An Unlikely Place
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
In any drama, the right setting for a scene can be key. The setting must set the mood for the action. This notion of setting creates an interesting question as we celebrate Christmas. As the drama of that miraculous birth unfolded, we find ourselves asking, "Why this setting? Why Bethlehem?" At first glance, it would seem that these surroundings, a dirty stable in a small barn in a small, violent town, do not set the right mood for the birth of the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. Is there a reason Bethlehem was chosen for the dramatic scene of the nativity? Scott Suskovic will write the main article with Barbara Jurgensen providing the response. Illustrations, a liturgy, and a children's sermon are also included.
An Unlikely Place
Scott Suskovic
The Matthew text introduces the birth of Jesus, an event that will happen a few short months later in Bethlehem. Since it is an angel who announced this birth to both Mary and Joseph, consider wrapping a sermon around this unlikely birth to these unlikely people in this unlikely place through the eyes of the angels.
"It's beautiful, don't you think?" said the senior angel, mostly to himself. His name was Gabriel, one of the four archangels, near the very top of the heavenly echelon. "I never grow tired of admiring God's handiwork." By now, he was speaking to his novice apprentice, a young angel named Shamiel whom he had taken under his wing for training. But there was no reply -- only silence. When Gabriel turned to Shamiel, he noticed his young intern hadn't heard a word. He was just standing there, mouth open in wonder, forgetting even to blink, soaking it all in. Gabriel remembered his first time when God himself took him to that very same spot to view the entire universe at once. No words were needed -- only sighs of absolute wonder and amazement.
Finally, Shamiel asked, "How many are there?"
"How many what?"
"Stars. How many stars did he make?"
Gabriel looked to the one cluster Shamiel was studying and said, "No one knows, except God. He has them all named. That one cluster you are looking at has around 500 billion. But that is only one of a couple billion galaxies." Gabriel let the silence add to Shamiel's amazement.
"How did it all get here?" Shamiel wondered, still trying to soak in all the splendor.
"It began in less than a blink of an eye," Gabriel explained, "when nothing existed, not you or me. It was a time in which there wasn't even space. There was no matter. Time meant nothing, for there was no past or any future. It all began when all that was, was God. Then, through the power of God's word, from a single point smaller than the point of a pin, God brought forth all of this."
"All of this?"
Gabriel nodded and pointed to the furthest point of the universe, "And see? It's still growing, not just expanding. God continues to create more space."
After a moment, searching for the right words, Shamiel said, "How does it... how do all the pieces..."
Gabriel finished his sentence, "Fit? How do all the pieces fit?"
"Yes, that's it. How do they all fit so perfectly?"
"That's where I see the handprint of God -- in the details. If the gravitational pull in the universe were one trillionth less, nothing would clump together. The stars and planets would not form, only small atoms spinning wildly out of control. And, if that same gravitational pull were one trillionth more, everything would crash together into one gigantic ball, collapsing all of these billions of galaxies into one indistinguishable mess."
Shamiel could say nothing. Gabriel looked at him and said, "Let me show you something."
With that, Gabriel led Shamiel through the universe to a star that we call our sun and its circling planets. Gabriel pointed at the third planet rotating very slowly on its axis while circling the sun. "That planet is called Earth. Of all the galaxies, of all the stars, of all the planets, this one is God's favorite."
"Really?" asked Shamiel. Compared to what he had just seen, this one planet seemed quite small, even ordinary.
Gabriel could sense his uncertainty. "Just look at that planet. The oxygen level is 21%. If it were at 25, fires would start spontaneously. At 17%, nothing could live. If the water vapors in the atmosphere were a bit more, the surface would trap the heat and temperatures would rise to unbearable rates. If just a bit less water vapor, the earth could not contain the warmth of the sun and would freeze. Look at its placement with the other planets. If Jupiter were not in its current obit, the earth would be bombarded with meteorites. Jupiter is so huge that it acts like a cosmic vacuum, attracting asteroids that would otherwise crash into the earth. Also, look how perfectly it turns. If it turned slower than once every 24 hours, the temperature difference between night and day would be too extreme. If it turned faster, the wind velocity on earth would be too great. God's fingerprints can be seen in the universe, but they are all over this one planet."
"Why this one planet?" asked Shamiel. "I mean, it looks so small, even dirty to me."
"Because this is the place that God visited," Gabriel said.
"But God is everywhere. How can you say that God visited just this one planet?"
"Many years ago, God embedded himself in the womb of a young peasant in a remote village. He entered this planet as a single-celled human who was eventually born as an infant child."
"No!" stared Shamiel.
"Yes, I made the announcement myself. One night in the cold and dark, among the small hills of Bethlehem, I lead a choir of angels to announce to the world that God, who knows no time or space, smuggled himself into this world in the womb of a peasant girl and now lay in a feeding trough, struggle to cry with newly formed lungs."
"Do you mean to tell me that our glorious king, the one who created the stars and put the planets in orbit, the creator of time and space and all matter, went down in person - no, as a baby -- to that dingy place?" Gabriel let him finish, grasping what he was saying. It seemed more stunning than God's design of the universe. As the concept finally sunk it, Shamiel wrinkled his nose in disgust and said finally, "Why would God visit such an unlikely place?"
"Unlikely?" asked Gabriel. "Why do you say unlikely?"
"Well, for one, it is so violent. Only about 250 total years in all 4,000 years of human history have been peaceful. They use their abundance to starve the poor and reward the rich. They use their knowledge to dream up new ways of killing each other. They use their time to protect and help only themselves. They use their free will to turn their backs on God. They live only a very short time and yet they seem to misuse that brief time on their planet in the most destructive ways. It's about as most unlikely a place as I can imagine."
"That's why the most unlikely place is actually the most likely place."
"I don't understand," Shamiel said with one raised eyebrow.
"Well, you said it is a violent place, and you are right. What better place to send the Prince of Peace than a place desperately in need of peace? He entered this world not on some remote village on the polar cap, not on some island on the south pacific but right in the heart of a violent place, a place that has been in constant war for thousands of years. He entered during a particular time of oppression and violence where his own life was threatened.
"You say it is a place where abundance starves the poor and rewards the rich, and you are right. What better place to teach about caring for the sick, sharing your food, clothing those who are cold? What better place to speak a word of hope than in a selfish place?
"You say it is a place where the humans use their free will to turn their backs on God and you are right. What better place for God to come, forgive their sins, put them back on the right path so that they can be lifted up to become like him?
"You said it is a place where they live for such a brief time and you are right. What better place for God to come than to offer them a place in heaven for all eternity?"
With that, the young angel's face went blank, stunned by the universe and overwhelmed by the fingerprint of God. The thought of God coming to this unlikely place in order to prepare a place for them in heaven seemed beyond his comprehension. All he could seem to ask was, "Why?"
Gabriel turned to his young apprentice and said in all seriousness, "Out of love. For you see, the most unlikely place is not the planet Earth nor is it a barn in Bethlehem. It's not the small village of Nazareth where he grew up or the hillside of Galilee where he taught. Let me show you the most unlikely place."
And with that, Gabriel brought Shamiel outside the walls of Jerusalem near the garbage dump to show him a rough hewn cross, splattered with dried blood with a sign overhead that read, "The King of the Jews."
Gabriel said, "You have seen the wonders of the universe, but God does not want to be known as a clockmaker. You have seen the intricate, complicated design that went into creation, but God doesn't want to be known as a higher power. You have seen immense size of the universe, but God doesn't want to be known as a distant, faceless deity. This is how God chose to reveal himself. This is how God wants to be known through his Son, Jesus.
"Humble. Born in Bethlehem, not Rome. Born in a stable, not in a palace. Born in poverty, not in wealth. Born to die, not to live. 'Jesus, though in the form of God did not count equality with God as something to be exploited but he humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant and became obedient, obedient even unto death.'
"Near. God is not some distant deity whom people cannot approach, who fear him at an arms distance. What can be scary about a baby born in a manger, with limbs wrapped tightly in a blanket. In Jesus, God found a way to be with his people that did not involve fear. These people are nothing compared to God and yet God became flesh in Jesus to dwell with them.
"Courageous. It took great courage for God to lay aside his power and glory in order to enter into this world to be greeted with scorn, ridicule, beatings and this, a cross.
"But why a cross?" asked the confused novice, staring at the barbaric Roman instrument of torture. "Surely God could have accomplished the same without a cross."
"It was necessary in order to reveal two more things about God." explained Gabriel. "First, God is just. You are right when you say that this is a violent, self-absorbed, and rebellious world. For God to be just, he could not wave his hand and forgive it all. That would be unjust. For God to be just, the punishment had to be suffered, once and for all."
"What's the second?" asked Shamiel.
"The second thing the cross reveals is that God is merciful." said Gabriel. "Jesus felt the nails so no one else would have to. Jesus cried out, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' so that no one else would have to. Jesus died this death so that no one else would have to. By his wounds, the world is healed. By his death, the world has life."
"And all this started right here in Bethlehem?" asked Shamiel.
"No. Not here. There." Then casting his apprentice's eyes back to the stunning beauty of the countless galaxies and exact precision of the universe where their conversation had started, Gabriel said, "There. That's where this all started, from the foundations of the universe, in the heart of God. There is where God chose to reveal himself here on a cross -- in the most unlikely place."
ANOTHER VIEW
Barbara Jurgensen
Joseph must have been puzzled one night when an angel appeared to him in his dreams and told him that the baby that his fiancÈe Mary was going to be having would not have a human father (Matthew 1:20).
Rather, the angel said, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, would be the Father of the child.
And the angel said an even more amazing thing: This child was going to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).
Who had ever heard of things like that? Joseph had a right to be puzzled.
The other religions of the world expected people to do the sacrificing, to sacrifice to their gods. If you go to Mexico today, to the abandoned ancient city of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, you can climb a pyramid and sit on the top stone where the Mayans sacrificed human beings to try to win the favor of their gods.
In the Holy Land where Joseph lived, the surrounding people, the non-Israelites, sometimes sacrificed their own children to their god Moloch in the Valley of Hinnom. People thought they had to do such things -- to give the objects, and even the people, that were dearest to them -- to try to convince their gods to forgive them their wrongdoings and to bless them with good things.
Now something new, something entirely different, was coming into the world. Now the Lord God of all creation was telling Joseph that he was coming down to this earth, and instead of expecting people to sacrifice their children to him, he was going to be sacrificing his Son for them.
Amazing!
None of the other religions of this world have ever thought that their gods would do a thing like that for them -- not Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, or any of the nature religions. Judaism and Islam also have a problem with it.
No one would have guessed that the Creator of all that is would be willing to give his Son -- and thus give his very own self -- to save his people. Yet that is exactly what the Lord does. He tells Joseph regarding the baby, "You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
Amazing!
The name "Jesus" means "Yahweh (God's personal name from ancient times) saves." Yahweh saves; the Lord takes it into his own hands to take care of the deepest needs of his people.
When the angel spoke that night in a dream to Joseph, he may have said Jesus' name in Aramaic, the language Joseph spoke, telling him he was to name the baby "Jeshua (YESH-oo-uh)." If he spoke in the earlier Hebrew language, he would have told him to name the child "Joshua" (or even more fully "Yehoshuah (ya-HOSH-oo-uh") which all mean the same thing. "Jesus" was the name's Roman version.
The good news was, and still is today, that this child, who would in a few months be born, would be exactly what this old world most needed -- One who could take care of our deepest need for forgiveness and bring us into a loving, personal relationship with the living God.
Such a thing had never happened before.
Now, we have to understand that Jesus would not be exactly what the people of that day were looking for. The first priority of most people was that the Messiah, when he would come, would throw off their Roman oppressors and make them a free people. They wanted political freedom.
That might be their top priority, but it was not God's, because this was not their deepest need. Today we might think that the greatest thing the Lord could do for us would be to free us and our loved ones from all illness, to free us from our financial problems, or to free us from the problems of our broken world.
These things are important, but still our deepest need is to find meaning for our lives, to be transformed into God's people, to find a purpose to our living -- a purpose that gets us up in the morning, makes us feel good about being alive, and makes us feel that we can make a difference in this world.
That's exactly what our Lord specializes in.
So we can ask the Lord to come into our lives. We can tell him that we want to know him and what he'd like us to be doing in our life. We can do that right now.
The Lord will save us, not just from a difficult time in the hereafter, but he will save us now, today, from a life that seems purposeless and going nowhere and show us how to live as his people.
Let us invite him into our lives today, and each day, day by day and hour by hour, and ask him to save us, to do something exciting and new in our lives. "You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
ILLUSTRATIONS
As for "Had Jesus come to a different people in a different place at a different time..." don't think you can juggle his place in history -- or Mary's -- that way; and since Jesus was born of Mary, you'd have to get her as well as Jesus into "a different people in a different place at a different time" -- which isn't humanly, or godly, possible.
Of course it is possible for God to have a Son of a woman "in a different people in a different placed at a different time"--but that son wouldn't be Jesus, for Jesus was Mary's son as well as God's--which lottsa people tend to forget at times.
For all I know--for all anybody knows-- God may have "proposed" (or propositioned)... through the ages but, as far as we know, Mary was the first one to say an unqualified "yes."...
"When the time had fully come,"... and the "time had fully come" only because the woman Mary said "yes."
-- Abbie Jane Wells, "The Gospel According to Abbie Jane Wells"
* * *
if you came in the spring
we could expect newness,
bright yellow flowers
to soften your path,
the songs of birds
to herald your coming;
but you came in
winter's despair,
the chill of complacency
settled upon us.
if you came in summer
we could expect you
to be bronzed,
blonde,
stepping from the sea;
but you came
in a stable,
a wrinkled baby
with animals as midwives,
and angels for playmates.
help us to set down
our parcels of expectations
to reach down and scoop
you up in our arms,
your laughing breath
giving us life.
Amen.
-- Thom M. Shuman, Candles and Conifers (Wild Goose Publications, 2005)
* * *
Speaking of the fear that King Ahaz has, even though he has the prophet Isaiah speaking words of hope to him (Isaiah 7:10-16), and choosing to trust in the power of the Assyrian army, Mary Donovan Turner says,
We find it difficult to believe [Ahaz] could make such an unwise choice, yet we too place our own hopes in hopeless places. We close our eyes to the signs of God's comforting and secure presence. The young woman gives birth to hope, and we do not see. We are afraid. We cry out, "Is God with us?" Our eyes are blinded by our tears for our lost children, for empty dreams. "Is God with us?" Our ears are filled with the sounds of gunfire on our streets, of threats and words of contempt. "Is God with us?"... we journey together in Advent... and we wonder -- is there a word more powerful than our fears?
-- The Christian Century, December 13, 1995
* * *
Some years ago I found myself in a refugee camp outside Bethlehem during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The image I had of Bethlehem was nothing like the Christmas carol I loved as a boy. The place was dirty, dingy, and filled with people in conflict: Jews, Arabs and Christians. Even the Church of the Nativity was conflicted with a corner here for the Orthodox, another for the Romans and still another for the Coptic Christians. Refugees, people in conflict, a divided people -- and yet this is the birthplace of the Savior. It seems so unlikely. Except that's exactly what the world needs: a Savior! We need someone to save us from this very living reality... the one we live with now. He brought us love and forgiveness then. That's still what we need.
* * *
It is risky business being a peacemaker. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and many others paid a very high price for seeking peace with justice. The chose the path of non-violence, and in so choosing, they became the victims of violence. It is the path least chosen and still remains the pathway of Jesus. He, the blameless one, died there on the cross for me... in a world like ours where it was risky then as it is now to be a peacemaker!
* * *
Just what is an angel anyway? We hear of angels at this time of year and how they bring glad tidings of great joy. They tell Mary that she will bear a child, they warn Joseph in a dream to flee Herod's wrath. My favorite ones sing "Peace on Earth and Good will toward all!" I have often wondered about angels and looked to the heavens to see what signs might appear to a faithful soul. And yet angels are no further than the human heart. They are the within us all the time urging us on to do God's will, bringing us hope, and giving us courage to be what God wants us to be. Yes, the angels are right here in my heart, and they never stop singing the Carols of the ages: Emmanuel; God with us, because God indeed is with us singing in the human heart.
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Thom Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: We gather in preparation
People: for good news is about to be proclaimed.
Leader: We gather in expectation
People: for joy is about to explode in our midst.
Leader: We gather in celebration
People: for we are those people who have said
yes to the manger,
yes to love enfleshed,
yes to the One incarnate for others,
yes to the wholeness of God.
Leader: With preparation and in expectation,
People: let us celebrate!
Prayer Of The Day
If our lives are dry and parched,
Lord God,
send the living waters of your Spirit
to revive us, to enliven us,
to bring forth new life.
Immanuel, come quickly.
If our times are empty and barren,
God of Creation,
grant us a rich harvest.
Send us home with sheaves of blessings,
fill us with your abundance,
and teach us to share the harvest with others.
Immanuel, come quickly.
If our bodies are weary and heavy laden,
Exuberant God,
fill us with laughter.
Give us shouts of joy,
envelop us with your gladness.
Immanuel, come quickly.
If our lives are small and trivial,
Majestic God,
make us see great things;
enlarge our vision,
widen our horizons.
Immanuel, come quickly,
even as we pray as you have taught us, saying,
Our Father ...
Call To Reconciliation
How can we prepare the way of the coming one into our hearts? By making our confession to God, who comes bringing joy and grace to all. Please join me as we pray.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
O promised Christ,
our world is torn by violence and death,
our peace depends on your coming.
We sin against others,
our forgiveness depends on your coming.
Full of good intentions, we are poor at keeping promises,
our only hope in being your people
is in your coming to transform our lives.
Lord Christ, flesh-bearing Word,
our world waits:
for your peace,
which comes as softly as a snowfall;
for your mercy,
which fills the emptiness of our souls;
for your grace, which is always more than our hearts can ever hold.
Immanuel, come quickly, we pray.
(silence is kept)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: In this season of waiting, the good news is forgiveness of sins, the gift of Advent is new life. Let us commit our lives to Christ's way of peace and hope.
People: Thanks be to the Advent God, who comes among us, setting us free to love and serve. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
A mystery
Object: a big question mark
Matthew 1:18-25
Good morning, boys and girls. I have finally figured out something that I have been thinking about for a long time. This is what I figured out. There are some things that I know. I know my name, the names of my family members, and other things, like where I work, the kind of car that I drive, the foods that I like, the different colors, how to spell many words, and how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. There are a lot of other things that I know.
I also figured out that there are some things that I do not know. I don't know how to fly an airplane or sail a ship. I don't know the names of all the fish or the birds or insects. I don't know how to build a house or make a car. There are a lot of things that I don't know and I will never know as long as I live.
Finally, there are things that I read and hear that I will never understand. These things are just big question marks and will always be question marks to me. For instance, I do not understand how Mary gave birth to Jesus without living with a man. Instead, Jesus is the Son of God, made by the Holy Spirit and Mary the mother of Jesus. The Bible tells us that the man Mary was going to marry was Joseph, and it also tells us that they never lived together when Mary became pregnant. This is something that only ever happened once. Mary gave birth to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
The way it always happens is when a man and a woman live together, with God's assistance, they make a life. That's how you were born. There was a father and a mother that gave you life. The same thing happened to me and to everyone else. But one time, and one time only, the Holy Spirit and a human woman named Mary were the parents of Jesus.
Do I need to understand what happened? Not really. It is a question mark. A better way of saying it, is that it is a mystery only God can solve. It wasn't magic or some kind of trick, but it was a mystery. God's Holy Spirit is the father of Jesus. Mary, a woman who had never lived with a man, is the mother.
Some things we know, some things we do not know, and some things are just a mystery that only God knows the answer to. That's good enough for me. I have plenty of things to learn that I can learn from others and in books. This is one mystery that is the property of God. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 23, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
An Unlikely Place
Scott Suskovic
The Matthew text introduces the birth of Jesus, an event that will happen a few short months later in Bethlehem. Since it is an angel who announced this birth to both Mary and Joseph, consider wrapping a sermon around this unlikely birth to these unlikely people in this unlikely place through the eyes of the angels.
"It's beautiful, don't you think?" said the senior angel, mostly to himself. His name was Gabriel, one of the four archangels, near the very top of the heavenly echelon. "I never grow tired of admiring God's handiwork." By now, he was speaking to his novice apprentice, a young angel named Shamiel whom he had taken under his wing for training. But there was no reply -- only silence. When Gabriel turned to Shamiel, he noticed his young intern hadn't heard a word. He was just standing there, mouth open in wonder, forgetting even to blink, soaking it all in. Gabriel remembered his first time when God himself took him to that very same spot to view the entire universe at once. No words were needed -- only sighs of absolute wonder and amazement.
Finally, Shamiel asked, "How many are there?"
"How many what?"
"Stars. How many stars did he make?"
Gabriel looked to the one cluster Shamiel was studying and said, "No one knows, except God. He has them all named. That one cluster you are looking at has around 500 billion. But that is only one of a couple billion galaxies." Gabriel let the silence add to Shamiel's amazement.
"How did it all get here?" Shamiel wondered, still trying to soak in all the splendor.
"It began in less than a blink of an eye," Gabriel explained, "when nothing existed, not you or me. It was a time in which there wasn't even space. There was no matter. Time meant nothing, for there was no past or any future. It all began when all that was, was God. Then, through the power of God's word, from a single point smaller than the point of a pin, God brought forth all of this."
"All of this?"
Gabriel nodded and pointed to the furthest point of the universe, "And see? It's still growing, not just expanding. God continues to create more space."
After a moment, searching for the right words, Shamiel said, "How does it... how do all the pieces..."
Gabriel finished his sentence, "Fit? How do all the pieces fit?"
"Yes, that's it. How do they all fit so perfectly?"
"That's where I see the handprint of God -- in the details. If the gravitational pull in the universe were one trillionth less, nothing would clump together. The stars and planets would not form, only small atoms spinning wildly out of control. And, if that same gravitational pull were one trillionth more, everything would crash together into one gigantic ball, collapsing all of these billions of galaxies into one indistinguishable mess."
Shamiel could say nothing. Gabriel looked at him and said, "Let me show you something."
With that, Gabriel led Shamiel through the universe to a star that we call our sun and its circling planets. Gabriel pointed at the third planet rotating very slowly on its axis while circling the sun. "That planet is called Earth. Of all the galaxies, of all the stars, of all the planets, this one is God's favorite."
"Really?" asked Shamiel. Compared to what he had just seen, this one planet seemed quite small, even ordinary.
Gabriel could sense his uncertainty. "Just look at that planet. The oxygen level is 21%. If it were at 25, fires would start spontaneously. At 17%, nothing could live. If the water vapors in the atmosphere were a bit more, the surface would trap the heat and temperatures would rise to unbearable rates. If just a bit less water vapor, the earth could not contain the warmth of the sun and would freeze. Look at its placement with the other planets. If Jupiter were not in its current obit, the earth would be bombarded with meteorites. Jupiter is so huge that it acts like a cosmic vacuum, attracting asteroids that would otherwise crash into the earth. Also, look how perfectly it turns. If it turned slower than once every 24 hours, the temperature difference between night and day would be too extreme. If it turned faster, the wind velocity on earth would be too great. God's fingerprints can be seen in the universe, but they are all over this one planet."
"Why this one planet?" asked Shamiel. "I mean, it looks so small, even dirty to me."
"Because this is the place that God visited," Gabriel said.
"But God is everywhere. How can you say that God visited just this one planet?"
"Many years ago, God embedded himself in the womb of a young peasant in a remote village. He entered this planet as a single-celled human who was eventually born as an infant child."
"No!" stared Shamiel.
"Yes, I made the announcement myself. One night in the cold and dark, among the small hills of Bethlehem, I lead a choir of angels to announce to the world that God, who knows no time or space, smuggled himself into this world in the womb of a peasant girl and now lay in a feeding trough, struggle to cry with newly formed lungs."
"Do you mean to tell me that our glorious king, the one who created the stars and put the planets in orbit, the creator of time and space and all matter, went down in person - no, as a baby -- to that dingy place?" Gabriel let him finish, grasping what he was saying. It seemed more stunning than God's design of the universe. As the concept finally sunk it, Shamiel wrinkled his nose in disgust and said finally, "Why would God visit such an unlikely place?"
"Unlikely?" asked Gabriel. "Why do you say unlikely?"
"Well, for one, it is so violent. Only about 250 total years in all 4,000 years of human history have been peaceful. They use their abundance to starve the poor and reward the rich. They use their knowledge to dream up new ways of killing each other. They use their time to protect and help only themselves. They use their free will to turn their backs on God. They live only a very short time and yet they seem to misuse that brief time on their planet in the most destructive ways. It's about as most unlikely a place as I can imagine."
"That's why the most unlikely place is actually the most likely place."
"I don't understand," Shamiel said with one raised eyebrow.
"Well, you said it is a violent place, and you are right. What better place to send the Prince of Peace than a place desperately in need of peace? He entered this world not on some remote village on the polar cap, not on some island on the south pacific but right in the heart of a violent place, a place that has been in constant war for thousands of years. He entered during a particular time of oppression and violence where his own life was threatened.
"You say it is a place where abundance starves the poor and rewards the rich, and you are right. What better place to teach about caring for the sick, sharing your food, clothing those who are cold? What better place to speak a word of hope than in a selfish place?
"You say it is a place where the humans use their free will to turn their backs on God and you are right. What better place for God to come, forgive their sins, put them back on the right path so that they can be lifted up to become like him?
"You said it is a place where they live for such a brief time and you are right. What better place for God to come than to offer them a place in heaven for all eternity?"
With that, the young angel's face went blank, stunned by the universe and overwhelmed by the fingerprint of God. The thought of God coming to this unlikely place in order to prepare a place for them in heaven seemed beyond his comprehension. All he could seem to ask was, "Why?"
Gabriel turned to his young apprentice and said in all seriousness, "Out of love. For you see, the most unlikely place is not the planet Earth nor is it a barn in Bethlehem. It's not the small village of Nazareth where he grew up or the hillside of Galilee where he taught. Let me show you the most unlikely place."
And with that, Gabriel brought Shamiel outside the walls of Jerusalem near the garbage dump to show him a rough hewn cross, splattered with dried blood with a sign overhead that read, "The King of the Jews."
Gabriel said, "You have seen the wonders of the universe, but God does not want to be known as a clockmaker. You have seen the intricate, complicated design that went into creation, but God doesn't want to be known as a higher power. You have seen immense size of the universe, but God doesn't want to be known as a distant, faceless deity. This is how God chose to reveal himself. This is how God wants to be known through his Son, Jesus.
"Humble. Born in Bethlehem, not Rome. Born in a stable, not in a palace. Born in poverty, not in wealth. Born to die, not to live. 'Jesus, though in the form of God did not count equality with God as something to be exploited but he humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant and became obedient, obedient even unto death.'
"Near. God is not some distant deity whom people cannot approach, who fear him at an arms distance. What can be scary about a baby born in a manger, with limbs wrapped tightly in a blanket. In Jesus, God found a way to be with his people that did not involve fear. These people are nothing compared to God and yet God became flesh in Jesus to dwell with them.
"Courageous. It took great courage for God to lay aside his power and glory in order to enter into this world to be greeted with scorn, ridicule, beatings and this, a cross.
"But why a cross?" asked the confused novice, staring at the barbaric Roman instrument of torture. "Surely God could have accomplished the same without a cross."
"It was necessary in order to reveal two more things about God." explained Gabriel. "First, God is just. You are right when you say that this is a violent, self-absorbed, and rebellious world. For God to be just, he could not wave his hand and forgive it all. That would be unjust. For God to be just, the punishment had to be suffered, once and for all."
"What's the second?" asked Shamiel.
"The second thing the cross reveals is that God is merciful." said Gabriel. "Jesus felt the nails so no one else would have to. Jesus cried out, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' so that no one else would have to. Jesus died this death so that no one else would have to. By his wounds, the world is healed. By his death, the world has life."
"And all this started right here in Bethlehem?" asked Shamiel.
"No. Not here. There." Then casting his apprentice's eyes back to the stunning beauty of the countless galaxies and exact precision of the universe where their conversation had started, Gabriel said, "There. That's where this all started, from the foundations of the universe, in the heart of God. There is where God chose to reveal himself here on a cross -- in the most unlikely place."
ANOTHER VIEW
Barbara Jurgensen
Joseph must have been puzzled one night when an angel appeared to him in his dreams and told him that the baby that his fiancÈe Mary was going to be having would not have a human father (Matthew 1:20).
Rather, the angel said, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, would be the Father of the child.
And the angel said an even more amazing thing: This child was going to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).
Who had ever heard of things like that? Joseph had a right to be puzzled.
The other religions of the world expected people to do the sacrificing, to sacrifice to their gods. If you go to Mexico today, to the abandoned ancient city of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, you can climb a pyramid and sit on the top stone where the Mayans sacrificed human beings to try to win the favor of their gods.
In the Holy Land where Joseph lived, the surrounding people, the non-Israelites, sometimes sacrificed their own children to their god Moloch in the Valley of Hinnom. People thought they had to do such things -- to give the objects, and even the people, that were dearest to them -- to try to convince their gods to forgive them their wrongdoings and to bless them with good things.
Now something new, something entirely different, was coming into the world. Now the Lord God of all creation was telling Joseph that he was coming down to this earth, and instead of expecting people to sacrifice their children to him, he was going to be sacrificing his Son for them.
Amazing!
None of the other religions of this world have ever thought that their gods would do a thing like that for them -- not Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, or any of the nature religions. Judaism and Islam also have a problem with it.
No one would have guessed that the Creator of all that is would be willing to give his Son -- and thus give his very own self -- to save his people. Yet that is exactly what the Lord does. He tells Joseph regarding the baby, "You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
Amazing!
The name "Jesus" means "Yahweh (God's personal name from ancient times) saves." Yahweh saves; the Lord takes it into his own hands to take care of the deepest needs of his people.
When the angel spoke that night in a dream to Joseph, he may have said Jesus' name in Aramaic, the language Joseph spoke, telling him he was to name the baby "Jeshua (YESH-oo-uh)." If he spoke in the earlier Hebrew language, he would have told him to name the child "Joshua" (or even more fully "Yehoshuah (ya-HOSH-oo-uh") which all mean the same thing. "Jesus" was the name's Roman version.
The good news was, and still is today, that this child, who would in a few months be born, would be exactly what this old world most needed -- One who could take care of our deepest need for forgiveness and bring us into a loving, personal relationship with the living God.
Such a thing had never happened before.
Now, we have to understand that Jesus would not be exactly what the people of that day were looking for. The first priority of most people was that the Messiah, when he would come, would throw off their Roman oppressors and make them a free people. They wanted political freedom.
That might be their top priority, but it was not God's, because this was not their deepest need. Today we might think that the greatest thing the Lord could do for us would be to free us and our loved ones from all illness, to free us from our financial problems, or to free us from the problems of our broken world.
These things are important, but still our deepest need is to find meaning for our lives, to be transformed into God's people, to find a purpose to our living -- a purpose that gets us up in the morning, makes us feel good about being alive, and makes us feel that we can make a difference in this world.
That's exactly what our Lord specializes in.
So we can ask the Lord to come into our lives. We can tell him that we want to know him and what he'd like us to be doing in our life. We can do that right now.
The Lord will save us, not just from a difficult time in the hereafter, but he will save us now, today, from a life that seems purposeless and going nowhere and show us how to live as his people.
Let us invite him into our lives today, and each day, day by day and hour by hour, and ask him to save us, to do something exciting and new in our lives. "You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
ILLUSTRATIONS
As for "Had Jesus come to a different people in a different place at a different time..." don't think you can juggle his place in history -- or Mary's -- that way; and since Jesus was born of Mary, you'd have to get her as well as Jesus into "a different people in a different place at a different time" -- which isn't humanly, or godly, possible.
Of course it is possible for God to have a Son of a woman "in a different people in a different placed at a different time"--but that son wouldn't be Jesus, for Jesus was Mary's son as well as God's--which lottsa people tend to forget at times.
For all I know--for all anybody knows-- God may have "proposed" (or propositioned)... through the ages but, as far as we know, Mary was the first one to say an unqualified "yes."...
"When the time had fully come,"... and the "time had fully come" only because the woman Mary said "yes."
-- Abbie Jane Wells, "The Gospel According to Abbie Jane Wells"
* * *
if you came in the spring
we could expect newness,
bright yellow flowers
to soften your path,
the songs of birds
to herald your coming;
but you came in
winter's despair,
the chill of complacency
settled upon us.
if you came in summer
we could expect you
to be bronzed,
blonde,
stepping from the sea;
but you came
in a stable,
a wrinkled baby
with animals as midwives,
and angels for playmates.
help us to set down
our parcels of expectations
to reach down and scoop
you up in our arms,
your laughing breath
giving us life.
Amen.
-- Thom M. Shuman, Candles and Conifers (Wild Goose Publications, 2005)
* * *
Speaking of the fear that King Ahaz has, even though he has the prophet Isaiah speaking words of hope to him (Isaiah 7:10-16), and choosing to trust in the power of the Assyrian army, Mary Donovan Turner says,
We find it difficult to believe [Ahaz] could make such an unwise choice, yet we too place our own hopes in hopeless places. We close our eyes to the signs of God's comforting and secure presence. The young woman gives birth to hope, and we do not see. We are afraid. We cry out, "Is God with us?" Our eyes are blinded by our tears for our lost children, for empty dreams. "Is God with us?" Our ears are filled with the sounds of gunfire on our streets, of threats and words of contempt. "Is God with us?"... we journey together in Advent... and we wonder -- is there a word more powerful than our fears?
-- The Christian Century, December 13, 1995
* * *
Some years ago I found myself in a refugee camp outside Bethlehem during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The image I had of Bethlehem was nothing like the Christmas carol I loved as a boy. The place was dirty, dingy, and filled with people in conflict: Jews, Arabs and Christians. Even the Church of the Nativity was conflicted with a corner here for the Orthodox, another for the Romans and still another for the Coptic Christians. Refugees, people in conflict, a divided people -- and yet this is the birthplace of the Savior. It seems so unlikely. Except that's exactly what the world needs: a Savior! We need someone to save us from this very living reality... the one we live with now. He brought us love and forgiveness then. That's still what we need.
* * *
It is risky business being a peacemaker. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and many others paid a very high price for seeking peace with justice. The chose the path of non-violence, and in so choosing, they became the victims of violence. It is the path least chosen and still remains the pathway of Jesus. He, the blameless one, died there on the cross for me... in a world like ours where it was risky then as it is now to be a peacemaker!
* * *
Just what is an angel anyway? We hear of angels at this time of year and how they bring glad tidings of great joy. They tell Mary that she will bear a child, they warn Joseph in a dream to flee Herod's wrath. My favorite ones sing "Peace on Earth and Good will toward all!" I have often wondered about angels and looked to the heavens to see what signs might appear to a faithful soul. And yet angels are no further than the human heart. They are the within us all the time urging us on to do God's will, bringing us hope, and giving us courage to be what God wants us to be. Yes, the angels are right here in my heart, and they never stop singing the Carols of the ages: Emmanuel; God with us, because God indeed is with us singing in the human heart.
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Thom Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: We gather in preparation
People: for good news is about to be proclaimed.
Leader: We gather in expectation
People: for joy is about to explode in our midst.
Leader: We gather in celebration
People: for we are those people who have said
yes to the manger,
yes to love enfleshed,
yes to the One incarnate for others,
yes to the wholeness of God.
Leader: With preparation and in expectation,
People: let us celebrate!
Prayer Of The Day
If our lives are dry and parched,
Lord God,
send the living waters of your Spirit
to revive us, to enliven us,
to bring forth new life.
Immanuel, come quickly.
If our times are empty and barren,
God of Creation,
grant us a rich harvest.
Send us home with sheaves of blessings,
fill us with your abundance,
and teach us to share the harvest with others.
Immanuel, come quickly.
If our bodies are weary and heavy laden,
Exuberant God,
fill us with laughter.
Give us shouts of joy,
envelop us with your gladness.
Immanuel, come quickly.
If our lives are small and trivial,
Majestic God,
make us see great things;
enlarge our vision,
widen our horizons.
Immanuel, come quickly,
even as we pray as you have taught us, saying,
Our Father ...
Call To Reconciliation
How can we prepare the way of the coming one into our hearts? By making our confession to God, who comes bringing joy and grace to all. Please join me as we pray.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
O promised Christ,
our world is torn by violence and death,
our peace depends on your coming.
We sin against others,
our forgiveness depends on your coming.
Full of good intentions, we are poor at keeping promises,
our only hope in being your people
is in your coming to transform our lives.
Lord Christ, flesh-bearing Word,
our world waits:
for your peace,
which comes as softly as a snowfall;
for your mercy,
which fills the emptiness of our souls;
for your grace, which is always more than our hearts can ever hold.
Immanuel, come quickly, we pray.
(silence is kept)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: In this season of waiting, the good news is forgiveness of sins, the gift of Advent is new life. Let us commit our lives to Christ's way of peace and hope.
People: Thanks be to the Advent God, who comes among us, setting us free to love and serve. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
A mystery
Object: a big question mark
Matthew 1:18-25
Good morning, boys and girls. I have finally figured out something that I have been thinking about for a long time. This is what I figured out. There are some things that I know. I know my name, the names of my family members, and other things, like where I work, the kind of car that I drive, the foods that I like, the different colors, how to spell many words, and how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. There are a lot of other things that I know.
I also figured out that there are some things that I do not know. I don't know how to fly an airplane or sail a ship. I don't know the names of all the fish or the birds or insects. I don't know how to build a house or make a car. There are a lot of things that I don't know and I will never know as long as I live.
Finally, there are things that I read and hear that I will never understand. These things are just big question marks and will always be question marks to me. For instance, I do not understand how Mary gave birth to Jesus without living with a man. Instead, Jesus is the Son of God, made by the Holy Spirit and Mary the mother of Jesus. The Bible tells us that the man Mary was going to marry was Joseph, and it also tells us that they never lived together when Mary became pregnant. This is something that only ever happened once. Mary gave birth to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
The way it always happens is when a man and a woman live together, with God's assistance, they make a life. That's how you were born. There was a father and a mother that gave you life. The same thing happened to me and to everyone else. But one time, and one time only, the Holy Spirit and a human woman named Mary were the parents of Jesus.
Do I need to understand what happened? Not really. It is a question mark. A better way of saying it, is that it is a mystery only God can solve. It wasn't magic or some kind of trick, but it was a mystery. God's Holy Spirit is the father of Jesus. Mary, a woman who had never lived with a man, is the mother.
Some things we know, some things we do not know, and some things are just a mystery that only God knows the answer to. That's good enough for me. I have plenty of things to learn that I can learn from others and in books. This is one mystery that is the property of God. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 23, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
