Ironies, Contrasts, Paradoxes, And Reversals
Sermon
Love's Pure Light
Christmas Candlelight Sermons and Service
Saint Luke's narrative of the Christmas story has been read and heard and cherished this season in millions of places over hundreds of years; yet its poetry remains unexhausted. Despite an economy of words in Luke's terse narrative, so powerful are the themes, so rich the motifs, that it is a marvel of literature, treasured by those within and without the Christian tradition.
Myriad worshipers will follow Mary's example on hearing the good news of great joy, and ponder the meaning of the events it recounts. Multitudes will mimic the shepherds and be filled with wonder at all that they hear and see. Still, the depths of the story and the events will scarcely have been plumbed.
Perhaps it is the very nature of this night -- a service whose central metaphor is the contrast between darkness and light -- or perhaps it is because in my heart of hearts I believe that life with God is by its very nature deeply paradoxical, or maybe a bit of both, but in either event, it is to the ironies, contrasts, paradoxes, and reversals of logic that I find myself drawn this Christmas season.
Someone has said that "the Devil is in the details." I believe God is there, too. I share these details with you, and they are the stuff of this evening's proclamation.
The first and most evident paradoxes are the ones embodied in the babe himself. Creator of the cosmos, he is born a helpless child. Though all-powerful, he is newborn weak. Once he spoke and at his command, all that exists was summoned into being; now his only language is coos and cries. Though he is immortal, he will die. What better way to gather up and embody these paradoxes than by means of a virgin birth? Whatever you may think of that as biology, it is exquisite theology, a narrative clue to the identity of one who is at once both fully divine and fully human.
Taken together, these paradoxical details herald the glad tidings that God does not behave as mortal men and women believe God ought. God does not conform to our expectations; does not honor the job description we have developed for the position whose title is "God." And that, my friends, is precisely our salvation! For it is most unlikely that the God you or I would invent or imagine or come up with would be as loving, gracious, and merciful as the God who delivered Israel from Egypt. The same God who came to dwell among us in the flesh of Mary's baby that first Christmas.
Next, I am struck by the contrast between the politically powerful and the politically insignificant. Luke's story begins with names that would be on the lips of every first-century Palestinian: Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. These men are mere stage dressing in God's drama of salvation. The main characters in this particular act are certain poor shepherds and a couple from a no-account town called Nazareth, compelled by imperial decree to schlep across the countryside to an even more no-account backwater burg called Bethlehem.
This is no mere accident. It is good news of great joy to all people -- then and now -- who find themselves at the margins of society.
* You may be poor or aged or infirm.
* You may be abused or ignored or stuck in a job you loathe.
* Your appearance or opinions or orientation may place you decidedly outside the perimeters of power.
It is to precisely such people that God announced the birth of the Messiah and through such folks that the Messiah was born.
God is not fair as we count fairness. God is partisan. God takes sides. God did not take sides with nor rub elbows with Caesar Augustus or Quirinius that first Christmas, but associated instead with shepherds and peasants who couldn't slip the concierge enough cash to get that one room that is always available if you speak the "language." The fragrances we associate with Christmas -- pine and perfume, holly berry and baked goods -- are decidedly more pleasant and far less pungent than the fragrance of shepherd and sheep and stall.
If it weren't enough that God was born a baby, this babe is born to disenfranchised commoners living in a conquered and occupied land. The God whose birth was heralded by angels was born a first-century Palestinian Jew. In him, heaven's justice is incarnated. The story gets curiouser and curiouser, and God gets odder and odder, and again, it is all good news!
The third paradoxical detail is in some ways my favorite. A multitude of the heavenly host, we are told, praised God saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on earth." In art and architecture, the "heavenly host" is usually made out to be a choir of angels. That may be what Saint Luke intended. But if it was, it was the heavenly equivalent of the Marine Corps Choir, because "heavenly host" is a technical term for the squadron of warriors in God's celestial court. These were military types. And what message did they bear? "Peace on earth. Good will among people."
The irony is delicious! For every flaxen-haired, Nordic-looking angel that graced the Judean sky that holy night, I like to think there was another representing earth's southern hemisphere with Semper Fi tattooed on his upper arm, rejoicing at his mission of heralding peace. For in this babe, who is true God and yet true man, heaven and earth are uniquely and eternally united, wedded in a single peace.
But -- and here is an irony within an irony -- the world into which the babe was born was officially a world already at peace. So this angelic proclamation of peace: It's nice, but isn't it something from the "Department of Redundancy Department"?
The peace that prevailed at that time had a name. It was called Pax Romana -- the Peace of Rome. Pax Romana figures significantly though silently in the Christmas story. It was because of Pax Romana that Joseph and a very pregnant Mary were compelled to make that difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus had decreed a census for the purpose of taxation. Luke tells us that in order to be in compliance with that edict, "all went to their own towns to be registered."
The census was part of a complex and encompassing system designed to identify people in the provinces Rome had conquered, register them, tax them, and perhaps even induct them into the Roman military and civil service.
The impoverished people in such subjugated provinces as Judea and Galilee resented the Roman occupation. It resulted in such a materially comfortable and affluent life for the Romans that they called it peace: The Peace of Rome -- Pax Romana. It was a peace they were willing to kill for, and they did.
God's Marine Corps Choir proclaimed a different peace. It was the peace of Christ -- Pax Christi. The sign of its coming was not a military parade carefully calculated to inspire "shock and awe"; no intimidating show of might or rattling of celestial sabers, but a newborn child, birthed in a barn and cradled in a feed trough.
Pax Christi is the astounding good news that to fulfill the angels' message, God came into this violent and too-angry world as a child: vulnerable, helpless, and defenseless
* to invite our trust but not demand it;
* to show the world a new and better way to live together; and
* to love us all into that peace-filled life as only a baby can.
People in countries worldwide all need to hear God's promise of peace this year. So do we, and all who know conflict in their relationships with spouses and ex-spouses, parents or children, roommates or classmates, coworkers, neighbors, relatives, friends, self, and God.
Peace -- good will -- if God can embody it and warriors rejoice in it, can we not work for it and pray for it? Can we not live it even now, in our politics, in our relationships, in our spiritual lives, and in our hearts, in eager anticipation of God's promised day of shalom?
From eternity
* to that dark and holy night in a Bethlehem stall,
* to that dark Friday outside Jerusalem's gates,
* to this dark Tuesday in Selinsgrove;
God's gentle light is given through:
* heaven's child, virgin born;
* heaven's justice, peasant born; and
* heaven's peace, heralded by warrior angels.
In him, the ironies, contrasts, and paradoxes of our oft-confused and confusing lives cohere and coalesce. For this reason, and not only for this season, he is our Light, and he is our Peace.
May Pax Christi, the paradoxical peace that passes all mortal understanding, be yours this night and forevermore. Amen.
Myriad worshipers will follow Mary's example on hearing the good news of great joy, and ponder the meaning of the events it recounts. Multitudes will mimic the shepherds and be filled with wonder at all that they hear and see. Still, the depths of the story and the events will scarcely have been plumbed.
Perhaps it is the very nature of this night -- a service whose central metaphor is the contrast between darkness and light -- or perhaps it is because in my heart of hearts I believe that life with God is by its very nature deeply paradoxical, or maybe a bit of both, but in either event, it is to the ironies, contrasts, paradoxes, and reversals of logic that I find myself drawn this Christmas season.
Someone has said that "the Devil is in the details." I believe God is there, too. I share these details with you, and they are the stuff of this evening's proclamation.
The first and most evident paradoxes are the ones embodied in the babe himself. Creator of the cosmos, he is born a helpless child. Though all-powerful, he is newborn weak. Once he spoke and at his command, all that exists was summoned into being; now his only language is coos and cries. Though he is immortal, he will die. What better way to gather up and embody these paradoxes than by means of a virgin birth? Whatever you may think of that as biology, it is exquisite theology, a narrative clue to the identity of one who is at once both fully divine and fully human.
Taken together, these paradoxical details herald the glad tidings that God does not behave as mortal men and women believe God ought. God does not conform to our expectations; does not honor the job description we have developed for the position whose title is "God." And that, my friends, is precisely our salvation! For it is most unlikely that the God you or I would invent or imagine or come up with would be as loving, gracious, and merciful as the God who delivered Israel from Egypt. The same God who came to dwell among us in the flesh of Mary's baby that first Christmas.
Next, I am struck by the contrast between the politically powerful and the politically insignificant. Luke's story begins with names that would be on the lips of every first-century Palestinian: Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. These men are mere stage dressing in God's drama of salvation. The main characters in this particular act are certain poor shepherds and a couple from a no-account town called Nazareth, compelled by imperial decree to schlep across the countryside to an even more no-account backwater burg called Bethlehem.
This is no mere accident. It is good news of great joy to all people -- then and now -- who find themselves at the margins of society.
* You may be poor or aged or infirm.
* You may be abused or ignored or stuck in a job you loathe.
* Your appearance or opinions or orientation may place you decidedly outside the perimeters of power.
It is to precisely such people that God announced the birth of the Messiah and through such folks that the Messiah was born.
God is not fair as we count fairness. God is partisan. God takes sides. God did not take sides with nor rub elbows with Caesar Augustus or Quirinius that first Christmas, but associated instead with shepherds and peasants who couldn't slip the concierge enough cash to get that one room that is always available if you speak the "language." The fragrances we associate with Christmas -- pine and perfume, holly berry and baked goods -- are decidedly more pleasant and far less pungent than the fragrance of shepherd and sheep and stall.
If it weren't enough that God was born a baby, this babe is born to disenfranchised commoners living in a conquered and occupied land. The God whose birth was heralded by angels was born a first-century Palestinian Jew. In him, heaven's justice is incarnated. The story gets curiouser and curiouser, and God gets odder and odder, and again, it is all good news!
The third paradoxical detail is in some ways my favorite. A multitude of the heavenly host, we are told, praised God saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on earth." In art and architecture, the "heavenly host" is usually made out to be a choir of angels. That may be what Saint Luke intended. But if it was, it was the heavenly equivalent of the Marine Corps Choir, because "heavenly host" is a technical term for the squadron of warriors in God's celestial court. These were military types. And what message did they bear? "Peace on earth. Good will among people."
The irony is delicious! For every flaxen-haired, Nordic-looking angel that graced the Judean sky that holy night, I like to think there was another representing earth's southern hemisphere with Semper Fi tattooed on his upper arm, rejoicing at his mission of heralding peace. For in this babe, who is true God and yet true man, heaven and earth are uniquely and eternally united, wedded in a single peace.
But -- and here is an irony within an irony -- the world into which the babe was born was officially a world already at peace. So this angelic proclamation of peace: It's nice, but isn't it something from the "Department of Redundancy Department"?
The peace that prevailed at that time had a name. It was called Pax Romana -- the Peace of Rome. Pax Romana figures significantly though silently in the Christmas story. It was because of Pax Romana that Joseph and a very pregnant Mary were compelled to make that difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus had decreed a census for the purpose of taxation. Luke tells us that in order to be in compliance with that edict, "all went to their own towns to be registered."
The census was part of a complex and encompassing system designed to identify people in the provinces Rome had conquered, register them, tax them, and perhaps even induct them into the Roman military and civil service.
The impoverished people in such subjugated provinces as Judea and Galilee resented the Roman occupation. It resulted in such a materially comfortable and affluent life for the Romans that they called it peace: The Peace of Rome -- Pax Romana. It was a peace they were willing to kill for, and they did.
God's Marine Corps Choir proclaimed a different peace. It was the peace of Christ -- Pax Christi. The sign of its coming was not a military parade carefully calculated to inspire "shock and awe"; no intimidating show of might or rattling of celestial sabers, but a newborn child, birthed in a barn and cradled in a feed trough.
Pax Christi is the astounding good news that to fulfill the angels' message, God came into this violent and too-angry world as a child: vulnerable, helpless, and defenseless
* to invite our trust but not demand it;
* to show the world a new and better way to live together; and
* to love us all into that peace-filled life as only a baby can.
People in countries worldwide all need to hear God's promise of peace this year. So do we, and all who know conflict in their relationships with spouses and ex-spouses, parents or children, roommates or classmates, coworkers, neighbors, relatives, friends, self, and God.
Peace -- good will -- if God can embody it and warriors rejoice in it, can we not work for it and pray for it? Can we not live it even now, in our politics, in our relationships, in our spiritual lives, and in our hearts, in eager anticipation of God's promised day of shalom?
From eternity
* to that dark and holy night in a Bethlehem stall,
* to that dark Friday outside Jerusalem's gates,
* to this dark Tuesday in Selinsgrove;
God's gentle light is given through:
* heaven's child, virgin born;
* heaven's justice, peasant born; and
* heaven's peace, heralded by warrior angels.
In him, the ironies, contrasts, and paradoxes of our oft-confused and confusing lives cohere and coalesce. For this reason, and not only for this season, he is our Light, and he is our Peace.
May Pax Christi, the paradoxical peace that passes all mortal understanding, be yours this night and forevermore. Amen.
