Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Preparing
for Christmas: Close, Closer, Closest!
Dec 23, 2018 Advent 4-C
The newscasters had a name for
yesterday - they called is Last Minute
Saturday. (Like Black Friday, Cyber
Monday, Giving Tuesday and so on.) They
showed scenes of crowded malls and stores, people pushing and loaded down with
bags. In Jimmy Fallon’s monologue Friday
night on the Tonight Show, he remarked that unless you got some sort of deal,
its too late to order online now. And he had the Toys R Us stores, who closed
during the last year, say, “I bet you miss us now!”
We’ve been
talking of preparing for Christmas in these Advent Sundays - making comparisons to how we prepare outwardly
for company and deep clean the house, how we decorate, and how we look forward
to time together with other folks. We’ve
been comparing this to our inner preparations for the new life of Christ in our
lives - examining and purifying ourselves, letting go of the old so there’s
room for the new. As this is the 4th
Sunday of Advent, it’s the closest to Christmas Eve, which this year is
actually tomorrow, so at home, we’re probably about as ready as we can be.
We probably have our turkeys or hams
or barbecue, our ingredients for stuffing or sweet potatoes or green beans or
whatever our sides will be. We’ve
probably cleaned, made up the company beds and put the company towels out. Maybe there’s some presents already under the
tree. I’m making my pumpkin pie today – I love my pumpkin pie more than anyone
else’s – yes, it’s the Libby’s recipe, but with a couple personal tweaks. I like it with so much whipped cream that I
can barely see the pie underneath. My
sister bought whipped cream in preparation, but I bought one, too - you can’t
have too much whipped cream.
So its Last Minute time, when things come
together and we kinda panic but are excited, too. Those are the outer preparations for how
Christmas is celebrated nowadays. Its
time for the traditions to begin – welcoming folks who’ve traveled, sharing
food, preparing to share meals. You
know, as pastors, we rarely travel for Christmas, but we make our own
customs. The kid’s dad had 3 services on
Christmas Eve and I sometimes had one elsewhere. So I usually cooked a Stauffer’s lasagna as a
quick meal between the 4:30 children’s’ service and the 7pm service. At least it
was red; and as I usually had the excited kids by myself, it was easy. I’ve kept that tradition - in fact, I bought
one for tomorrow. We all have our
nativity scenes up – I had a crocheted one so the kids could touch it and carry
the pieces if they wanted to.
Our
modern Christmases are kind of a mix of a faith professions and a mid-winter
festival. Sometimes I can go on a rant
about the materialism of modern Christmases, although I then think that Jesus
certainly wouldn’t object to communal meals, healed relationships, sharing and
rejoicing In some way, in the right
spirit, Christmas might show a bit of the celebration of heaven. At least our holiday still has the name
Christ in it, although Santa has become the more looked-for figure - and maybe
THE figure in non-churched families.
There are still carols about the holy night and Jesus’ birth, which mix
in on our playlists or radios with other songs like Santa Baby and Winter
Wonderland. Lots of families still come
to worship on Christmas Eve, even if they’re not involved the rest of the
year. Whenever Jesus’ actual birth was,
our Christian ancestors chose to set the celebration at the time of year of
returning light, and to put a Christian overlay on the celebrations of the
solstice that most cultures already had.
And our celebration of Christ’s birth still carries that mix.
So as our last Advent preparation
for the spiritual side of Christmas, let’s take one more look at the meaning of
this event we’re celebrating. You know,
God began preparing for Christmas long before we did - all during Advent, we
read from the Jewish prophets – Isaiah, Zechariah, Micah, Malachi, and the
story of how the refugee Ruth came into Jesus’ ancestry. There are all kinds of words in the prophets
that, looking back, we can connect with the coming of the Christ. In their time, of course, it was looking
forward, a hope, a promise; the idea of the God’s Anointed One, God’s Messiah,
kept folks going in terrible times. God’s preparation started way back in the
choosing of a special nation to carry that hope, and be a nation of priests in
the sense that they carried the truth of God to the world; back with Abraham
and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and
Rachel, and those stories kept and treasured by our earliest faith ancestors.
God’s last preparations included the
parents of John the Baptizer, then Mary and Joseph to parent Baby Jesus. It doesn’t seem like God chose an opportune
period, with the Jewish people being under Roman rule at that time. And Mary and Joseph were your everyday
working poor people - blue collar we’d call them today, without the privileges
or entitlements of the rich. There was
risk to Jesus from the time he was conceived.
Risk of being outcast, not of the ruling people, risk from soldiers,
disease, accident – as well as the king’s displeasure. But that’s what God prepared and chose, and
brought to fruition.
When we read Mary’s song of praise
and victory, we remember that this birth stands for more than just a cute
baby. The first line in her song is My
soul magnifies the Lord – we call it Mary’s Magnificat, from the Latin. She
goes on to claim the promises her people held onto for years, and talks of the
turning upside down of things by the Messiah, in throwing down the powerful
from their thrones, and the poor being fed while the rich are sent away
empty. In our faith, this birth is the
beginning of THE major work on behalf of humanity that God does.
Last Sunday I went to hear a friend
of mine sing in a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, accompanied
by a harpist, as designed. It was great!
My High School choir learned this piece, so I could almost sing along, in words
that moved me even at 18. I especially
love the piece called This Little Babe. It
captures the same spirit as the Magnificat in seeing this birth as God mounting
a major campaign against the forces of evil, a cosmic fighting for the
salvation of humankind’s souls. Jesus’
birth is nothing less than the coming of the Divine into our sphere, in order
to help us hear the good news of how things are supposed to be, and give us
forgiveness and hope to live into that vision.
So this carol looks at the baby’s
birth as a battle scenario, and uses the language of human battle to describe
the babe’s situation. God’s battles sure
don’t look like ours…..
This little babe so few days old, has come to rifle Satan’s
fold,
All hell doth at his presence quake, though he on earth for
cold do shake.
For in this weak, unarmed wise, the gates of hell he will
surprise.
It looks like any other birth, but
this birth is the opening salvo in the way God is encountering evil! This is a cosmic event of eternal
significance. And all Hell recognizes
what Jesus is, and begins to rally against him in fear. God has chosen the surprising way of love to
overcome evil.
I love the contrasts and comparisons
in this next section– God’s ways look powerless in terms of the world, yet they
are God’s master plan and strongest suit – love, incarnation, presence, being
true humans.
With tears he fights and wins the field, his naked breast
stands for a shield.
His battering shots are babish cries, his arrows, looks of
weeping eyes.
His martial ensigns Cold and Need, and feeble flesh, his
warrior steed.
His camp is pitched in a stall. His bulwark but a broken
wall.
The crib his trench, haystacks his stakes; of shepherds he
his muster makes.
And thus, as sure his foe to wound, the angels’ trumps
alarum sound.
God doesn’t come in a tank or
Humvee, but human flesh, dependent and needy.
No fort, no battle command station – just a crib – and a crib in poor
housing…..no trained Green berets or Seals or Marines or Combat vets – God just
has shepherds. No noisy horns or roar of
jets or sound of bombs falling, God has angels singing.
God fights with the power of new
life and love.
Not a great show of boots on the ground to mow down enemies; not huge armaments
to wipe out cities of the enemy; not missiles and rockets and mortars to batter
the enemies’ troops and break their spirits - - no, just the deep, deep love it
took to set aside the glory of God’s being and be born in human flesh, all for
our sake. Hate does not drive out hate,
Martin Luther King Jr reminded us – love drives out hate.
The next carol, In Freezing Winter
Night, continues the theme of comparing the poor family and its serviceable
things, with the possessions of a king that this baby surely is:
This stable is a Prince’s court; this crib his chair of
state;
The beasts are parcel of his pomp, the wooden dish his
plate.
The persons in that poor attire his royal liveries wear;
The Prince himself is come from Heav’n – this pomp is prized
there.
We’re wrong if the only Baby Jesus
we know and honor is merely a cute and cuddly newborn – although I’m sure he
was a cute and cuddly newborn, like all newborns. Yet Jesus was also God’s very self; an Advent
that was planned and anticipated for centuries!
Talk about preparing for Christmas! And not a Christmas of our kind, but
a birth that was the beginning of a whole plan for the kingdom of God, the
kindom of God, the realm of God. In
fact, this birth is also a battle, yes - a battle for humanity and its
soul. A battle against the evil, the
nothingness, that would kill us, drain us, pull us into despair, pull our eyes
from God, and from the realm of spiritual life – a life lived with God in
generosity, kindness, peace, thanksgiving, gratitude, hope and love.
So its right that in our
preparations for Christmas, we keep this scenario in mind. We remember how this little baby grows into
Rabbi Jesus, a prophet who teaches with authority and calls people back to true
worship, a threat that is so severe to the evil of the world that he is
killed. Yet such is the power of God’
love that Jesus is raised again in a new life, which is now offered to each of
us.
So next to that sweet baby Jesus,
keep a reminder of what God did, what battle God engaged, how all evil was
taken on in this birth & life. And
join the shepherds in wonder and the angels in crying Alleluia. AMEN.
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