Christmas Eve
Grace, Oak Ridge
December 24, 2015
Luke 2:1-20
The Mess and the Message!
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How many of you would recognize a waltz if you heard one played?
Yes, even those of us who are not gifted with an ear for music -- or to be
blunt, those of us with a tin ear -- can recognize the signature sounds of a
waltz.
What gives a waltz its characteristic lilt and lift is the number of
musical beats it contains in each measure. The waltz beat is called "3/4
time" and it has three beats to a measure.
The first of the three beats is usually the accented beat, the second
two beats softer and unaccented: "Dum-de-de, Dum-de-de." Everybody
who was anybody in the late 19th century was dancing the waltz.
And, if you were waltzing, you were with it.
But what makes a waltz a waltz is also, ultimately, what can make a
waltz pretty boring, too. It’s devotion to that 3/4 beat limits the variety and
the drama and the joy that a waltz can communicate to its listeners. And,
like the waltz dance step -- one, two, three; one, two, three -- the music
seems to go on and on -- always beautiful, always in harmony, but always
predictable!
Have you ever noticed that despite our human tendency to blame God
for everything bad and hard that happens in our lives, we rarely find a
reason to accuse God of being predictable or boring? Consider earthquakes,
famine, flood, disease -- or those everyday tragedies that mar our lives -like bounced checks, burnt dinners, bad relationships, bossy coworkers,
broken promises. When people and problems in our lives get too difficult, too
big, too messy, too overwhelming, it is then that we feel that God has
abandoned us to the forces of fate, or evil or despair.
What these frantic days of Christmas recall for us, however, is that it is
exactly during these most hectic, harried, hardest moments in life that God's
presence hovers nearest to us.
I recently heard this story - it is from Windows of the Soul by Ken
Gire. It is the story of a pagan who asked a rabbi, "Why did God speak to
Moses from a thorn bush?" The pagan thought that God should have
spoken, instead, in a peal of thunder on the peak of some majestic
mountain.
The rabbi’s answer was this, "To teach us that there is no place on earth
where God's Glory is not. God’s Glory is found even in a humble thorn
bush."
Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 44.
And so, what appears to us to be our most chaotic, congested,
convoluted times are actually our "stable times".
For Christians, "stable" moments aren't those few days when the calm
briefly descends on our world. Our true "stable times" are when we look
around and see that however unpredictable, unmanageable and
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unimaginable our mess is, the message is there even more!
In today's gospel text, Mary and Joseph find
themselves in the midst of their own "stable times."
Mary was unexpectedly pregnant. She and Joseph, betrothed, but not quite
yet husband and wife, found themselves in Behtlehem. They were young
and poor and had been utterly average in the expectations they had for their
lives. They had anticipated setting up a household together, establishing
themselves in their new roles as husband and wife, and then, hopefully,
becoming parents.
Instead, they had recently had to cope with the astounding visits of an
angelic messenger, the shocking realization that she was indeed pregnant,
the stunning news about the identity of this baby she carried, and now, here
they were in Bethlehem - and she about to deliver - and they found
themselves in a stable, of all places! Has anyone ever been faced with such
an outrageously "stable time" in his or her life as this holy family?
Yet, they responded to the revelations and situations these "stable
times" presented by being open to this unexpected divine event. And, a
kind of unexpected beauty and inspiration emerged when the unpredictable
rhythm of "stable time" washed over them. They refused to panic and
instead responded to this most "stable" of moments in their lives with faith
and trust.
And, Jesus was born in a stable -- a small, cramped, congested, messy
place. A new-born baby, out-of-place, out-of-sync, amid the dusty animals,
the mucky straw, the spilled grain, and all the usual smells - and sights and sounds usually found in a stable. But, the mess is the message of
Christmas: There is no stable, no place in all of our world, nor in all of our
lives, that is too poor, too remote, too outcast, too "other," too messy, that
God cannot be found right there in the midst of it all.
At Christmas, we often find ourselves at wits' end, having run out of
time, out of patience, out of money, out of ideas. The demands of work and
the responsibilities we bear refuse to "take a holiday"; the pressure is on,
despite our longing for some simple Christmas cheer.
But, don't be fooled into thinking that God cannot draw close to our
lives and to our hearts, just because our schedule has been "too busy" for
Christmas. Inspite of the fact that our circuitry may be hovering very near
overload, we may also be on the brink of experiencing a genuine "stable
time" in our lives. So, be open to it, exalt in it, and be willing to let the Spirit
of God come in as they did in that stable in Bethlehem; and, on a battlefield
in Belgium on Christmas eve in 1914.
From the pages of history, we learn that 101 years ago tonight, World
War I was only a few months old.
English soldiers were facing German soldiers along a front that
extended 12 miles. During the weeks before Christmas Eve that year, both
sides had close to one million casualties on this very battlefield.
Even during the day of Christmas Eve, the fighting continued.
Then - at midnight - during the silence of that cold, winter night, a
church bell in a town not far away began to ring out, heralding the arrival of
Christmas day.
Suddenly, lights began to appear all along the German trench
lines. The English assumed that the Germans were preparing a nighttime
attack. The bugles rang out sounding the alarm and the English grabbed
their weapons and rushed to the edge of the trenches. “Please God, not
today as well,” an English soldier was overheard to say.
A still hush fell over the battle field – and then, out of the cold night
air the English heard a most beautiful voice coming from the German lines
singing "Silent Night, Holy Night". When the German soldier had finished
the first verse, one brave English soldier stood and began singing the
second. One by one, men rose up from their frozen entrenchments and
began to join in until almost every soldier, German and English were
singing.
There, in the middle of the mess, was the message: God with us.
Tonight, as we sing “Silent Night” together - once again,
in the glow of candle light, may we remember those troops
and how they saw the glow of lights and heard the message in the mess of
that battlefield 101 years ago tonight.
And so, on this Christmas Eve 2015, my earnest prayer for each of us
is that we will not miss Christ in Christmas - that we will not miss the
message - even in the mess of life, and that we will not miss God - who is
right here with us, in the messy “stable times” of our own lives!
Amen.
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