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The Second Sunday after Christmas |
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| This is the time of year when the post-Christmas blues begin to set in—when empty bottles and empty cookie tins fill the trash and dried out Christmas trees line the street curbs.
It’s that time of year when spring seems so far away and the bleak cold of January, February and March looms before us. And it’s that time of year when we Christians are reminded that the birth of Jesus on December 25th was only the happy, joyous beginning of the story, and with Epiphany upon us that that beginning, in a sense, has ended, though the story continues with a new season and a new focus. But even as we pack up the crèche, and put away the strings and lights, and wipe away the holiday film from our eyes, it’s appropriate, I think, to stop for a moment, and to consider the full impact of this miracle birth—of God’s coming, and becoming human. For the message of the Christmas season, when fully considered—when we slow down to take it in completely—can be a bit unsettling. Of course, there’s nothing unsettling about the secular meaning of the season: Donner and Blitzen and visions of sugarplums; brightly wrapped gifts and champagne glasses; turkey sandwiches and after-Christmas sales are hardly unsettling things. But the appearance of a savior as the angels proclaim! Stories of a virgin birth and kings who come to worship and another king who came to worry, greatly, about this newborn child; Now that can be unsettling! In fact, if we don’t hear in that proclamation something that unsettles us —something that moves us—in a very real way from where we are, then chances are we haven’t really heard the message for what it is. And what that message is, in a nutshell, is Emmanuel. “God with us.” In this morning’s gospel reading, Matthew tells of one individual who was pretty upset by this proclamation—by the “rumor” being spread that God had come to be “with us.” His name was Herod the Great, and he was tetrarch or king of the Jews, second only in power to the Roman governor of Judea. As king, Herod held a rather tenuous political position. That of keeping the peace among the oppressed Jewish populace and, at the same time, satisfying the economic and social demands of the oppressive Roman government. He was in a very real sense, a middleman—a Jew who worked for Rome. And although powerful in his own right, like most political middlemen, Herod’s professional neck was usually on the chopping block. The last thing on earth he wanted or needed was someone (like a Jewish Messiah) stealing his political thunder—making waves—and spreading notions of radical change or, even worse, revolution against Rome. Needless to say, Herod was quite satisfied with things as they were. Despite the ulcers and sleepless nights, he felt secure in his position of being both Jewish royalty and a So when the rumor of the birth of a savior reached him, there was for Herod only one course of action. The “possibility” must be put to death. You know the story. Because he is unable to identify or pinpoint the exact location of this alleged rival king, Herod orders that all Jewish males two and under be put to death. But because Joseph is warned in a dream to take Jesus and flee to Egypt, Herod’s plan is foiled—while God’s plan continues to unfold. And, as a part of God’s plan of Emmanuel, Herod himself becomes an important player, an important first. For Herod becomes the first person—with the sure exceptions of Mary and Joseph—to recognize the disruptive, unsettling nature of the incarnation. As we gather here this morning, to celebrate the Christmas story, if we think the birth of Jesus is somehow less disruptive for us than it was for Herod, then we better think again. For behind the all the lovely innocence of that babe in a manger, there lies a truth heavier than the weight of the world. To begin with, the incarnation is disruptive to us because most of us like our lives just the way they are: safe, secure and changeless. You know, there’s a little bit of Herod in all of us—a fear, an attitude that causes us to grip so tightly to what is, that we constantly fight the possibilities of what could be. We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to preserve who and what we are. And, because of that, we build up walls around us—risking very little—and we wind up shutting ourselves off from much of the world and from God. And because of that, we find it difficult to participate in any kind of honest, open relationship—including our relationship with and obedience to God. In my sermon preparation this week, I came across a quote referenced only as being from “a book by a French poet.” And though the quote seems to be addressed to a particular individual, I believe it to be a terribly accurate description of all of us at our worst moments. The poet writes: You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel Security . . . raising a wall against the wind and the tide and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget as a human being. You are not a dweller upon an open planet, you do not ask questions for which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and nothing in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning. The poet casts a terrible judgment. But might it not be an accurate cast at us from time to time? Aren’t we all resistant to change –and growth –and learning, scared to death by the possibility of giving up the old ways, scared to death of the implications of a babe in a manger, -an incarnate God—a Lord of our lives? That the Christmas story might actually be true! God came to be with us as Emmanuel because we needed something new in our lives, something fresh and pure and radical and fully alive. You see, God doesn’t want us to be “middlemen” and “middlewomen,” –always caught in-between, stagnant, cut off and dried out, -hardened and fearing the worst. God doesn’t want that at all. Instead, God desires to awaken in us the poet, the musician, the astronomer. The dreamer, the visionary, the lover, the healer, the comic, --and especially the saint. Fully considered, the proclamation of Christmas is both a terrible and a wonderful truth. Terrible because it means--if we accept it—that our lives can never be the same. And wonderful—for the same reason—because it will awaken and release the very best that is in us. My wish and hope for you—and for me—and for everyone as we begin this new year is that we will come to accept the wonderful and true Christmas gift that God and this season offer: the grace of God in our hearts, and lives that are made new by the miracle of Emmanuel, --of “God with us.” In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. |
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