The Feast of the Nativity, 12/25/2008

Sermon on Luke 2:1-20, by James V. Stockton

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 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, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. (NRSV)

I read about a couple of shoppers browsing the store windows in the mall. They come across a particular one that has a small nativity scene set up in it. One shopper turns to the other and complains, ‘Well, just look at that, will you? The Church trying to horn in on Christmas!'

‘Merry Christmas' may be a controversial phrase this year, or perhaps the controversy is as much contrived as it is real. But in any case, the enduring presence of the grace of God in every celebration of the birth of His Son, finds its way to shine even brighter by contrast in the midst of any cloud of human cynicism that may be trying to drop down over Christmas. And because of it, the world around us, and we in its midst, still need to know how, in some way or another, to offer season's greetings; how, by word or deed or both, truly to wish someone a ‘Merry Christmas.'

"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come ‘round,...as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.' So wrote author Charles Dickens in his story titled A Christmas Carol. "[It is] the only time I know of," he goes on, "in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem, by one consent, to open their closed up hearts freely; and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers [in life] and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys." I pray the same is true for each of us here. I pray that we find it true for ourselves, and find it true as well for most of those around us, that even if sarcasm, pessimism, cynicism born of a so-called realistic fatalism may reign much the rest of the year, yet, in this season, around the particular event of the quiet and glorious birth of Jesus, I pray we find that people are gentler, kinder, more patient with others and with themselves, and more positive about their world. And that there is a renewed interest among people in general in making these more pleasant qualities more their own.

The late Lutheran professor and minister Andrew Weyermann once told of a Christmas celebration with some senior citizens at a nursing home. He tells how he asks the folks to tell of their favorite Christmas memory. And each memory is different, of course, but none recalls a Christmas from their adulthood; every memory is taken from when they were children. The minister remembers then his own favorite memory of Christmas. He's about seven years old at the time; it's early on Christmas Eve. His mother has taken him and his brother out for a treat. It's her way of turning over the apartment to their father, so he can prepare the place for the evening celebration at home. They return and as soon as they enter the front door of the apartment building they can hear the high-pitched sound of a screaming whistle. They wonder from where the noise could ever be coming. As they come nearer the door of their place, the whistle is louder and louder. They enter the apartment and there is dad on the floor seated before a massive toy train set. One hand is on the switch and the other is holding a whistle pressed to his mouth a whistle which, between bursts of his excited laughter, he is blowing as loudly as he can.

At Christmas time, thanks be to God, the supposed realistic and mature perspective on life, surrenders to the more innocent, the more spontaneous, to the less self-conscious, in short, to the more child-like being that survives somewhere inside us year ‘round, and which at Christmastime surfaces just a bit, for just a while, to remind us that there are within us and in those around us, hope and faith in the power of the goodness of God to shape this world just a little bit more in His good image. Surely there is nothing terribly controversial in the benefit to the world of a bit of the child-like breaking through into our aging if not maturing world. For the children among us, and the child-like within us, are usually the quickest to act on the belief that goodness itself is a real and lasting influence in the community of humankind. Though scarred by war, though marred by sin, though populated by people who are inevitably and woefully far from perfect; yet, children and he child-like still have an optimism about them, a belief, even an assumption, that people can change, that humanity can grow, that each of us can make a difference.

At Christmas time, we adults remember some of these beliefs; and we recapture a bit of that wisdom of childhood that knows that these ideals are more than naive illusions of innocence. And part of what keeps these ideals alive at the heart of every Christmas, and the heart of every day throughout the year, is remembering together, as we do here this night, that news that brings ‘Joy to the World' which announces God's move to come to us. And especially at Christmas, it is to recall that God came among us as a child, a helpless newborn baby. It is the first Christmas miracle, the one from which all others springs. God placed His very Presence, His very being, the very self of God into the care of a peasant couple, friendless and far from home. So, the Christmas celebration is one not of the birth of a royal monarch born into plush and regal luxury, but of One trusted by God to the care of a young first-time mother and her loyal and discreet fiancé; to their wonderfully human, woefully mortal, hearts and minds and souls. In the birth of the baby Jesus, that very God whom humanity could not approach and survive the encounter, comes among us, fully human, while fully God, as a newborn baby to whom God invites all the world to come and find His comfort.

And we begin to understand that in the birth of the infant Christ Jesus, there is indeed a controversy; for in it, God intends to inspire us and our world; sometimes despite ourselves, and in it, God still succeeds in doing so. God says as Christmas to you and me, and to the world around us, "I trust you to care for me come among you; I trust my Son with you and among you, and I believe in you." If there is a true controversy in Christmas, it is in the child-like hope and goodness that awake in us at Christmas time, that refuse to be silenced but quietly insist on speaking to us of the way God overcomes humanity's cynicism and sin not with divine power, but with humility and lowliness. It is because the Almighty becomes the helpless and innocent. It is because the God of justice tempered with mercy trusts His presence among us to the whim of our mercy.

There is indeed a controversy in Christmas, but it's not so much because God asks humanity to believe in Jesus, rather it is that, in Jesus, God shows that He believes in humanity. Somehow through Christmas, our cold hearts warm, our hard hearts soften, and our tight grip on all that is ours turns to an open hand outstretched toward others, in Christ's Name and in our own. Somehow through Christmas, God reaches us in our visions of what might have been, but never was, and touches us with the joy of what is, instead; and with the hope and promise of what still can come to be. Somehow through Christmas, Jesus brings together the low and simple of us with the high and mighty of us, and shows us ourselves in one another, and helps us come together and stay together in God.

Let us, then, make this the controversy of Christmas: that, at least at Christmas, if at no other time, we shall see to it that the good news breaks in again; we shall help announce again that we can help, and we do; that we can care, and we do; that God's Love, given our hands, our hearts, our lives, still makes the biggest difference of all. And by this, I think, Christmas shall continue to touch in each of us the child that never ages, the child that still embodies holiness and grace in our world, the child that understands good will, and peace, and joy, and who understands, long before we ever even learn to name them, and long before we ever learn to doubt them, that these qualities of the soul really do have lasting influence on the community of humankind.

"And therefore,..." to quote Mr. Dickens, "though it has never put a scrap of gold of silver in my pocket, I believe that it had done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" Merry Christmas to you, and may the light of Christ be born in you, and in me, and through us be born around us, this most holy night, tomorrow, and every day hereafter.

The Rev. James V. Stockton
Episcopal Church of the Resurrection
Austin, Texas

E-Mail: jstockton@sbcglobal.net

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