Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 Restore us, O God.
1 John 4:7-12 Everyone who love is born of God and knows God…God is love.
Matthew 1:18:25 He will save (the) people.
I.
You and I are disadvantaged. We may have all of the first world advantages of education and comforts, but we are disadvantaged when it comes to fully describing what is at the very core of life. We cannot look at a beautiful sunset and adequately describe its beauty. Or witness the growth of springtime flowers, even knowing the botanical process, and fully appreciate what is happening. We can be mesmerized for hours by ocean waves lapping the shore and still fail to adequately paint the scene. And can any of us fully describe our emotions at the homecoming of a child or grandchild who has been away for a long time, perhaps one returning from war?
And what about being present at death? I have been privileged to be at the side of many people who have breathed their last, and have tended parents in their final hours. Yet, as verbal and reflective as I may be, I am at a loss to adequately express the sanctity of those moments. Have you ever struggled with your own or a loved one’s sudden health crisis and tried later to share what it was like so others would know? If so, you understand how difficult painting that word picture can be. One who has tried beautifully shares words found on the back of today’s service bulletin. Revs. Marti McMane and Al Johnson are colleagues and old friends. Their effort to express the inexpressible Christmas love of God in their lives is must reading. Yet Marti ends it in this way-
What I am describing is not rational. It is transformational. It is the peculiar,
irrational story of God’s love. A love for us. A love for all people, in all
circumstances. No exceptions. It is the story of God-with-us transforming us,
by grace, to be signs of love in God’s world.
-full text included at end of sermon
II.
My friends’ story is of the same nature as that found in the Christmas narratives. Matthew’s narrative of the Birth of Jesus is short and without flourish. Just the essential facts quite unlike Luke’s telling (LK 1:26-38). But they both get to the same point. A peasant girl is to have a baby that is from the Holy Spirit, that is, not of human doing! And her intended, Joseph, apparently a man of principle, is convinced, after a dream in which he is visited by an angel, to marry the girl. So, Joseph becomes a willing participant in this holy conspiracy, or event, a kind of hero. Perhaps he really does understand the message that this is God’s child in a way like none other, a Savior especially for the oppressed. Even the child’s name, yasha, translates Jesus, He saves.
Just to be sure Joseph and temple worshipers understand what God has done, early theologians were quick to remind them that the child is the fulfillment of countless prophecies like Isaiah 7:10-16,
The Lord…will give you a sign. The young woman is with child and shall bear
a son and shall name him Immanuel (God with us).
But people in Jesus’ time still had difficulty believing what was said about this child. As he grew, temple scholars debated the issue and religious leaders grew nervous at Jesus’ popularity. It became a political issue. If his power base became too strong, no matter who he was, he would upset the occupying Roman government and a price would be paid for the disruption. But in quiet moments, temple leaders must have wondered about him.
And what about us today here and now? Do we have trouble believing that God came as a Child? Many acknowledge with the Jesus scholars- Borg, Crossan and the others- that quite likely much of the Christmas narrative is tradition’s magnificent embellishment. And why not? We have just said how impossible it is to describe something this holy. It so defies words and logic that it is in a dimension by itself. And do we really need a virgin birth to validate what God has done in Jesus Christ?
Even if we had been eye witnesses of the Annunciation and the Holy Birth, would we have believed what we were seeing and hearing? And could we have found the words or the colors or the music or other instruments by which to convincingly share what we have witnessed?
Maybe that’s why we have 1 John. This Christian wrote to young congregations around 100 years after the Birth. His apparent concern was to fight heresies in the form of Doectism and Gnosticism. Both claimed they had no need of redemption. As enlightened folk, they could go beyond faith to an actual vision of God. They could act in ugly, immoral ways and still claim they loved God and may even have already passed from death into eternal life. Here, the writer, very much in the mold of the author of John’s Gospel, gets down to basics about what God did in Jesus (1 John 4:8ff):
…God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his
only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love,
not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent the Son to be the
atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also
ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another,
God lives in us, and his love is perfected is us.
Now that’s the Cliff’s Notes version! Scan it and you’ve got it. But we know that even 1 John 4 does not do justice to the stories of the birth of Jesus. That’s why have all the beautiful music and the pageantry and the flowers of Christmas eve. We need it all. Because this kind of love- this love that is God enfleshed, incarnate- is impossible to adequately describe.
It has never happened before. Christmas is about understanding with our hearts. It is about, as Marti McMane says, truth, not facts.
III.
The truth of Christmas, stable love is found in how this love like none other lives, on the ground; how Jesus, God in this world, walks and talks and interacts, in and through and around us. For this is no abstract art of gallery and concert hall, mountains and ocean vistas.
This stable love was evident for a minute last Sunday evening as a small circle sang peace songs and Christmas carols near the White House. Bitter winds blew, police kept us far away from the fence and the futility of the exercise chilled our bones.
Yet, the gray sky for a moment,
did shed its cloak,
revealing a most striking,
streaked gold sunset,
glory’s poke,
at us to get up and get on,
for peace is still to the won
and well worth the effort,
Holy Love remains in life
and we are partners.
Bonhoeffer once said,For those who are great
and powerful in this world,
there are two places
where their courage fails them,
which terrify them to the very depths of their souls,
and which they dearly avoid.
these are the manger and the cross
of Jesus Christ.
This stable love like none other blesses us each Christmas in Connie’s long letter. She is the wife of Howard, a clergy colleague who lives without the use of nearly every part of his body including voice, the victim of a hit and run auto accident many years ago. Connie, a retired college professor, without anger or pity, lovingly cares for Howard in their home with the help of professionals and the support of church and family as they can be there. Her letters are not sad nor plaintive but full of gratitude for the blessings of each day’s small gifts- the birds at the window, the letters from others, the daily encounters with friends uptown, the phone calls from children and grandchildren, her church and community activities, world concerns. As I read, I see a quiet smile on her face. It is not fair what Howard and Connie must endure, their dreams shattered. But, they have been touched by this stable love like none other…
Bonhoeffer, from prison, again,
There, where our understanding is outraged,
where our nature rebels,
where our piety fearfully
keeps its distance-
there, precisely there, is where God loves to be.
This love, this stable love, this love of God for us…this incarnate God to show us how to live life, is a love with legs under it! It is a tough and tender love that walks right up to the Cross…and beyond.
This love is tender enough to cuddle a baby and tough enough to stand up to injustice of every kind. It is a love that addresses the warring madness of this world, seeking the peace that lasts; a love that awakens the complacent and challenges them to make trouble for the corrupt.
What kind of love is this?
Bonhoeffer once more-
Mighty God is the name of this child.
The child in the manger
is none other than God.
Nothing greater can be said:
God became a child.
The words of friend Martha McMane still echo in my heart-
What I am describing is not rational. It is transformational. It is the peculiar, irrational story of God’s love. A love for us. A love for all people, in all
circumstances. No exceptions. It is the story of God-with-us transforming us,
by grace, to be signs of love in God’s world.
Amen.
Back of Sunday Bulletin at Rock Spring Church
UCC Bulletin Service
Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 23, 2007
Matthew 1:18-25
SIGNS OF GOD'S LOVE
Today we hear the angel's message: "His name shall be called Emmanuel" which means God-with-us." It is good news the angel brings us. For what is born is not just a lovely old story. It is truth. Not fact. But truth. God is with us. How do we know this? Because we experience this truth as love. A love that will not let us go.
It was fourteen years ago this month that my beloved husband, Alan, had a stroke. Between the third of December and Christmas he had eleven more TIA's-transischemic attacks. A few days before Christmas that year he came home from the hospital. Understanding and communicating speech was minimal, and we had no way of knowing how much, if any, he would improve. Neither of us was serving as a local church pastor then-we were serving on the UCC national staff and we didn't have to conduct any Christmas Eve services. We decided it was too difficult to go to church on Christmas Eve that year—too confusing with so many people that Alan could not understand and too frustrating with no way for him to respond. So we had our own Christmas Eve service sitting by the fire in our home. We lit some candles, played some sacred music. I read from scripture this strange story of a virgin having a baby, a man having a dream, an angel telling him to name the baby Jesus, which he does.
Alan still couldn't understand everything, but over the months his speech and language did come back. We were fortunate beyond belief. Still, in that moment on Christmas Eve, even though we did not know what the future would bring, that moment was still a God-with-us moment. God was present in a palpable way. Love filled the room. We knew that the holy was among us no matter what the outcome. We were certain beyond measure that we were being held and would always be held in the love of God that came to us in the Christ child that night, a love that surpasses our human understanding.
What I am describing is not rational. It is transformational. It is the peculiar, irrational story of God's love. A love for us. A love for all people. In all circumstances. No exceptions. It is the story of God-with-us transforming us, by grace, to be signs of love in God's world.
Rev. Martha McMane
First Congregational Church
Boulder, Colorado