A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Christmas Eve, December 24, 2009.
Isaiah 9: 2 – 4, 6 – 7; Psalm 96: 1 – 4, 11 – 12; Titus 2: 11 – 14; Luke 2: 1 – 20
Perhaps by now, you’re sick and tired of Christmas. It’s just possible that you’ve had enough of Christmas decorations that have been in the stores since Labor Day. Maybe you’ve heard enough jazzed-up versions of Christmas carols (don’t they just make you long for the simple, original versions?), and it could be that you’ve seen enough showings of movies like “White Christmas” and “The Grinch who stole Christmas” on the AMC channel to last for the next year. With Ebenezer Scrooge, you might simply want to say, “Christmas? Bah, Humbug!”
But, having waded through all of these past months’ attempts to overdo the whole Christmas “thing”, you now find yourself here in this church tonight. And what brings you here – hopefully – is the real reason for this Holy Day, the birth of Jesus Christ.
Now all of us here know the basics of the Christmas story. We could recite it in the Luke version we heard tonight, perhaps verbatim (albeit many of us would be able to do so in the language if the Authorized – King James – Version!). We know the facts of what happened 2,000 years ago.
Both of these realities make the preacher’s task on Christmas a very difficult one. For one thing, the preacher’s congregation has most likely “had it up to here” with Christmas, for Christmas has been all around us for the past three or four months (it wasn’t like that when I was young: We actually had Thanksgiving, and then came Christmas!). For another, the texts from Christmas to Christmas don’t change much, and the congregants are very familiar with them. It might be easy for us to say, “Yeah, I know all that,” about the events in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
So tonight, let’s consider two important questions that have to do with the theological importance of this wonderful day, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. These two questions ought to be foremost in our minds as we read any passage of Holy Scripture. These two questions are:
- What is God doing?
- What do God’s actions tell us about who He is?
As I said a minute ago, these two questions consider the theological meaning of the passage, and it is always the theological implications that are the ultimate goal of any writer of Scripture. The writer wants us see what God is doing, and to draw conclusions about just who God is, by observing (along with the writer) those actions.
So, the title of this sermon is simply “Prove it!” Prove to us who you are, God, in the sending of your Son, Jesus Christ.
“Prove it!” Maybe those words rolled off your tongue, or came flying out of your mouth when you were a child. Oftentimes, in my own childhood, I could recall saying or hearing those words when I was locked in argument with someone. “Prove it!” I would say. Maybe you did, too.
But life beyond childhood is full of requests for proof, and it is in the proving of what we need to know that we can order our lives.
Two examples will suffice to illustrate my point: We go to apply for a mortgage, and the bank wants us to prove that we have sufficient income to pay back the loan. We have to prove the facts of our situation, and in so doing, we are telling the bank something about ourselves (like our income level and sources, and our trustworthiness, credit-wise). Or, when someone comes and tells us something, we want proof before taking actions that are in response to the report we’ve just heard (priests get into this sort of situation quite often, for someone will tell us something, for while they are being truthful in accordance with the facts as they understand them, it’s often very important to seek proof of the situation from other sources, as well).
So, we go through life offering proof, and seeking proof.
The same is true with regard to our life with God: We seek proof of God’s nature, and God’s actions.
And so, we come to the Christmas story, and we ask our two questions:
What is God doing? At its root, the Christmas story has everything to do God’s breaking into the world, in a new and powerful way. That’s the “bottom line” of Christmas, and of Christ’s birth. Now, it’s odd: God did not come in the person of Jesus Christ by arriving in a fiery chariot, nor with the blast of a trumpet, nor with a royal procession into the capitol.
No, the Lord’s arrival comes quietly, silently (as the carol says), in a backwater town (Bethlehem) of a backwater province (Palestine) of the Roman Empire, born to a very young (probably) mother from an even more backwater town (Nazareth), which was located in that other-side-of-the-tracks area called Galilee.. No hospital birth here, for Jesus was born in an animals’ shelter. There wasn’t even room in the inn for them there.
None of this describes an auspicious beginning. Quite the contrary.
But, break in God did! God’s love and care for this world is seen in this breaking in.
God cares enough to send the very best: Himself!
Here, we come to the answer to the first question: Jesus’ birth, by which He who is both God and Man, demonstrates God’s love and care for the world He had made.
Now, we turn to the second question:
What do God’s actions (in Jesus Christ) tell us about who He is? The circumstances of Jesus’ birth tell us a lot about God’s nature.
For one thing, God often comes into our world quietly, silently, and unobserved.
For another, we see heavenly power and the rights that belong to God being set aside.
Let me say that last point again, a little differently: God stoops down from His position as God and takes on our humanity. God comes down to us. We don’t have to try to reach up to get to Him (we couldn’t, anyway, but that’s another story).
God seeks us out. God takes the initiative. God is the actor in this play. God is the originator of this divine drama.
“OK,” you might be saying, “I get the point.”
“But – if all these things we read about in our Christmas gospel are true, and if you are right, preacher, about what God is doing, and what God is like, then where is the proof that these things matter to us today? Where is that proof?” you might be saying.
I offer – in response – the following…..
Jesus’ arrival, His teachings, His miracles, His life, death, burial and resurrection, all served to change lives. His original 12 disciples’ lives were completely changed, forever. We see this most clearly in St. Peter’s life, as we see it before the resurrection and afterward….Peter went from being a bumbling idiot who couldn’t keep his foot out of his mouth before Christ’s rising from the tomb to an eloquent, powerful preacher. No more doubting, no more verbal gaffes, just the power of a man who now had God’s reality stamped all over his heart, mind and soul. All of that was gone once Peter had seen the risen Christ.
For proof of these things, I cannot offer scientific proof. But I can offer human proof. Peter is human proof.
I offer the proof the witness of the disciples-become-apostles. Their eyewitness to the things of Jesus went out into the world with power, and it began to change lives, many lives.
Their witness, the witness of the apostles, continues to change lives today. I think of many in our own congregation here whose lives have been changed, have been healed, either spiritually or physically, or both, as a result of Jesus Christ’s presence in people’s hearts. I see people whose life experiences were leading them to separation from God, and even death, but whose lives were completely turned around. I think of a friend who has stage four cancer, whose oncologist said, earlier this year, “your healing can only be the result of God’s intervention.”
“Prove it!” we say. If we ask that of God in a prayerful and sincere way, He will prove it to us. Sometimes, the proof that God offers comes silently, quietly, and slowly, in much the same way that our Lord Jesus Christ came to us this night in Bethlehem.
So, pray for this proof. Wait for it. Expect it. God – the God who loves the world and the people in it – will offer the proof we need in order to believe.
May it ever be so among God’s people, as we watch, and wait, for God’s proof of who He is in our lives today.
AMEN.
