Good News!
Sermon
It's News To Me: Messages of Hope for Those Who Haven't Heard
Cycle A Gospel Sermons For Advent, Christmas, Epiphany
Object:
A young girl was driving around the city with her family, looking at the various displays of Christmas lights. They passed a church that had a beautifully lit nativity scene, so they parked the car and got out to look at it more closely. They all "oo-ed" and "ah-ed," and the little girl's grandmother said, "Isn't it beautiful?" "Yes, Grandma, it's really nice," the little girl said. "But isn't baby Jesus ever going to grow up? He's the same size he was last year!"1
Do you ever have that feeling when it comes to Christmas? Kind of "been there, done that"? It's the same thing, the same way, year after year. It's the same old story, often told in the same way, and nothing seems to change. There doesn't seem to be anything new or different, or any growth or change that has come since the last time we heard it.
To be honest, Christmas is a tough one, and designing a Christmas Eve service often seems to be difficult. It's hard because we have memories of what has been; we have our ideas of what we want it to be and what we think it should be. Probably a lot of us have traditions around Christmas and Christmas Eve that we value and want to preserve.
Sometimes, it's the same old story, and the same familiar songs, and they seem to be empty. For whatever reason, Christmas doesn't ring true; it doesn't seem real. It doesn't connect with us in a way that makes any difference. In truth, it can feel quite meaningless.
I'd be willing to bet we're all here because we want to believe that the event we remember and celebrate tonight is important. We want to believe it matters. We need it to make a difference in our lives, and not just be something from 2,000 years ago. We want it to be very real for you and for me, right here, right now.
There are really a number of ways we can view Christmas, but for Christians around the world, it is seen as "the birth of God on earth." That's what we proclaim happened at Christmas. This is the anniversary of the appearance of the God of the universe in the form of a helpless baby, and it is, indeed, a really important day, and worthy of reverence and celebration.
Stop to think about it. That's a remarkable thing! I've always referred to Christmas as God's ultimate public relations campaign, because I understand Christmas as God's attempt to get through to us. God has always been a God of relationship, a God who wants us to draw close, to love and be loved.
However, the history of humanity is that we never quite get it. As human beings, we keep messing things up. The birth of Jesus, God in human form, was God's way of breaking through to us, God's way of getting our attention by communicating a love that supersedes anything we ever imagined possible. Only God could have envisioned this way of attracting us -- not coming as a powerful military ruler, or a mighty king, in the conventional sense. God didn't choose to come to us in a way that overwhelmed us, or overpowered us, or caused us to respond out of fear.
Instead, God came in total innocence and helplessness, as a newborn infant. Think about our response to a new baby. I can't see one without feeling awestruck. Have you ever looked at those tiny fingernails? Have you ever touched that baby-soft skin? Have you ever looked at those wisps of hair, or the almost-invisible eyelashes of a newborn baby? It certainly seems miraculous to me!
Have you ever noticed how most people respond to a baby? Even the most hardened curmudgeon has a tough time not smiling at a baby. It's hard not to go over to a baby and begin making all kinds of "goo-goo" noises and sounds. A baby draws us in, and that's precisely why God came in human form on this earth -- to draw us closer.
In some ways, I see Christmas and God like a story another pastor told. He was at a dinner party during the Christmas season. The house was beautifully decorated, and there was an electric train set up around the base of the Christmas tree. One of the children was running the train too fast, and it derailed. She was bent over trying to put it back on the track, when the host noticed what she was doing and went over to help. He said to her, "You can't do that from above; you have to get down beside it." Then he lay down on the floor beside the train where he could see to place it back on its track.2
Maybe that's what God did at Christmas. Perhaps the Christmas story is God's attempt to lie down beside us, to see and experience life as we see it, to draw close to us in a way we can understand. It's God's continuing to reach out to us, again, and again, and again.
That's the really good news of Christmas. Yes, we are celebrating a wondrous event that we believe really did happen thousands of years ago, but that's not all. We are also celebrating that Christmas can happen again, right here, right now, in our hearts and in our homes. God can be born again this night.
This story isn't just a one-time thing. It's God's promise always to be there, to be with us, within us, among us, right now, tonight. It isn't just something that happened once a lot of years ago. It's something that can happen right now. God's love can happen to us on this night in December or some balmy night in mid-July. It can be real for us at any moment in life. Christmas is just the reminder of that.
It's like something that Bert Holloway of Cambridge, England, understands. Every year for 43 years, at one minute after midnight on Christmas Eve, Bert has handed his wife Ethel a love letter. The gift is a tradition they started when they were first married, and every year he reaffirms his love for her in letters she keeps and treasures.3
I think that's what Christmas is meant to be for us -- God's yearly love letter, God's reminder and reaffirmation of unconditional, undying love. Tonight we have the opportunity to open that letter again, and we can treasure all that it holds in our hearts.
Christmas is God coming to us in the form of Jesus, and offering us more than we ever believed possible. Jesus brings us all the hope and possibility we see in a newborn babe. Jesus shows us the incredible love God has for each of us, and affirms that light can break through even the darkest night to brighten our world.
Maybe the truth of Christmas will really break through to each of us this year, as it did in a story I received on e-mail about some children in a Russian orphanage. Two Americans were in Russia by invitation from the Department of Education, and they were there to teach morals and ethics in prisons and businesses, in the fire and police departments, and in a large orphanage.
During the holiday season of 1994, the two visitors told the children in the orphanage the traditional story of Christmas. The children heard all about how Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, and finding no room in the inn, spent the night in a stable. They heard how Jesus was born there and placed in a manger.
The children were enthralled with the story, and after it was told, they were given a small piece of cardboard to make a manger, and some scraps of paper to make straw for the manger. The Americans also had some pieces of material for the children to use as the blanket, and some felt material to be fashioned into the baby Jesus.
The adults walked among the children as they were making their own version of the nativity scene, just to see if they needed any help. Everything was going well, until they got to the table where a little six-year-old named Misha was sitting. As the teacher looked into his manger, she was surprised to see two babies in the manger, instead of just one.
Very quickly, the translator was summoned, and the child was asked why there were two babies in the manger. With his arms crossed in front of him, little Misha began to retell the story he had heard for the first time just moments before. He had all the happenings accurately, until he got to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger.
It was then that he began to ad-lib, making up his own ending to the story. His version went like this: "When Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift. So I asked Jesus, 'If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?' and Jesus said that would be the best gift anybody ever gave him. So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him -- for always."4
That's what happens at Christmas. Jesus, God in the flesh, is born among us, and is with us always. That's what we remember and celebrate tonight as we light our candles and carry the light of the love of Jesus out into the world. God can be born again, this very moment, and God's love can break through once again to change you, to change me, to change the world.
Closing Word
As you leave here tonight, carry the light of the love of God in Christ Jesus into the world. Have a Merry Christmas, and go in peace. Amen.
____________
1. "Christmas," Dynamic Illustrations, Nov/Dec 94.
2. "Christmas," Dynamic Illustrations, Nov/Dec 92.
3. Bert Holloway, "Advent," Dynamic Illustrations, Nov/Dec 96.
4. e-mail, "Taking The Christmas Story To Heart," received Dec 98.
Do you ever have that feeling when it comes to Christmas? Kind of "been there, done that"? It's the same thing, the same way, year after year. It's the same old story, often told in the same way, and nothing seems to change. There doesn't seem to be anything new or different, or any growth or change that has come since the last time we heard it.
To be honest, Christmas is a tough one, and designing a Christmas Eve service often seems to be difficult. It's hard because we have memories of what has been; we have our ideas of what we want it to be and what we think it should be. Probably a lot of us have traditions around Christmas and Christmas Eve that we value and want to preserve.
Sometimes, it's the same old story, and the same familiar songs, and they seem to be empty. For whatever reason, Christmas doesn't ring true; it doesn't seem real. It doesn't connect with us in a way that makes any difference. In truth, it can feel quite meaningless.
I'd be willing to bet we're all here because we want to believe that the event we remember and celebrate tonight is important. We want to believe it matters. We need it to make a difference in our lives, and not just be something from 2,000 years ago. We want it to be very real for you and for me, right here, right now.
There are really a number of ways we can view Christmas, but for Christians around the world, it is seen as "the birth of God on earth." That's what we proclaim happened at Christmas. This is the anniversary of the appearance of the God of the universe in the form of a helpless baby, and it is, indeed, a really important day, and worthy of reverence and celebration.
Stop to think about it. That's a remarkable thing! I've always referred to Christmas as God's ultimate public relations campaign, because I understand Christmas as God's attempt to get through to us. God has always been a God of relationship, a God who wants us to draw close, to love and be loved.
However, the history of humanity is that we never quite get it. As human beings, we keep messing things up. The birth of Jesus, God in human form, was God's way of breaking through to us, God's way of getting our attention by communicating a love that supersedes anything we ever imagined possible. Only God could have envisioned this way of attracting us -- not coming as a powerful military ruler, or a mighty king, in the conventional sense. God didn't choose to come to us in a way that overwhelmed us, or overpowered us, or caused us to respond out of fear.
Instead, God came in total innocence and helplessness, as a newborn infant. Think about our response to a new baby. I can't see one without feeling awestruck. Have you ever looked at those tiny fingernails? Have you ever touched that baby-soft skin? Have you ever looked at those wisps of hair, or the almost-invisible eyelashes of a newborn baby? It certainly seems miraculous to me!
Have you ever noticed how most people respond to a baby? Even the most hardened curmudgeon has a tough time not smiling at a baby. It's hard not to go over to a baby and begin making all kinds of "goo-goo" noises and sounds. A baby draws us in, and that's precisely why God came in human form on this earth -- to draw us closer.
In some ways, I see Christmas and God like a story another pastor told. He was at a dinner party during the Christmas season. The house was beautifully decorated, and there was an electric train set up around the base of the Christmas tree. One of the children was running the train too fast, and it derailed. She was bent over trying to put it back on the track, when the host noticed what she was doing and went over to help. He said to her, "You can't do that from above; you have to get down beside it." Then he lay down on the floor beside the train where he could see to place it back on its track.2
Maybe that's what God did at Christmas. Perhaps the Christmas story is God's attempt to lie down beside us, to see and experience life as we see it, to draw close to us in a way we can understand. It's God's continuing to reach out to us, again, and again, and again.
That's the really good news of Christmas. Yes, we are celebrating a wondrous event that we believe really did happen thousands of years ago, but that's not all. We are also celebrating that Christmas can happen again, right here, right now, in our hearts and in our homes. God can be born again this night.
This story isn't just a one-time thing. It's God's promise always to be there, to be with us, within us, among us, right now, tonight. It isn't just something that happened once a lot of years ago. It's something that can happen right now. God's love can happen to us on this night in December or some balmy night in mid-July. It can be real for us at any moment in life. Christmas is just the reminder of that.
It's like something that Bert Holloway of Cambridge, England, understands. Every year for 43 years, at one minute after midnight on Christmas Eve, Bert has handed his wife Ethel a love letter. The gift is a tradition they started when they were first married, and every year he reaffirms his love for her in letters she keeps and treasures.3
I think that's what Christmas is meant to be for us -- God's yearly love letter, God's reminder and reaffirmation of unconditional, undying love. Tonight we have the opportunity to open that letter again, and we can treasure all that it holds in our hearts.
Christmas is God coming to us in the form of Jesus, and offering us more than we ever believed possible. Jesus brings us all the hope and possibility we see in a newborn babe. Jesus shows us the incredible love God has for each of us, and affirms that light can break through even the darkest night to brighten our world.
Maybe the truth of Christmas will really break through to each of us this year, as it did in a story I received on e-mail about some children in a Russian orphanage. Two Americans were in Russia by invitation from the Department of Education, and they were there to teach morals and ethics in prisons and businesses, in the fire and police departments, and in a large orphanage.
During the holiday season of 1994, the two visitors told the children in the orphanage the traditional story of Christmas. The children heard all about how Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, and finding no room in the inn, spent the night in a stable. They heard how Jesus was born there and placed in a manger.
The children were enthralled with the story, and after it was told, they were given a small piece of cardboard to make a manger, and some scraps of paper to make straw for the manger. The Americans also had some pieces of material for the children to use as the blanket, and some felt material to be fashioned into the baby Jesus.
The adults walked among the children as they were making their own version of the nativity scene, just to see if they needed any help. Everything was going well, until they got to the table where a little six-year-old named Misha was sitting. As the teacher looked into his manger, she was surprised to see two babies in the manger, instead of just one.
Very quickly, the translator was summoned, and the child was asked why there were two babies in the manger. With his arms crossed in front of him, little Misha began to retell the story he had heard for the first time just moments before. He had all the happenings accurately, until he got to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger.
It was then that he began to ad-lib, making up his own ending to the story. His version went like this: "When Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift. So I asked Jesus, 'If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?' and Jesus said that would be the best gift anybody ever gave him. So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him -- for always."4
That's what happens at Christmas. Jesus, God in the flesh, is born among us, and is with us always. That's what we remember and celebrate tonight as we light our candles and carry the light of the love of Jesus out into the world. God can be born again, this very moment, and God's love can break through once again to change you, to change me, to change the world.
Closing Word
As you leave here tonight, carry the light of the love of God in Christ Jesus into the world. Have a Merry Christmas, and go in peace. Amen.
____________
1. "Christmas," Dynamic Illustrations, Nov/Dec 94.
2. "Christmas," Dynamic Illustrations, Nov/Dec 92.
3. Bert Holloway, "Advent," Dynamic Illustrations, Nov/Dec 96.
4. e-mail, "Taking The Christmas Story To Heart," received Dec 98.
