment worlds... others merely go on to make good lives for themselves.
THE WORD
The prophet Isaiah begins this Sunday's lesson with the stirring words "Arise, shine, for your light has come" (Isaiah 60:1) but then immediately introduces a vivid contrast by saying "for darkness covers the land, deep gloom enshrouds the people" (Isaiah 60:2). It is in this contrast that we see an old theme such as Dickens tells of in A Tale of Two Cities, the opening line of which is; "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." We are still waiting the time when "the nation will come to God's light and kings come to the brightness of God's dawning" (see Isaiah 60:3). But this is the dream of God, no doubt when all the power on earth finds its focus not on the will of man, but on the will of God. It has been a long time coming, but may it come nonetheless.
The psalmist also stirs the human heart with a notion that the kings of the earth will mete out God's justice and that they will "rule the people righteously and the poor with justice" (Psalm 70:2). That's not quite what we see before our eyes right now. Instead the "special interests" of those with the greatest power and wealth and power find that their interests are most likely to be served at the expense of the very poor the "king" is supposed to be serving. Somehow the entire ethical standard of the biblical mandate has been stood on its ear in so much of Western Society. And so much of it is done, in the US, anyway, in the name of a God who seems to favor the bountiful over the poor.
We have a long way to go before God's light will arise and shine!
Paul points out an even more extraordinary contrast. In the gospel mandate Paul serves from prison, he becomes the Apostle to the Marginalized. I use the word "marginalized" advisedly here, because literally the word "Gentile" means "outsider". In Temple society, there were so many who had become "outsiders" and "marginalized". And it was Jesus who sought out these very ones, as all the gospels make so universally clear. To the embarrassment, and horror of the Pharisees, and Scribes, Jesus consorted with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, and commoners! If he were a prophet, he would know "what sort of persons these were". Interestingly enough, the early Christian community got the point immediately. They sought out the very ones that the Levitical priesthood barred from the Temple. Thus Jesus was on a collision course with the Temple authorities, and Paul and other early followers of Jesus made their way to jail and sometimes to death. It was all done for the sake of "the marginalized", "the outsider"... and may God's church always have the courage to continue faithfully to reach out so!
Ultimately, the wise men came to a manger and gave homage and worship to a little child. Lofty kings came to a humble place with animals and an unwed mother who had just brought forth her little child. There the Star of the East came to rest; it was there that the light did come to rise, for God's light had at last come. The wise men came to realize what had happened there somehow and recognized too that this light was to come to all the nations beyond just a tiny nation in the Middle East. This good news was for all people in all nations and the presence of these three kings was destined to represent forever the embrace of God for ALL!
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The Little Child
It is said that Christmas is for children. That is true enough on one level. All the presents and decorations and even the snow outside is seen as a mystical and magical time for those who are very young. Those of us of "riper" years don't always see the magic in these matters, especially the snow!
But there is another sense in which Christmas is for children. Christmas is for the birth of the baby Jesus and for the worship of him by the child in each of us. The manger scene in our church stand in front of the altar, and when we sing "Silent Night" by candlelight on Christmas Eve something warms the heart of the worshipper far beyond the capacity of words or music to tell. My very soul exults in the hope that this child brings to the earth ever year.
No matter how old, dangerous, and conflicted this world gets, the Child comes to us each year and he seeks to lead us. And I find myself wanting to follow with all my heart! And when the wise men move toward the manger and bring their gifts, I pray for the time when the kings of the earth will come to their senses and recognize that this child is indeed the Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
To the contrary the kings of the Earth, now just a batch of presidents, dictators, and prime ministers, just go about with warfare as the kings have always done. Often under false pretext, they claim defense while seeking control of oil or other sources of power.
It is easy to become simplistic about the realities of international geopolitics, and we don't want to trivialize religion into a kind of milquetoast non violent movement. But the child in us wants to be a bit more creative than self interest seems to require of our current set of diplomats.
The child in us wants to discover how to deal with our enemies who can and do wish us such significant harm. The child in us would like to know how to turn their hearts to us and how to turn our hearts to them so that we can become more of a family on earth.
This is harder said than done when our own families feud so easily over something we cannot always even remember. There's a case I know of where a woman with Alzheimer's could no longer remember why she was angry with her sister. She also could not remember her sister, and unfortunately did not always know who she was herself.
But this child is born each year. And the child is the parent to the adult as some of our best literature teaches us. This child grew and taught us to love one another. He had such a capacity for love that he could even reach out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross so that all of us would come within the reach of his saving embrace.
Somehow we knew that even when he was born. There were so many angels around that night. The star shone brightly. The shepherds and the Kings hastily made their way toward the place where he slept so peacefully. We wanted so much for him to the Anointed One!
So many children suffer now, from abuse, trafficking, and forced military service. We didn't want to see it then about this child, but it was inevitable. The same mother that held him close that first Christmas Eve and then lay him in the manger, would eventually also be the same mother who would hold him in the Pieta, the dying form of him who gave his life for me, and then she would lay him in his tomb.
Somehow we knew all this intuitively on Christmas when the child was born. We know it today on Epiphany, even as the Kings come to bring their gifts. We know about the power of the child in our lives. We know of the hope the children bring into the world when we, however feebly try to protect them.
Ultimately there is but one hope. It is in that one Child who is the Word of God made flesh among us. By chipping away at the heart of stone with which so many are made, someday we will turn to him. Ultimately there is no other way. A little Child shall lead them some day and in that day the light of God will arise and shine!
ANOTHER VIEW
Carlos Wilton
Every Christmas brings its list of hot Christmas gifts: the "must-have" items all the advertisers are talking about. Oftentimes, it's a toy -- anybody remember Tickle Me Elmo? Last year, it was the Nintendo Wii game system (that's still a hot one this year, I'm told).
Another gift item that was really hot this Christmas was a toy that's more for adults: a global positioning system for your car. These things have been out a few years, but the price keeps coming down. Judging from all the displays in the stores -- not to mention all the junk e-mails I've been getting -- this Christmas, it seems, the powers-that-be have decreed that 2007 is the Year of the GPS.
When I was out in California last August, helping our daughter move into her college dorm, I got one of those GPS systems in our rental car. I didn't know the California freeways, so I figured it would help.
Boy, did it ever. Those things are amazing! You don't even need a map. All you have to do is punch in the street address of your destination, and it connects with a satellite, calculating the exact route you should follow. The route shows up on a little map on the screen in front of you. Not only that, a mechanical voice tells you when the next turn's coming up. If you make a mistake and miss the turn, not to worry. It recalculates the route, telling you the best way to get there from your new location.
I wonder about those GPS systems, though. Sooner or later, most new cars will have them, installed at the factory. When that happens, I wonder if anyone will still remember how to read a road map? Will map-reading become a lost art, as rare as engineers who know how to use a slide rule?
Maybe it will be a lost art, like whatever method those three wise men used to find the Christ child. We really have no idea how they did it. Matthew tells us, "there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was" (Matthew 2:9). It couldn't have happened exactly that way, of course, because stars don't hover and move across the sky like that. We now know that stars are celestial bodies vast in their dimensions that display their blazing glory hundreds of thousands of light years from earth. The pinpricks of light we see in the sky are but remnants of leftover starlight, many years old by the time they reach us. For the image of a star to slide across the dome of the sky, then settle in one place, beaming down over a baby's bed like some great spotlight, would require God to so disrupt the order of the universe that it would constitute the biggest miracle ever.
I think it's far more likely that Matthew simply wasn't much of an astronomer. The story came down to him of these mysterious visitors from the east, who found their way to Jesus using the stars, and he understood it to mean that a star moved through the sky, like some beacon, and pointed them directly there. If that had been the way it was, the magi would have had no need to stop at the palace of Herod.
More likely, the magi were astrologers of some sort. The Bethlehem star, whatever it actually was -- a comet, a supernova, a confluence of planets (who's to say?) -- didn't so much guide them to the Christ child as tell them something very significant was happening in that part of the world. They journeyed westward, hoping to pick up other signs of the child's birth -- which they eventually did, at the palace of Herod the King. The chief priests and scribes told them of the ancient prophecies of the Messiah.
We, too, come to Jesus as outsiders. The story of the magi gives us hope.
I was struck, reading the story of the magi again this year, by the role played by the scribes of Israel. The magi go to Herod's palace, and there they find out from the chief priests and scribes where the Messiah is to be born. Now, you'd think those scribes would be the first in line to follow the magi down to Bethlehem. But no, they're not. They stay right where they are. Of all the people who ought to be running to welcome the Messiah's birth, they hold back.
Maybe there's just a little bit of the scribe in all of us.
God hasn't seen fit to issue us with a spiritual GPS system -- any more than God gave the magi a blazing beacon in the sky (despite what the Christmas-card artists would have us believe). Then, as now, something called discernment is needed: the God-inspired ability to look for hints of our Savior's presence in the world, separating those signs out from all the background noise.
The word "epiphany" means something like "revealing." Let us be attentive, in these days, to hints of the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world!
ILLUSTRATIONS
We need to remember how much children can suffer when they and their families are living in poverty. Julia Dinsmore, the author of My Name Is Child of God: Not "Those People": A First-Person Look at Poverty, grew up in generational poverty in South Minneapolis, lacking many things that most of us would consider necessities. Nevertheless she managed to finish high school and put herself through several years of college.
Later, after she married and she and her husband had three sons, he deserted them, and she began working two, or sometimes three, jobs to try to keep the rent paid and food on the table.
Now, when she learns that the place where they formerly lived has been found to be heavily contaminated with arsenic, she wonders, amid all their other problems, how this exposure to arsenic might have affected her boys.
* * *
The type of housing that children grow up in can have an effect on how well they grow and learn, but many US cities are falling far behind in making low-cost housing available for their low-income families.
Various studies have shown that the rate of recidivism -- the number of former prisoners who go on to commit more crimes and are sent back to prison -- correlates with the shortage of low-income housing.
In addition, the reading scores of third-grade boys are used to plan the capacity of future prisons.
-- Lutheran Woman Today, October 2007
* * *
There's good news for all the children on our planet who are living in poverty: various companies have recently announced plans to produce low-cost personal computers--some costing as little as $100 each--with the hope of, as soon as possible, providing a computer for every child, in every country, around the world. A hand-crank can provide the power for those living in remote areas, and the screen can be easily read, even in bright sunlight. And the computer will be ruggedly built, able to withstand an unusual amount of rough treatment.
Suddenly, children who have had few opportunities for education will find the whole world open to them via their laptop.
Yahoo! selected this as one of the Ten Most Inspirational Stories of the year 2007.
* * *
This past Thanksgiving weekend, I was standing -- along with a whole lot of my neighbors from our town -- in the middle of one of our busiest shopping streets. The street had been closed off, for the town's annual Christmas-tree lighting. We enjoy watching the families with young kids, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa on his fire truck.
This year, the person presiding over the festivities did something different. He read the beloved Clement Moore Christmas poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, in a slightly different way. The speaker paused at certain points, turning to the audience to supply the missing words. "'Twas the night before Christmas," he'd say, "and all through the _____." At which point, the audience would shout out the word, "house." He did that for line after line of the famous poem, with children and grownups alike shouting out the missing words. Claire and I were calling out the answers along with everyone else.
The thought occurred to me: what if, instead of reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, the speaker had read from the second chapter of Luke instead? What if he had been saying, "In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by _____ (night). Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the _____ (glory) of the Lord shone around them"? Would there have been so many who could have called out the answers? I wonder...
* * *
Lots of us are familiar with the cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's a favorite thing to watch on TV this time of year. I learned something interesting about that making of that cartoon, from watching a documentary on the Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz. Remember the scene when the kids are getting ready for a school Christmas play, and Linus is up on stage? Remember how he begins speaking the words from Luke, chapter 2, in his innocent voice, and everyone in the auditorium falls silent? For many people, it's their favorite moment in the whole show.
What I learned was that moment nearly didn't happen. Charles Schulz had written it into the script, but the network executives wanted to cut it. The scene was too religious, they thought. The American public would never go for such a blatant display of religiosity in prime time.
Charles Schulz stuck to his guns, though. He'd insisted, in his contract, that he retain creative control over the whole project -- and because he was the best-selling cartoonist of all time, the network dared not say no. Schulz dug in his heels, the reading from the Bible stayed in -- and a Christmas TV tradition was born.
* * *
Today is Epiphany, but it's also a time when many of us are still thinking about New Year's resolutions. Keeping resolutions -- making them stick -- is all a matter of focus. There goes a great idea, scrolling across the computer monitor of our minds... and there goes another one... and another! All we've got to do is grab hold of one of those great ideas -- just one is all it takes -- and do something with it. But all too often, we're content to remain mere observers of our own lives: enjoying the sight of resolutions as they fly by, but failing to follow through. It's all a matter of focus: bringing not only the mind -- but also the will -- to bear.
There's another meaning of that word "resolution" -- and it, too, is all a matter of focus. In the world of consumer electronics -- especially with those flat-screen TVs that were all the rage this past Christmas -- high resolution is the holy grail. The more pixels -- those tiny units that make up images -- the engineers can squeeze onto the screen of an electronic gizmo, the sharper will be the image the consumer sees. Some old-timers can remember the days when TV screens were smaller than a foot across, displayed black-and-white images only, and lived in some kind of monstrous wooden cabinet that resembled a piece of oversized Victorian furniture. The image on that little screen? Low-resolution! ("Is that Jackie Gleason we're looking at there? Or Sid Caesar?") Today's consumer wouldn't give that humble, black-and-white screen the time of day. Yes indeed, it's all a matter of focus.
It's all a matter of focus, too, for those wise men from the east, who travel far to worship the newborn Jesus.
* * *
"If we are not going to deny our children the darker side of life, we owe it to them to show them that there is also this wild brilliance, this light of the sun: although we cannot look at it directly, it is nevertheless by the light of the sun that we see. If we are to turn towards the sunlight, we must also turn away from the cult of the common man and return to the uncommon man, to the hero. We all need heroes, and here again, we can learn from the child's acceptance of the fact that he needs someone beyond himself to look up to."
-- Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1984).
* * *
"To be responsible means precisely what the word implies: to be capable of giving a response. It isn't only the Flower Children or Hell's Angels who are opting out of society. A writer who writes a story which has no response to what is going on in the world is not only copping out himself but helping others to be irresponsible, too. I mentioned that all of us on the Children's Book Committee do give our response to the world around us in our books, even if only by implication... To refuse to respond is in itself a response. Those of us who write are responsible for the effect of our books. Those who teach, who suggest books to either children or adults, are responsible for their choices. Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surround us or we light a candle to see by."
-- Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1984).
* * *
"How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God! Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain. They would not allow this, but follow out what they say, and it comes much to this.
"Brothers, have you found our king? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There he is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on his bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well. The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were -- no, not a truer, for the other is false, but - a true type of our God beside that monstrosity of a monarch."
-- George MacDonald, Creation in Christ (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 2004).
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Thom Shuman
Call to Worship Leader: Jesus came as a baby,
to bring laughter to children;
People: he came for young adults home from college,
and for newborns at their mothers' breasts.
Leader: Jesus was born in a stable,
to bring hope to the poor;
People: he came for those who have more than they need,
and for those who could give away more than they dare imagine.
Leader: Caroled by angels,
worshiped by shepherds,
gifted by kings:
People: the Christ Child is born!
Let us follow the star to find him.
Prayer of the Day
They waited
until your star appeared,
and then rushed to find you,
bringing expectant hearts,
rejoicing in the light that guided them,
hoping that all their dreams
would come true.
We thank you for the waiting,
God of Advent.
They rejoiced
in the simplicity of a stable,
when no homes were opened to them;
their hearts celebrated your birth
as the shepherds
gathered around the manger,
they hoped their dreams
would come true.
We thank you for the joy,
Child of Christmas.
We are drawn to your light,
like moths to a flame;
our emptiness is filled with your grace
as you glory shines in all nations;
we are led to the wonders of hope,
as the light of faith reveals the way.
We thank you for revealing the mystery,
Spirit of Epiphany.
God in Community, Holy in One,
we thank you for the gift of the star,
as we pray as Jesus teaches us, saying,
Our Father...
Call to Reconciliation
The light has come, but we still seem to
prefer the shadows of temptation and
desire. Let us confess our sins to God,
so the light will fill every corner of our lives.
Unison Prayer of Confession
In truth, God of Epiphany, we come to
worship you, but our motives (like Herod's)
are not pure. We want you to reward us
because we are here, and not someplace
else. We want you to gift us with health,
with wealth, with answers to our questions.
We want you to overlook our unfaithfulness,
rather than shining the bright light of the
Christ Child in our lives.
Forgive us, Star Shaper, that we are not more like those wise ones of so long ago. In following a star, they found hope; in gifting a child, they received grace; in seeking your signs, they discovered life. Be with us, in mercy and joy, as we journey with your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in the season of light.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: Come, stand up, on your feet! God's grace
has dawned in our hearts, eternity's light
shines in our souls.
People: The light of the world shines in our lives,
delivering us from evil, gracing us with
hope and joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Kneeling down in prayer
Object: the knees of the children
Matthew 2:1-12
Good morning, boys and girls. Isn't it neat that God made you in a certain way? (let them answer) All of our body parts have a certain job to do and each one is very important. Let's take a look at our hands and think about what they can do. They can open doors, throw a ball, pick up food, and carry a glass of water. What do ears do? (let them answer) Very good, they let us hear but they also hold up our glasses and let us wear earrings. Feet are for walking, running, and wearing shiny shoes.
What do you think knees are for? (let them answer) They bend and help us walk better. I like what the Wise Men did with their knees. Do you know what the Wise Men did on their knees? (let them answer) They worshiped the baby Jesus. The Bible tells us that when they entered the house where Mary was, they knelt down and worshiped the baby Jesus.
How many of you kneel when you pray? Before we go to sleep, many of us kneel and thank Jesus for such a wonderful day. We also pray for others like our mothers, fathers, relatives, and friends. If we have something very special to ask God we use that time while we are on our knees to ask him to consider it. The other night when I prayed I asked God if he would consider helping me with a problem. I explained the problem to him and prayed that he would have an answer for me. I haven't heard yet what God's answer will be but I know I will find out.
The Wise Men came a long way to worship Jesus. They followed a star for many days until it led them to where the baby Jesus was beginning his life with us. They knew that God sent signs and the star, called the star of Bethlehem to lead them right to his bed. Mary was surprised to see such grand visitors but it was another sign to her that the baby Jesus was something special. She also knew how special he was when they got down on their knees and worshiped Jesus.
Let's all take a moment to kneel down and worship Jesus. We can pray to God and thank him for sending us the love in such a wonderful Savior.
The next time you look at your knees remember what the Wise Men did when they came to the house where Jesus lived as a baby. They knelt down on the ground and thanked God for sending the Lord Jesus.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 6, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
