CHRISTMAS EVE SERMON Once upon a time God sat in the council of his angels. It was not a pleasant meeting, for the angels quite unsettled. While none of them would openly question God, God could see the looks on their faces, and how their wings dropped behind them. God had been explaining to them God’s plan, but they just could not see why God would do such or thing, or how it could possibly work. So God explained, “As you know, humans have forgotten that they are made in my image and likeness. They have forgotten their calling to care for Earth and each other, and my promise that as they did so they would come to know me. And as you know, I have tried many ways to reach out to them to help them. I have shouted to them from the sidelines, and spoke to them in dreams. I have tried to impress them with fire and smoke from the tops of mountains. I have tried to warn them through floods and famines. I have tried to comfort them with manna and quails. I have protected them in war. I have blessed them with rich harvests. I have sent them messengers, prophets, sages, and kings. But no matter what I have tried we keep coming up against the barriers of their flesh. They are made of it, so it is always with them. It makes them hungry, tired, and lonely. It constantly provides them with distractions, which leads to temptations, which leads to falling away, which leads to guilt, which leads to anger, which leads to all their pain and suffering, and their inability to remember that I love them.” “But Lord”, one of the senior angels, a cherubim, replied, “what you are proposing seems like such a risk. Is this really necessary?” For God had just shared with the angels the plan; God was going to become one of these delightful creatures, these humans. God was going to enter into the world God had made in a new way, as a baby. God was going to live with them; to feel the wind and the heat and the cold, to eat and drink, to make things with God’s hands, and to sometimes just sit and chat. God was going to show them how to actually live a life of love and faith. But the angels quickly came up with a laundry list of questions and things that could go wrong. Committees are like that sometimes. One warned that God was putting God’s self at the mercy of God’s creatures. One thought it was beneath God’s dignity. One wondered how the universe would run while God was spending time as an infant. One asked how God could choose a particular place and time that would be best. One asked how God could choose if the baby would be a boy or a girl. And one suggested that God make sure to give the baby magical powers to protect itself in all circumstances. God thanked the angels for their concern but said “no”; God thought it best to be just a regular baby. “How else”, God said, “can I ever gain the total trust of my creatures?” God was indeed willing to risk everything to get close to them again, like God had once been back in the Garden, in hopes that they might love God again. “Besides”, God said, “the time is right and all things are ready”. “That is just it”, one of the angels replied. “This whole thing requires a mother. What if she says ‘no’?” For the angels knew that to take on human form a mother would be necessary, and yet God had just reminded them that God would always respect human freedom. The mother of the baby would have to accept her part in the plan willingly; and so God had dispatched one of the angels to visit one of the people, a girl from the royal family line going back centuries, a girl who would know the full implications of what she was being asked to do, and a girl who was up to the challenge. Indeed, she could have said ‘No’; and for whatever time there was, perhaps the merest fraction of a second, between the Archangel Gabriel’s greeting and her decision, God’s entire purposes hung in the balance. Heaven itself held its breath waiting to see what this young girl would say. For many of the angels it was too much. That fraction of a second scared them beyond their endurance. A few even fainted. One whispered to another, “No wonder Lucifer left so long ago. They’re such frail creatures. How could God have ever entrusted them with so much?” But then the two angels saw God looking at them, and while they froze wondering what God would say, God just winked. At that very moment God stood up from the royal throne and in one fluid movement whipped off the royal blue mantel from about God’s shoulders and flung it to the floor, disappearing as it spun around. But as the royal robes landed on the floor, a strange thing happened. Where it had fallen, the floor melted and opened up. The stars that adorned the robe fell through, the brightest and heaviest one falling all the way down, down, down. It stopped just before hitting the ground, lighting up an area of scrubby brown pasture that was speckled with sheep, where right in the middle of them, a bunch of shepherds sitting around a campfire were drinking wine out of some skins. It was hard to say who was more startled, the shepherds or the angels. Just as the shepherds were pinching themselves, with one asking the other, “Hiram, do you see what I see?” the angels all gathered at the edge of the hole and looked over. One of the senior angels, a seraphim, decided he had to say something to the shepherds, as he thought to himself, “Poor creatures, they do not even have their wings”. In as gentle a voice as he could muster he said, “Do not be afraid”. The shepherds just continued to stare into the heavens, although the one with the skin through it to the ground and shook his head. “Go ahead, tell them”, said one of the angels to the seraphim. Nodding his head, the seraphim continued, “I bring 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’”. And away in a manger up the hill a short way came the sound of a newborn baby’s cry. Amen.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 12:46:03 +0000
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