The Truth Of Christmas
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
The early Christians were good at using the Hebrew Scriptures when confessing the meaning of Jesus as a saving power in their lives. There they discovered images and statements that put to words their own experiences of Jesus. One of those texts is the Old Testament lection for today. Isaiah 7:2--9 is likely a creation honoring King Hezekiah as he ascended the throne. Some of us might remember a similar instance of Robert Frost offering poetry at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. Before Jesus, when the Jewish national fortunes were smothered by the power politics of larger surrounding nations, this Isaiah passage became a depiction of their hope for a future Messiah--King who would deliver the people from all their sins and oppressions:
And he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace ...
He will establish and uphold it [the throne]
With justice and with righteousness
From this time onward and evermore.
- Isaiah 9:6b, 7b
It is likely that the early Christians and New Testament authors believed that they were putting down solid historical truth when they used these prophecies from the Hebrew Bible. Many Christians feel this way today - Jesus was actually born in a Bethlehem stable and Isaiah was undoubtedly predicting the hoped--for Messiah when he wrote these words. These Christians hold these convictions with an intensity indicating the seriousness of their faith, sometimes pronouncing that this is the only true view of scripture.
Often such persons will insinuate that those Christians who differ with them are not really Christians. Pastors who challenge these understandings of scripture are sometimes forced from their pulpits. A major Protestant denomination has made the historical and literal truth of scripture a test of faith for laypersons, professors in their colleges and seminaries, and pastors of local churches. This indicates that there is a serious conflict between the traditional and the newer ways of hearing God's truth in our scriptures. Traditionalists think that only by their way can the truth of scripture be known. Others who cannot do this are often made to feel that they have no place in the church, or that they must become "closet" doubters.
This has serious bearing on celebrating Christmas. If there is only the literal approach to the nativity scriptures, then a large section of the church is eliminated. And if there is saving meaning tied to the scriptures apart from making scriptures literal truth, then most churches and pulpits have done little to broadcast this news. A seminary professor told his class that when his students were pastors in the local church for ten years, no one would know that they had been introduced to a different view of scripture. So strong is there resistance to a more critical approach to the church's scriptures that a group that calls itself Fundamentalists Anonymous was formed to help persons move from an incredulous and often stifling traditionalism into a larger and more rewarding approach to scripture without a crippling burden of guilt. That such a group is needed is a judgment upon much of our churches for neglecting to undertake the difficult task of re--interpreting the meaning of our faith beyond its literal confinements.
I
Let's lay out the case for the truth of Christmas beyond the seemingly historical inaccuracies of the Nativity and of such Old Testament witnesses as Isaiah 9:2--7. We insist that Jesus was born in a normal way to his parents, Mary and Joseph. His childhood home was in Nazareth of Galilee, among the marginally poor. He had brothers and sisters. As a young adult, Jesus became a follower of John the Baptist and began a ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing in relation to the near--arrival of the kingdom of God. He gathered an entourage of followers and was crucified by Roman authority outside the walls of Jerusalem. His influence was not muted by death. Soon his followers resumed his ministry, eventually feeling his resurrected presence among them. They then planted the church in most all the regions of the known world.
But such a sketchy resume leaves much for us to wonder about. When and where was he born, we ask at Christmas? Some are satisfied with Bethlehem as Matthew and Luke suggest. But many wonder why Paul, in the earliest of Christian writings, makes no mention of Matthew or Luke's Nativity stories. Certainly Isaiah does not indicate the location of Jesus' birth or its circumstances. Others find discrepancies as Albert Schweitzer did as a young boy. He wondered why the family of Jesus was so poor when the Wise Men had brought gifts of gold and other precious things. The late Peggy Lee is known for her haunting song lyric, "Is That All There Is?" Miss Lee was not pondering the mysteries of scripture. But her quest could be taken to frame the honest questions that are on the lips and in the heart of many people jamming the pews at Christmas time.
II
Let's say that the wonderful Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke, as well as the lofty praise of Isaiah 9:2--7, are more about meaning than they are about history. Regardless of our doubts about their historicity, the Nativity stories are true to our experience of Jesus in our Christian lives. These stories about disruption of place, of danger, of lowly birth, and of immediate perception by lower--class shepherds tell how Jesus comes to us. Many persons today experience these same painful experiences. And persons without the securities of power and privilege, often bond to this image of Jesus.
Jesus is revealed to us in Mary and Joseph heading for Bethlehem, dislocated from inner and outer stabilities. He is present with us in our dangers, as King Herod, ready to pounce, delivering us from terror, and calming us to face fright courageously. Jesus is lowly, as depicted in the birth stories, and is visited by lower--class shepherds. So we, too, who are neither among the wealthy, or famous, or brilliant can know him without these credentials. Again, as Isaiah suggests, Jesus is the image of what our world can become with humans living together in peace, justice, righteousness, and well--being.
As much as we rejoice that our faith is grounded in an historical person, it is not limited to bare historical facts. Edward Schillebeeckx, a great Roman Catholic New Testament scholar, begins his work, Christ, by declaring that no historical event is without inseparably attached meanings. Interpretative meanings are always mixed in with the bare facts. Events provoke meanings, for we are inevitably creatures of meaning. We know about this in everyday life. Sometimes our meanings come into conflict with those who have had the same experience or thought, causing tension and misunderstandings. A comic strip points out the difference between what one person says and what another thinks they say. One panel presents what is said or thought. The next panel depicts what another person perceives what happened or was said. The point of the strip is that meanings mix with experiences and language so that we never have an uninterpreted event or statement - including this sermon.
A classic case is the husband who asks his wife where she got the dinner steak. She immediately thinks the question is critical and that he doesn't like the steak. "Why, what's wrong with it?" she responds. The husband says, "It's great. I just wanted to know where you bought it. Shop there again!" Early television had a popular detective program, Dragnet, featuring Jack Webb and Henry Morgan as LA police officers. As Webb interrogated the witness, she would begin to offer irrelevant and self--justifying answers to Webb's questions. Webb would cut the witness short and say, "Just the facts, ma'am."
But truth never comes as "just the facts, ma'am." It always has a point of view, an interpretation, an understanding, a worldview, a prejudice, or a gross distortion. The Vietnam War makes this clear. Veterans who served in that conflict come to quite different understandings, even though they personally experienced the same events. One veteran will say that the Vietnam War was an heroic effort to preserve democracy in a small southeast Asian nation. He will defend the war as an honorable intrusion into the turmoils of southeast Asia. He will say that we did not have the will to win that war. Another veteran will say that the Vietnam War was a tragic and futile reaction to the struggles of former colonial people to be free from western domination using a Marxist ideology for their purposes. They will tell us that the war was a hopeless incursion by force doomed to failure even with massive military power. Personal meanings always shape our perception of truth and our life experiences.
III
Finally, we don't have a language about meanings. Unless we are a higher mathematician or someone conversant with modern physics, we must tell stories to express our meanings. Stories are filled with facts and actions that go beyond the observable reality. If we are sharing what Jesus means to us, we can use Matthew and Luke and say that he was born in a stable in Bethlehem and was visited by shepherds and Wise Men, even while mean King Herod planned the child's death. This does not seem to be solid history, and yet this story allows us to affirm that a saving power attached itself to this helpless child, and that he grew to fulfill the ancient hopes of Israel for a time of peace, justice, and righteousness for all. This is its larger truth beyond literal truth.
Christianity has no fear of critical historical research. We can allow that while not being strict history, much of the Christian story is confessional in meaning always moving in the realm of faithful response. Christians are like those of us who read fiction. Even though the novel comes from the mind of the author, it is still appropriate to ask the question, "Is this novel true?" The story is fictional. But the reader makes the judgment: "Is it 'true to life?' Does it reflect life and life's celebrations, fears, struggles, defeats, humorous moments, and victories? If the novelist has been successful, the answer is "Yes." Then the reader is allowed to consider the novel as it relates to similar or contrasting events in one's own life. Sensitive interpretation and reflection that are fictional become powerful truths for understanding our human strivings.
There is a name for all of this way of understating scripture. Marcus Borg calls it "post--critical naivete." To those who are fearful that critical historical investigation of scriptures cancels out the meanings of stories and of scripture, post or second naivete offers a new way of recapturing their significance. Answering Mary's cry in the garden on Easter morning, the critical view of scripture hasn't taken away anyone's Jesus.
Our Isaiah text fails the test of being a prophecy of the coming of Jesus. It's original meaning is a hymn of praise for the coronation of one of Israel's kings. When early Christians came across this text, they found it wonderfully expressive of the salvation of the God they had known in Jesus, a salvation that would come clear in the future.
Isaiah 9:2--7 is true because it honestly reveals some of our deepest convictions about the Christmas Christ we honor today. This hope can only be answered by the sort of person he became and who is the true center of our faith and trust now and forever. Isaiah 9:2--7 is for us a true understanding of the one through whom we discover the never--ending grace and love of God. This is the truth of Christmas. All the joyful mood of the season is really true. It is more than sufficient to heal our broken lives and world. Merry Christmas!
And he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace ...
He will establish and uphold it [the throne]
With justice and with righteousness
From this time onward and evermore.
- Isaiah 9:6b, 7b
It is likely that the early Christians and New Testament authors believed that they were putting down solid historical truth when they used these prophecies from the Hebrew Bible. Many Christians feel this way today - Jesus was actually born in a Bethlehem stable and Isaiah was undoubtedly predicting the hoped--for Messiah when he wrote these words. These Christians hold these convictions with an intensity indicating the seriousness of their faith, sometimes pronouncing that this is the only true view of scripture.
Often such persons will insinuate that those Christians who differ with them are not really Christians. Pastors who challenge these understandings of scripture are sometimes forced from their pulpits. A major Protestant denomination has made the historical and literal truth of scripture a test of faith for laypersons, professors in their colleges and seminaries, and pastors of local churches. This indicates that there is a serious conflict between the traditional and the newer ways of hearing God's truth in our scriptures. Traditionalists think that only by their way can the truth of scripture be known. Others who cannot do this are often made to feel that they have no place in the church, or that they must become "closet" doubters.
This has serious bearing on celebrating Christmas. If there is only the literal approach to the nativity scriptures, then a large section of the church is eliminated. And if there is saving meaning tied to the scriptures apart from making scriptures literal truth, then most churches and pulpits have done little to broadcast this news. A seminary professor told his class that when his students were pastors in the local church for ten years, no one would know that they had been introduced to a different view of scripture. So strong is there resistance to a more critical approach to the church's scriptures that a group that calls itself Fundamentalists Anonymous was formed to help persons move from an incredulous and often stifling traditionalism into a larger and more rewarding approach to scripture without a crippling burden of guilt. That such a group is needed is a judgment upon much of our churches for neglecting to undertake the difficult task of re--interpreting the meaning of our faith beyond its literal confinements.
I
Let's lay out the case for the truth of Christmas beyond the seemingly historical inaccuracies of the Nativity and of such Old Testament witnesses as Isaiah 9:2--7. We insist that Jesus was born in a normal way to his parents, Mary and Joseph. His childhood home was in Nazareth of Galilee, among the marginally poor. He had brothers and sisters. As a young adult, Jesus became a follower of John the Baptist and began a ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing in relation to the near--arrival of the kingdom of God. He gathered an entourage of followers and was crucified by Roman authority outside the walls of Jerusalem. His influence was not muted by death. Soon his followers resumed his ministry, eventually feeling his resurrected presence among them. They then planted the church in most all the regions of the known world.
But such a sketchy resume leaves much for us to wonder about. When and where was he born, we ask at Christmas? Some are satisfied with Bethlehem as Matthew and Luke suggest. But many wonder why Paul, in the earliest of Christian writings, makes no mention of Matthew or Luke's Nativity stories. Certainly Isaiah does not indicate the location of Jesus' birth or its circumstances. Others find discrepancies as Albert Schweitzer did as a young boy. He wondered why the family of Jesus was so poor when the Wise Men had brought gifts of gold and other precious things. The late Peggy Lee is known for her haunting song lyric, "Is That All There Is?" Miss Lee was not pondering the mysteries of scripture. But her quest could be taken to frame the honest questions that are on the lips and in the heart of many people jamming the pews at Christmas time.
II
Let's say that the wonderful Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke, as well as the lofty praise of Isaiah 9:2--7, are more about meaning than they are about history. Regardless of our doubts about their historicity, the Nativity stories are true to our experience of Jesus in our Christian lives. These stories about disruption of place, of danger, of lowly birth, and of immediate perception by lower--class shepherds tell how Jesus comes to us. Many persons today experience these same painful experiences. And persons without the securities of power and privilege, often bond to this image of Jesus.
Jesus is revealed to us in Mary and Joseph heading for Bethlehem, dislocated from inner and outer stabilities. He is present with us in our dangers, as King Herod, ready to pounce, delivering us from terror, and calming us to face fright courageously. Jesus is lowly, as depicted in the birth stories, and is visited by lower--class shepherds. So we, too, who are neither among the wealthy, or famous, or brilliant can know him without these credentials. Again, as Isaiah suggests, Jesus is the image of what our world can become with humans living together in peace, justice, righteousness, and well--being.
As much as we rejoice that our faith is grounded in an historical person, it is not limited to bare historical facts. Edward Schillebeeckx, a great Roman Catholic New Testament scholar, begins his work, Christ, by declaring that no historical event is without inseparably attached meanings. Interpretative meanings are always mixed in with the bare facts. Events provoke meanings, for we are inevitably creatures of meaning. We know about this in everyday life. Sometimes our meanings come into conflict with those who have had the same experience or thought, causing tension and misunderstandings. A comic strip points out the difference between what one person says and what another thinks they say. One panel presents what is said or thought. The next panel depicts what another person perceives what happened or was said. The point of the strip is that meanings mix with experiences and language so that we never have an uninterpreted event or statement - including this sermon.
A classic case is the husband who asks his wife where she got the dinner steak. She immediately thinks the question is critical and that he doesn't like the steak. "Why, what's wrong with it?" she responds. The husband says, "It's great. I just wanted to know where you bought it. Shop there again!" Early television had a popular detective program, Dragnet, featuring Jack Webb and Henry Morgan as LA police officers. As Webb interrogated the witness, she would begin to offer irrelevant and self--justifying answers to Webb's questions. Webb would cut the witness short and say, "Just the facts, ma'am."
But truth never comes as "just the facts, ma'am." It always has a point of view, an interpretation, an understanding, a worldview, a prejudice, or a gross distortion. The Vietnam War makes this clear. Veterans who served in that conflict come to quite different understandings, even though they personally experienced the same events. One veteran will say that the Vietnam War was an heroic effort to preserve democracy in a small southeast Asian nation. He will defend the war as an honorable intrusion into the turmoils of southeast Asia. He will say that we did not have the will to win that war. Another veteran will say that the Vietnam War was a tragic and futile reaction to the struggles of former colonial people to be free from western domination using a Marxist ideology for their purposes. They will tell us that the war was a hopeless incursion by force doomed to failure even with massive military power. Personal meanings always shape our perception of truth and our life experiences.
III
Finally, we don't have a language about meanings. Unless we are a higher mathematician or someone conversant with modern physics, we must tell stories to express our meanings. Stories are filled with facts and actions that go beyond the observable reality. If we are sharing what Jesus means to us, we can use Matthew and Luke and say that he was born in a stable in Bethlehem and was visited by shepherds and Wise Men, even while mean King Herod planned the child's death. This does not seem to be solid history, and yet this story allows us to affirm that a saving power attached itself to this helpless child, and that he grew to fulfill the ancient hopes of Israel for a time of peace, justice, and righteousness for all. This is its larger truth beyond literal truth.
Christianity has no fear of critical historical research. We can allow that while not being strict history, much of the Christian story is confessional in meaning always moving in the realm of faithful response. Christians are like those of us who read fiction. Even though the novel comes from the mind of the author, it is still appropriate to ask the question, "Is this novel true?" The story is fictional. But the reader makes the judgment: "Is it 'true to life?' Does it reflect life and life's celebrations, fears, struggles, defeats, humorous moments, and victories? If the novelist has been successful, the answer is "Yes." Then the reader is allowed to consider the novel as it relates to similar or contrasting events in one's own life. Sensitive interpretation and reflection that are fictional become powerful truths for understanding our human strivings.
There is a name for all of this way of understating scripture. Marcus Borg calls it "post--critical naivete." To those who are fearful that critical historical investigation of scriptures cancels out the meanings of stories and of scripture, post or second naivete offers a new way of recapturing their significance. Answering Mary's cry in the garden on Easter morning, the critical view of scripture hasn't taken away anyone's Jesus.
Our Isaiah text fails the test of being a prophecy of the coming of Jesus. It's original meaning is a hymn of praise for the coronation of one of Israel's kings. When early Christians came across this text, they found it wonderfully expressive of the salvation of the God they had known in Jesus, a salvation that would come clear in the future.
Isaiah 9:2--7 is true because it honestly reveals some of our deepest convictions about the Christmas Christ we honor today. This hope can only be answered by the sort of person he became and who is the true center of our faith and trust now and forever. Isaiah 9:2--7 is for us a true understanding of the one through whom we discover the never--ending grace and love of God. This is the truth of Christmas. All the joyful mood of the season is really true. It is more than sufficient to heal our broken lives and world. Merry Christmas!
