Christmas 2016 Scott Murray
Happy Christmas.
I’m glad so many could be here for what may be my last Christmas sermon. More on that later. See, I now have your full attention.
During Advent, we had once again the NT stories of the usual suspects: John the Baptist, Mary, Joseph. This year, for some reason, Papa Joseph seemed to rise up for me. He is the one to whom many dreams came, like his namesake in the OT. Being a dreamer myself, I feel a kinship. My wife tells our daughter often, don’t marry a dreamer like your father, dear. But we’re not talking idle daydreams here, we’re talking visions which come in one’s sleep. And this is what came to me about two weeks ago.
Like Joseph, an angel appeared to me. Pretty cool, I gotta say. “Fear not!” it said. No problem, I replied. “Not even a little?” Nope, I’ve met Gabriel before, so I’m kind of used to this. It seemed a little crestfallen. So, I said, you bring tidings of some sort, I suppose? “Oh. Yes. Tidings. Yes. I bring you this!” He held out a scroll which I took. “Read, mortal.” Okay, give me a second. I unrolled it. Hey, this is the results from my annual checkup. “Yes!” it said triumphantly. “Do you see what it portends?” Portends? Oh boy. Umm, well, yeah the cholesterol is high like last year. I’ll have to watch that still. “No! Look more closely.” Um, okay, borderline metabolic. I’ll get a longer belt. “You’re missing it.” Missing what? “You know, the bad news.” Huh? No fine print I can see. “Okay, turn around.” I turn around. “Turn back.”
I’m now facing a halloween version of the angel of death. “Now do you get it?” I gulp. But how serious am I to take an angel of death dressed like this? “Population explosion. Not enough good robes to go around. Sorry. And I mean that. Sorry. For you” So, the test missed something? I’m dying? You’re here to take me? “Oh, well, not right this minute. I don’t know if you’re sick now or not.That’s not why I’m here. I was sent to remind you that you are mortal. You will die. Some day. Definitely. Ponder this!” And it left. That was my vision.
Merry Christmas to me. But I pondered. And I found that a power comes upon you when you are certain of your finiteness, your mortality. Things become very clear and put inot proper perspective. This could be my last Christmas sermon, right? Who knows what the coming year brings? And yet I could also be back up here next year. But which choice gives me power and clarity to share what really needs to be shared with you?
The distilled truth of my many Christmasses I give you today.
Are you familiar with how most magic tricks work? Misdirection. Getting you to put your attention someplace other than where the real action is happening. Now I am not saying Christmas is a magic trick. What I am saying is we too often let ourselves get misdirected from where the real action is happening. We get sidetracked somehow and having been sidetracked, we finish with a wrong conclusion and wonder how we got there.
For example, the Santa Claus thing. Jolly old St. Nick. What’s his job? Right, bringing toys to all the boys and girls. Which boys and girls? The good ones. Aha. What are we learning at that nice young age? I do good, I get something good. If I get something bad, it must be because…. I am bad. And what kind of adult do we then become out of those circumstances? So you can see the rabbit hole this misdirection of the story of St. Nicholas turns into when we let him become dear old Santa Claus.
Verily, verily, I tell you - Don’t let the nativity set and the “baby Jesus” story misdirect you. It will take you down the same rabbit hole, so to speak. “God comes into the world” gets easily misunderstood as something directional, as actual movement from out there to in here. Which leads to the misunderstanding that if we feel disconnected with the world around us, we can fix that by bringing god into our lives. But what comes in seems to also be able to “go out”. Why did God leave me? We revert to Santa Claus thinking, oh, it was because I’ve been bad. Now I must be good in order that God will come back into me. Sound familiar? But how can I be good if god is not with me to strengthen me? Beginning to sound like an impossible situation, no?
The good news I want you to hear this morning is that Christmas is not about God coming into our world from somewhere else. God has never been absent. Never. It is about the birth of the Christ child. Not in Bethlehem. In Mary. In us. You see, I finally realised that Mary is the key. Or rather, that is to say, the virgin birth is the key. The symbolism of the virgin birth, this conception without “direction” (outside to inside, human initiative) speaks to the christ child being born spiritually within us without human will or initiative. It is the main promise given to us in our creation. This is the spiritual meaning of being begotten.
We don’t have to ask for it because it is already happening. The very fact that you are human means that the christ child has been birthed in you, and continues to be born in you, moment after moment. It doesn’t depend on you. It doesn’t depend on “good or bad.” If you want a part to play in this, it would be to step aside and let the light shine through you. That is really all you need to do. You do good in the world, not to have God come in, not to possess God, but you do good because that is what “lets God out”, in a manner of speaking.
You don’t need to first let God in. From the moment you first drew breath, the christ child was being born within you. And at this very moment, the christ child is being born within you. You will never lose this. You may spend a lifetime keeping it covered over and denying its desire to shine forth, but the birthing never stops. The ever present light of the christ child is your birth right, your gift from god which cannot be taken away.
Enjoy Santa. Enjoy the baby Jesus and the nativity story. But keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t get misdirected. The amazing gift we receive at Christmas is the lived out truth of God’s gift of the christ child within us, coming to birth over and over, winning our hearts and changing our lives from inside out, not outside in.
Happy Christmas.
I’m glad so many could be here for what may be my last Christmas sermon. More on that later. See, I now have your full attention.
During Advent, we had once again the NT stories of the usual suspects: John the Baptist, Mary, Joseph. This year, for some reason, Papa Joseph seemed to rise up for me. He is the one to whom many dreams came, like his namesake in the OT. Being a dreamer myself, I feel a kinship. My wife tells our daughter often, don’t marry a dreamer like your father, dear. But we’re not talking idle daydreams here, we’re talking visions which come in one’s sleep. And this is what came to me about two weeks ago.
Like Joseph, an angel appeared to me. Pretty cool, I gotta say. “Fear not!” it said. No problem, I replied. “Not even a little?” Nope, I’ve met Gabriel before, so I’m kind of used to this. It seemed a little crestfallen. So, I said, you bring tidings of some sort, I suppose? “Oh. Yes. Tidings. Yes. I bring you this!” He held out a scroll which I took. “Read, mortal.” Okay, give me a second. I unrolled it. Hey, this is the results from my annual checkup. “Yes!” it said triumphantly. “Do you see what it portends?” Portends? Oh boy. Umm, well, yeah the cholesterol is high like last year. I’ll have to watch that still. “No! Look more closely.” Um, okay, borderline metabolic. I’ll get a longer belt. “You’re missing it.” Missing what? “You know, the bad news.” Huh? No fine print I can see. “Okay, turn around.” I turn around. “Turn back.”
I’m now facing a halloween version of the angel of death. “Now do you get it?” I gulp. But how serious am I to take an angel of death dressed like this? “Population explosion. Not enough good robes to go around. Sorry. And I mean that. Sorry. For you” So, the test missed something? I’m dying? You’re here to take me? “Oh, well, not right this minute. I don’t know if you’re sick now or not.That’s not why I’m here. I was sent to remind you that you are mortal. You will die. Some day. Definitely. Ponder this!” And it left. That was my vision.
Merry Christmas to me. But I pondered. And I found that a power comes upon you when you are certain of your finiteness, your mortality. Things become very clear and put inot proper perspective. This could be my last Christmas sermon, right? Who knows what the coming year brings? And yet I could also be back up here next year. But which choice gives me power and clarity to share what really needs to be shared with you?
The distilled truth of my many Christmasses I give you today.
Are you familiar with how most magic tricks work? Misdirection. Getting you to put your attention someplace other than where the real action is happening. Now I am not saying Christmas is a magic trick. What I am saying is we too often let ourselves get misdirected from where the real action is happening. We get sidetracked somehow and having been sidetracked, we finish with a wrong conclusion and wonder how we got there.
For example, the Santa Claus thing. Jolly old St. Nick. What’s his job? Right, bringing toys to all the boys and girls. Which boys and girls? The good ones. Aha. What are we learning at that nice young age? I do good, I get something good. If I get something bad, it must be because…. I am bad. And what kind of adult do we then become out of those circumstances? So you can see the rabbit hole this misdirection of the story of St. Nicholas turns into when we let him become dear old Santa Claus.
Verily, verily, I tell you - Don’t let the nativity set and the “baby Jesus” story misdirect you. It will take you down the same rabbit hole, so to speak. “God comes into the world” gets easily misunderstood as something directional, as actual movement from out there to in here. Which leads to the misunderstanding that if we feel disconnected with the world around us, we can fix that by bringing god into our lives. But what comes in seems to also be able to “go out”. Why did God leave me? We revert to Santa Claus thinking, oh, it was because I’ve been bad. Now I must be good in order that God will come back into me. Sound familiar? But how can I be good if god is not with me to strengthen me? Beginning to sound like an impossible situation, no?
The good news I want you to hear this morning is that Christmas is not about God coming into our world from somewhere else. God has never been absent. Never. It is about the birth of the Christ child. Not in Bethlehem. In Mary. In us. You see, I finally realised that Mary is the key. Or rather, that is to say, the virgin birth is the key. The symbolism of the virgin birth, this conception without “direction” (outside to inside, human initiative) speaks to the christ child being born spiritually within us without human will or initiative. It is the main promise given to us in our creation. This is the spiritual meaning of being begotten.
We don’t have to ask for it because it is already happening. The very fact that you are human means that the christ child has been birthed in you, and continues to be born in you, moment after moment. It doesn’t depend on you. It doesn’t depend on “good or bad.” If you want a part to play in this, it would be to step aside and let the light shine through you. That is really all you need to do. You do good in the world, not to have God come in, not to possess God, but you do good because that is what “lets God out”, in a manner of speaking.
You don’t need to first let God in. From the moment you first drew breath, the christ child was being born within you. And at this very moment, the christ child is being born within you. You will never lose this. You may spend a lifetime keeping it covered over and denying its desire to shine forth, but the birthing never stops. The ever present light of the christ child is your birth right, your gift from god which cannot be taken away.
Enjoy Santa. Enjoy the baby Jesus and the nativity story. But keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t get misdirected. The amazing gift we receive at Christmas is the lived out truth of God’s gift of the christ child within us, coming to birth over and over, winning our hearts and changing our lives from inside out, not outside in.