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Dr.
George C. Anderson Matthew 2:1-12 2 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.' " 7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. I asked this question in the Second Sheet, I know, but I want to ask it again: Have you ever considered that the greeting, "Merry Christmas" is not a religious one but a secular one? I'm going to keep saying "Merry Christmas," of course, and so will you, because we all want each other to enjoy the merriment of the season. Gifts given and received, days off from school and work, the gathering of families and friends, the festivities and lights, add to a season where we all share mythic fantasies, sing light-hearted songs, and long for a day that is strong in cultural memory, though never actually was. We rejoice in the spirit of charity and generosity embraced even by the secular world, if only for a few days. Life is not always merry in this world, not even during the holiday season, so I'll join my voice with anyone wishing a merry Christmas. However, for the church, I have a different wish for Advent and Christmas. My wish is; "Have a Holy Christmas." In fact, since we are switching gears from the secular to the sacred, let me throw that word "wish" out as well. My prayer for you is for a Holy Christmas. We have to pray for an experience of the holy because it is not ours to demand, only to request. An experience of holiness is an experience of God- a gift of God, not ours to claim. It is an experience of fire that burns away, purifies, and makes things new. To be sure, an experience of the holy can be full of merriment. Remember the party when the prodigal, having wasted his inheritance, returned home to a father's embrace. His reconciliation with his father was of God, and thus an experience of the holy. Imagine the son's laughter and delight at the party thrown for him that night. How wonderful is a serving of the fatted calf seasoned by a parent's love. A young adult accepts a job that is just the right fit for her passions and interest. She will remain an accountant, but now it will be a Christian vocation as she does her job with integrity for a business she believes in. A weight is lifted. A man gets his seven year pin and realizes that God has given him each of those seven years of sobriety. This holy day is a merry day. A teenager comes home from a mission trip with the thrill of knowing for the first time that God has used her to make a discernable difference in this world. She gets off the plane still flying on cloud nine. For all of these, the air is lighter and the heart sings. But, let's not fool ourselves. Sometimes the experience of the holy is painful and hard precisely because something has to give way for the new to come. A death must occur before a new life begins. An old god has to fall for a new God to be worshipped. Remember the prodigal? His experience of the holy did not begin with the party. It began when he was fighting pigs for their slop in the far country and he came to himself and realized he must return home to the father he disgraced. Remember the man who celebrated the seven year pin? His experience of the holy did not start with that celebration. It started with a painful but holy moment in a rehab center when he began to face up to what he had done to his family and his life. And that young woman who found the job she loves, remember her? The experience of the holy began when she realized the job she used to have was on behalf of people including herself who cared only about the money; a job where the bottom line defined the ethics. In the Bible, an experience of holy ground is an experience where those encountered by God die to something and are reborn in some way. A new identity is gained, but an old identity has had to die. Moses had to leave the sheep behind to go shepherd the Hebrews out of Egypt. Isaiah, in his encounter of God in the Temple, fell to the floor in hard confession, and experienced his forgiveness as that of hot coals to his lips. Peter had to leave behind his boat to follow his Lord. Saul had to die as a persecutor of Christians to be reborn as Paul, a Christian evangelist. While they found reason (sometimes later than the first moment of being encountered by God) to rejoice in their new identities, make no mistake: the dying side of the transformation was hard. Moses begged to be relieved of his responsibility. Isaiah begged God, and Peter begged Jesus, to depart from them for they were sinners. Paul lost his sight, perhaps to turn his attention inward and face up to who he had become. These are stark examples remembered in scripture because they were turning points not only for the individuals but also for the whole people of God. By their great light, we can examine the smaller moments of holiness in our lives and understand how the living comes first with the dying, and grieving must sometimes precede the rejoicing. Our
speaker at the next Massanetta Get-Away, Dr. Ed McLeod, was the
preacher at the December meeting of presbytery. In his presbytery sermon,
Ed considered the expression often used with those who have had a devastating
experience. Someone will say, "it's not the end of the world."
That's true, Ed said, because life goes on. But there is a sense in which
that response misses the mark. There is a sense in which the devastating
experience is the end of the world. It is the end of the world that was
and can no longer be. Now the individual must enter into a new world.
Ed gave an example; "the
death of a loved one brings a world to an end, so that just going out
into the world now is a new experience, everything is a new experience....
even routine activities, once shared with a loved one, become different,
new, strangely unfamiliar without the presence of that loved one... the
reason: it's because a world has come to an end.... and a new one is coming
into being." Bill
Klein did a wonderful job at the December Men's breakfast asking
for less sentimentality at the turn of the millennium in considering the
story of Christ's birth, and more sober consideration of the radical claim
being made by the birth narratives. For me, it is sobering that when we
consider the stories of the birth as given in scripture and not as remembered,
it becomes clear that the dark shadow of the cross is cast over the manger
as Herod, a power of the world, seeks a baby's destruction. That shadow
is cast in the next to last verse of "We Three Kings" that we
just sang, Myrrh is mine: it's bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom: Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed
in the stone-cold tomb. Advent is all about looking forward to a new and glorious world with Christ as king. But to enter a new world with renewed hope and energy, we must accept the death of an old world, grieve it's dying, so we can leave it behind. Happily, tonight we will concentrate on the lighter side of the Christmas story with the visit of the shepherds and magi. But our passage this morning reminds us that this child was born to face principalities and powers that were opposed to God's purposes in the world. The Herods, Pilates and false powers of the world will eventually have their way with this child. If, by the resurrection, the tables are turned and an eternal victory is won, we still have to recognize that the defeated powers of the world make a pretty good case that they have things well in hand. Worse, a pretty good case can be made that they have some portion of our hearts and lives in hand as well. Whatever is about us that is selfish, self-serving, and drives us to demean or lord over others is of Herod. Maybe it's not fair that we are driven to confession and repentance during Advent as we are during Lent. But the Gospels tell one continuous story, and the season of Lent, with it's story of betrayal and death, is but a later development of what begins when a child is born to die. Please understand, I am not suggesting the Christmas become a dark observance. I am saying, though, that death and sin are not ignored at Christmas. Death and sin are not defeated by being ignored. If we want to hear and believe the true Gospel news of Christmas, it must be on our knees. When we are on our knees in confession and repentance, as well as worship of the Servant-king, then the good news of the season reaches us in our humbled and impoverished state; "Unto you a child is born, unto you a son is given." Herod
did not have a merry Christmas. He did not have a merry life because he
desperately clung to power and made horrible choices to protect his place
in a world of death. But the magi and the shepherds see past a baby born
powerless, to the power of God to redeem, rescue and restore the poor
and broken-hearted. Let me tell you the real reason I have emphasized the hurting side of the holy during this joyful season. I do so because there is some part of us all where Herod still reigns. We want to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, but to some degree, we cannot fully give ourselves to the prince's cause. One problem may be pride, that we refuse to grant to another the rule over all lives. We confuse being humble with being humiliated, so we avoid a wisdom greater than our own, a forgiveness necessary for the healing of our souls, and a direction that we do not map out ourselves. When confronted with harsh truths about our lives, it is easier to be defensive than to be honest, for honesty exposes our shortcomings and vulnerabilities. In our pride, we would rather be wrong in appearing right, than made right by admitting our wrongs. Another problem may be fear, that we don't want to face what Christ, and some followers of Christ, had to face. We don't want to know fully the joy of discipleship because we are scared of its cost. To worship fully is to submit fully, and we are afraid of what is asked of us in the bargain. Another problem may be disbelief. Herod's world can afford the air time, and the propaganda of his agenda is hard to ignore. Intellectually, we can accept money as a means and not an end, but our imaginations are captured by fantasies of material ease. Intellectually we can accept that power is for the purpose of the common good, but we secretly envy those who command the resources of others to suit their needs. If the promises of money, power and sex to make us happy are lies, they are lies well told. To fully worship the one who came so that the powerful may be servants of the weak, so that enemies might be reconciled as friends, that God may be glorified in right worship of hearts and the decency of kind and just actions, then those parts of us- our false pride, our fear, our disbelief- have to die. But, remember, in their dying, rebirth is the result. It happens in stages, in happens in small moments and in grand conversions, but it happens. It happened for Matthew, a servant of money, who became the great evangelist of the riches of God's kingdom. It happened for the woman about to be stoned, who Jesus both rescued and directed to a better way. It happened for the man lowered on the stretcher through the roof, who sought both forgiveness and healing, and was given both. It happened for the centurion, whose servant was healed, and who came to understand that there is a greater authority than mighty Caesar. I have no doubt it has happened for you. If Herod has some claim on you as he does on me, I do not question that your being here means that Christ has some claim as well. If indeed there are stories in this room that need to be told in confession, there are other stories that can be told in witness to the glory and grace of God. You can tell of holy moments when you joined the magi in the worship of the God who, in your humbling, gave you a new identity with true dignity. Let me conclude with this fresh memory. Just yesterday, the children were practicing their pageant to be presented tonight. A family watched the pageant as they waited to join me in the Columbarium for a memorial service. I said to that family that it might seem strange to see the pageant, with all it's joyful, festive childlike energy, and then to attend this service. I told them that the two experiences are of one. What happens on the Columbarium side of the wall leads directly to the mirth and joy of the pageant on this side of the wall. We remember a death, and grieve a loss, and admit our need. And then we remember that Christ came to heal the sick, to comfort the afflicted, and to overcome the powers of sin and death. By the power of God, we can move from grieving a death to celebrating a life, from lament to the loud Hozannas of a new born king. If Advent is to mean all that it is meant to mean, we must accept both ends of the Holy. Yes, let's celebrate a birth with joyful praise. But to fully give ourselves to the worship and praise, let's also ask that God help us accept the death of Herod's reign so we can join fully in the worship of the savior of sinners and the Lord of life with God.
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