Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7

Psalm 96

Titus 2:11-14

LUKE 2:1-20

 

CHRISTMAS AND OUR MISSION

 

 

      The prophet Isaiah gives us a gripping introduction to the Christmas story:  “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…for the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, you (God) have broken as on the day of Midian.”

 

      The Israelites of Isaiah’s time in the 8th Century B.C. were suffering under the reality of the devastating conquest of the northern Hebrew Kingdom of Israel by the barbaric Assyrian Empire and that empire’s threat to the very existence of the remaining people of The Lord who were huddled in Jerusalem.

 

      Give that, we expect Isaiah to introduce a great hero, a noble warrior, greater than Gideon or Joshua or King David himself, to liberate the people from the empire.  We expect “the return of the king””, a biblical version of Aragorn son of Arathorn of The Lord of the Rings fame.

 

      Instead, after this dramatic rhetorical drum roll, Isaiah continues, “For a child has been born to us…” A child?  As one of the characters in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia said in a similar situation, “When we asked for help, we thought that he would send, you know, help.”

 

      This is help?  A newborn baby, who has to be protected, fed, changed, burped; who is vulnerable and helpless; who is – just like we were when we were newborns?

 

      Yes, this is help.  This is help far more profound than the transient appearance of yet another noble warrior to defend a people in a time and in a place for a few years.  This is help.

 

      For the message of this birth is that God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, of planets, stars, galaxies, pulsars, quasars and dark matter beyond our reckoning, that GOD did not, so to speak, “stay in the owner’s box at the stadium” and watch our struggles in life through binoculars.  No.  God showed up to join us “on the field”, in the mud and the cold, the rain, the sleet and the sunshine, the grimness and the glory of real human life.  And God joined us not only so God could empathize (not merely sympathize) with us, and we know it, which would have by itself been a great gift of compassion.  God showed up to be vulnerable and to “take the rap” for all the sins of the world and to be broken on the cross so that all people would not  themselves be doomed to be broken for all eternity.  God showed up to free humanity from its worst legacies and to offer transformation and true peace.

 

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      “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

 

      The Jewish people did survive in Isaiah’s day, and they also kept this written record of his prophecy which went so far beyond the deliverance they experienced in the 8th Century B.C., and even beyond their deliverance and return from exile in the 6th Century B.C.  Surely, they thought, there was something bigger, more awesome coming.  There was.  And it began – just began, mind you, for God isn’t finished yet – on that first Christmas.

 

Once again, in this Gospel reading, God’s faithful people look like “bit players” on the stage of history, over-awed by an empire which made the Assyrians in their heyday look like a small-time operation.  Emperor Augustus of Rome ruled from the North Sea to the Sahara Desert, from the Atlantic Ocean to Syria.  He had, indeed, brought an end to a period of civil war and ushered in a time of peace and prosperity, but for that he was being honored by his contemporaries in over-the-top, shocking ways.  He was hailed as “savior” by the Greek cities of Asia Minor, who adopted his birthday as the first day of the new year; a month – August -- was named in his honor; and in a surviving inscription at Halicarnassus, Augustus is called “the savior of the world.”

 

And the only reason most people today have ever heard of him is because of one verse in the Gospel passage we just heard.  The emperor who had such a huge impact in his own lifetime and who moved the common people around like pawns on his vast chessboard was himself reduced to a mere off-stage cameo role in the drama about the real Savior of the World.

 

A carpenter named Joseph and a teen-aged Jewish peasant girl named Mary would be more important than the ruler of Europe, North Africa and the western frontiers of Asia who was reputed to have ordered this couple to go on their famous trip to Bethlehem.  Some Galilean fishermen, a woman named Mary from the hick town of Magdala who experienced a miraculous healing – even one of Augustus’ own lowly local tax collectors, Matthew, would play a bigger part in this drama than the Emperor.

 

The Rebel Alliance in “Star Wars”, matched up against that empire looked like a sure thing compared to the tiny, motley bunch of Jesus’ followers against this Empire.  Yet 2,000 years later, the One whose birth we celebrate here has over a billion followers (some vigorous, some lazy), while Caesar has precisely – none.

 

So (tonight) (today), we celebrate Jesus’ birthday.  And we celebrate because of who Jesus was and is, and what he did, does and will do.  For the child whose birth Isaiah foretold grew up to open the eyes of the blind, make the deaf hear, the voiceless speak, the crazed sane and the lame walk – and, in the centuries since, to inspire many to labor

 

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for healing in many ways and many places and never to passively accept illness or disability.

 

      This child grew up to tell parables like the one of the prodigal son who “came to himself”, repented and was restored with great joy – and in the centuries since, Christ has inspired many to repentance, change and reconciliation,

 

This child whose birth we celebrate grew up to tell stories like that of the good Samaritan – and Christ has in the centuries since inspired many to reach across divides of ethnicity, religion and class to help those in need in ways that many people now assume are normal because now they are.

 

      This child whose birth we celebrate grew up to enlist women as disciples, to recruit poor people and outcasts as followers, to extend the mercy and blessing of the God of Israel to foreigners – and Christ has in the centuries since inspired many people to work for the liberation of people from oppression, and for peace and understanding among all those made in the image of God, all human beings, throughout the world.

 

      So when we hold a candle (tonight) (at Christmas), let’s not hold our candles only to remember sweetly the birth of a child long ago and far away.  When we hold a candle in Christ’s honor, let us remember that we are commissioned to “carry a torch” for Christ (like bearers of the Olympic flame) throughout the world – to work for healing, repentance, change, reconciliation, relief, liberation and true peace throughout the world.

 

      For the world we live in still has much brokenness in it, much pain, much violence, much oppression, much suffering.  It is still a world in which some people are sorely tempted by the demons of despair.  It is still a world in which some people are looking for thrills in all the wrong places. In this world, in our world, we are commissioned to make the Christmas Spirit last all through the year by receiving the light of Christ (light my candle from the Christ Candle) and sharing Christ’s love with others, that hope may overcome despair and that all people may come to know that the greatest thrill anyone could have is experiencing the fullness of God’s love.

 

            (The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, New Jersey

10:30 P.M. Christmas Eve & Christmas Day, 2004