Word and Table

This sermon borrows from a lot of sources, namely some work by Will Willimon in the middle, and I am indebted to Craig Kocher of Duke for the opening illustration. I still need to work on the transition between the beginning and end, and I would like to shorten it a little, tighten it up some, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

In December 1914, World War I was only four months old,
but already it had become a dark and bloody mess.
On France’s Western Front, soldiers of Kaiser Wilhelm II and George V faced off with one another from rows of frozen trenches.
The cold winter rains had chilled them to the bone,
and there was no relief from the endless mud and constant sniper fire.
On Christmas Eve 1914, Scottish troops looked out across No Man’s Land and noticed lights in the German trenches.
In the evening twilight, they made out the silhouettes of Christmas trees.
Laughter drifted across the darkening sky.
The lights of those Christmas Trees burned brighter,
and pretty soon the Scottish troops heard a rich baritone voice begin to sing: “Stile Nacht, Helige Naucht.” Silent Night, Holy Night.
One Scotsman who saw and heard these things said:
“It was strange, like being in another world, to which we had come through a nightmare, a world finer than the one left behind.”
That Christmas Eve in 1914, in the midst of all that power and warfare,
the sounds of a world bent on destroying itself,
there appeared an unexpected gift, the gift of song, the gift of tenderness,
the gift of peace on earth breaking forth into the dark chaos.

On Christmas Day, The Royal Flying Corp got into the Christmas spirit.
A plane was sent up over the German lines and dropped a padded case of brandy-soaked plum pudding behind the German trenches.
The German troops seemed to appreciate this,
so they sent up their own plane with a careful airdrop of a bottle of rum.
The Allied soldiers really appreciated that.
It was not long after this, we are told, that all the shooting stopped,
and soldiers on both sides gathered to celebrate Christmas, singing Silent Night.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 spread up and down the Western Front,
and for several days the fighting and killing stopped.
Soldiers traded tobacco and photographs,
a football game even broke out between the Germans and the Allies.
In fact, so much “good will” occurred across the lines that generals on both sides finally issued orders forbidding what was going on,
after all, they claimed,
“it discouraged initiative and destroyed morale in the ranks.”

On this Christmas Eve,
the ways of the world are once again turned upside down.
In a world consumed by never-ending violence and life-shattering warfare,
the soft cries of Mary’s child fill the air,
and we see that power, real power, is not found in the weapons of war,
but belongs in the small body of a new-born baby.
No longer does the world bow to Caesar Augustus, or Quirinias of Syria, or Herod of Judea, or Kaiser Wilhelm, or George V, or any of the politicians,
kings, generals, or CEOs that normally command the world’s attention.

No, for tonight, the King of kings is born in a stable with a few lowly shepherds as the guests of honor.
The gift of this day is God’s love for the world and the package is a small baby cradled in a young girl’s arms,
the most powerful force that the world has ever known.
And we who have been hardened by the difficulty of our lives,
bruised and scarred by shattered dreams and broken hopes.
We who turn on the television, listen to the radio, read the newspaper each day, and hear painful news of bloodshed and sadness,
of poverty and illness,
we who have become calloused to the brutal stories of the world around us,
who are saddened by the dark places in our own lives,
we need this gift of tenderness, mercy or love.
We need this gift of a baby born among us named Immanuel.
As one preacher has said,
We are like shepherds in the dark night,
scanning the horizon for any signs of hope,
for the promise that this world is not all there is,
that the darkness will give way to a light that shall not be overcome.

In her novel Silas Marner, George Elliot tells the story of a reclusive and hardened man who blocks out the world around him.
His primary passion is accumulating more and more gold,
that he then hides under his bed.
One day he comes home to find that his gold is gone,
some thief has stolen the treasure of his life,
and he is distraught over his loss.
Every day after that,
he would return to his home,
hoping beyond hope that the gold had reappeared.
Then one day he comes home and sees a glint of light on the floor,
his heart leapt for joy,
his gold had been returned,
but when he stretched out his hand he found,
instead of hard coin, soft curls on his floor – a sleeping child.
Elliot narrates the scene like this:
“He had a dreamy feeling that this child was somehow a message come to him from a far off life.
It stirred old quiverings of tenderness –
old impressions of awe of some power presiding over his life . . . .
[We] older human beings, with our inward turmoil,
feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child,
such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky.”

Silas Marner took the little girl in his lap, “trembling with an emotion mysterious to himself, at something unknown dawning on his life.
He could only have said that the child had come instead of the gold –
that the gold had turned into the child.”

The child that comes this night is truth and grace.
He comes to a world overcome with darkness to be the light that that will forever shine.
He comes to a world overrun by senseless noise to sing the melody of peace.

He comes to your life and my life as a priceless gift,
the only gift that really matters,
to turn the world upside down,
to take away the hard edges and make us tender.

And away up the hill, from the direction of town, came the sound of a newborn baby’s cry.
This, my friends, is the gift we have been given.

But what gift shall we give?
After all, it is a birthday that we celebrate tonight.
And birthdays are all about gift-giving, right?
There was once a family that celebrated Christmas every year with a birthday party for Jesus.
An extra chair of honor was placed at the table to remind the family of Jesus’ presence.
A cake with candles,
along with the singing of Happy Birthday expressed the family’s joy in Jesus’ presence.

One year a Christmas afternoon visitor asked Ruth,
the five year old girl in the family, a question.
“Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?”
After thinking for just a moment Ruth answered,
“No, but then it’s not my birthday.”

Of course, it wasn’t Ruth’s birthday.
And with the exception of a few Christmas babies,
the world tonight celebrates the birthday of one person, Jesus Christ.
Now I’m not going to stand up here and be some scrooge and tell you that
all the fuss and hubbub of the season misses the point.
I don’t have to.
You know it as well as I.

We get so busy preparing for Christmas,
what with our shopping,
our traveling,
our gift-wrapping,
our cooking and baking and eating.
our present exchanging,
even our efforts to fulfill our religious duties,
we get so busy,
that our busyness can and does become an obstacle to celebrating Christmas the way it should be celebrated.

And just how should we celebrate this holy day,
the day in which God gives himself to us?
Let me suggest two things:
First, let us try to capture a little bit of the awe and wonder and joy that comes when we realize what it is that God is actually doing for us at Christmas.

John Shea tells one of my favorite stories,
the story of a young girl named Sharon.
Sharon was five years old,
and she was sure of the facts.
She slowly and solemnly recited them for all to hear,
and she was convinced that every word was a revelation.

Sharon said that Mary and Joseph were so poor that they only had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat,
as they went on their long trip from home without getting lost.
The lady, Mary, rode a donkey,
the man walked,
and the baby was inside the lady.
When they go to where they were going,
they had to stay in a stable with an ox and an ass (and at this point she laughed a hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lited the roof.

Shepherds also came,
and you could pet the sheep,
but not feed them.

Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her small eyes inflated to the size of silver dollars.

The baby was God.
Then Sharon jumped in the air,
whirled round, dove into the sofa,
and buried her head under the cushion.
Which is,
I think,
the only proper response to the Good News of Jesus Birth,
the good news of God coming to us,
in the form of a baby,
a baby born to poor parents,
in a little town called Bethlehem.
A baby who would become,
a baby who was even then,
our savior.

Sharon, in her own childish way, knew what this meant,
and she knew that the birth of Christ deserves more than the singing of a few carols,
attendance at a worship service,
and the busyness of the holiday season.
It deserves pure joy and delight and some kind of reaction.
For her that meant hiding her head under the sofa,
but for us?
What should our reaction be?

Our reaction should be to give the Christ child a gift.
The tradition of gift-giving at brithdays and at Christmas is not a bad one,
and I want us to use it.
But unlike the gifts of the wise men,
the best gift we can give to Christ is not money or material goods,
the best gift we can give is our hearts, our souls,
and our lives in service to Christ.
This is the gift Jesus desires most of all.

And we do like to give people what they want on their birthdays, don’t we?
I mean, if it is within our power and means,
we will get the birthday boy or girl whatever it is they’ve asked for.
And guess what, the gift Jesus wants is a gift all of us can give.
All we need to do is to say the words,
Jesus, I give you all that I am.
I love you, for you have given me all that I have,
and you have promised me life and life and joy,
you have promised me love and your presence always.
The least I can do is to live for you.
Here is my heart.
Here is my soul.
Here is my life.
I will serve you,
I will live for you from now on.

It’s the least I can do you, Jesus,
after all, it is your birthday.

Technorati tags: Christmas Eve, Sermon, Gifts, World War 1, Silas Marner

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