It was a Christmas pageant presented by a class of four-year-olds and it was an evening to remember. It began with the three virgin Marys marching out onto the stage. As they stood there, they, of course, were waving to their parents. It’s not every Christmas pageant that has three virgin Marys, but over the years the school had acquired three Mary costumes, and so, quite naturally the script was revised. This gave a chance for more children to be involved and kept down the squabbling over who got the starring roles. The two Josephs walked up behind the Marys. Then twenty little angels came out. They were dressed in white robes and huge gauze wings. They were followed by twenty little shepherd boys, dressed in burlap sacks. They carried an array of objects that were supposed to be crooks.
“It was at this point that the problem occurred. During the dress rehearsal the teacher had used chalk to draw circles on the floor to mark where the angels were supposed to stand and crosses to mark the spots of the shepherds. But the children had practiced with their regular clothes on. So, on the night of the pageant, the angels came walking out with their beautiful gauze wings and stood on their circles. However, their huge wings covered the crosses of the shepherds as well. So when the time came for the shepherds to find their places, they did not know where to go because the angels took up all their space.
“There was one little boy who became extremely frustrated and angry over the whole experience. He finally spied his teacher behind the curtains and shocked everyone when he said in a loud stage whisper heard by everyone, ‘Because of these blankety-blank angels, I can’t find the cross!’” (1)
He didn’t say, “blankety-blank,” but we are in church, after all.
I wonder if that can’t happen sometimes? The romantic elements of Christmas the shepherds, the wise men, the angels, the star in the East not to mention the commercialism of Christmas have a tendency to obscure the important meaning of it all, and particularly the message of the cross.
That is why it might be healthy for us on this Christmas Day to turn to the prologue to John’s Gospel for our scripture lesson. There are no angels, no shepherds, no star, not even Mary and Joseph. Instead there is some of the most beautiful and important theological language ever written: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
“In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it . . . The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (NIV)
No shepherds, no angels, no star yet here ultimately is the story of Christmas.
This story says, first of all, that Christmas is not an act of humanity, but of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” When we could do nothing for ourselves, God stepped in to save us.
A man by the name of Bob Considine tells of the time he accompanied an infant Vietnamese orphan to the U.S. so she could be adopted after the Vietnam War. On the long flight to the U.S. the baby’s eyes overflowed with tears, but she made absolutely no sound. Considine found a stewardess and asked her what the problem was. The stewardess had seen war orphans before, and was quick to tell Considine that this was normal. As she said, “the reason they don’t make noise when they cry is because they learned a long time ago that nobody will come.” (2)
What a sad story. A child quits crying when she learns that no one will come. It could be our story. But it is not our story because of the babe in the manger. Christmas is not an act of humanity, but of God.
This story says, in the second place, that God acted in the only way God could act. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it . . . The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”
Why could the darkness not understand him? Why did the world not receive him? The problem is quite clear.
If you can imagine the difference between a keeper of an aquarium and the fish in that aquarium, then you might begin to understand the difference between humanity and God. God is Spirit. Have you ever seen a spirit? God is the creator of a universe that may be billions of light years wide. Can you even begin to imagine a Being of that extraordinary Power and Knowledge? How could God even speak to us without scaring us to death?
Dr. Daniel Paul Matthews, rector of TrinityChurch, delivered a message on Christmas Eve, 2001, at St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City. This was in the year that the WorldTradeCenter was destroyed by terrorist on 9-11. St. Paul’s is very close to Ground Zero. And yet, in that message he expressed God’s solution to the gulf that exists between Absolute Power and human need in a beautiful way:
Pretend something like this happened for a moment: The angel Gabriel got back to heaven and rushed up to God and said, “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.”
And God said, “Well, give me the good news first.”
“The good news is,” said the angel, “mission accomplished. I’ve visited those people you told me to visit. I told them what you told me to tell them. And it’s all accomplished.”
God said, “So what’s the bad news?”
“The bad news,” the angel said, “is that those people down there on earth are terrified of you. Every time I visited someone I had to start it off with ‘fear not,’ because they got so frightened that you were coming close.”
God said to the angel, “That’s the reason I have to carry out the plan I’ve made.”
“You see,” he said to the angel, “I need to go to earth because my people are so frightened. They are so full of fear that I’ve got to bring the message that they no longer need to be afraid.”
The angel said, “And how are you going to do that, since they’re so fearful?”
God said, “There’s one place on earth that people are not afraid: that one remaining place is a little baby. My people on earth are not afraid of a baby. When a baby is born they rejoice and give thanks without fear because that’s the only place left in their lives where they’re not afraid. So I will go to earth. I will become a little baby, and they will receive me with no fear at all, because that’s the one place my people have no fear.” (3)
God acted in the only way God could act without overwhelming us and taking away our freedom. God became a tiny babe. Christmas is an act of God. In Christmas God acted in the only way God could have acted.
And, finally, in Christmas God gave to us the greatest gift God could give us–God told us who we are.
Have you ever received a Christmas gift that you knew was not well thought out? Someone sent it to you just to get the gift-giving over and done with. Oh, you’ve sent a gift like that?
Some of you will remember a Democratic presidential candidate of many years ago named Adlai Stevenson. Stevenson was a respected politician who had the misfortune to run against a genuine war hero, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
There is a hilarious story that is told on Adlai Stevenson. When he was working in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, he wrote a marketing agreement for the walnut industry. That Christmas the industry thanked him by sending him an enormous gunnysack full of packages of walnuts. This generous gift came at just the right time because Stevenson had not done his Christmas shopping. Happily he took these packages of walnuts and sent them to all his Washington friends. Then he made the awful discovery. In each of the individual packages was a little card saying, “Merry Christmas from the walnut industry to Adlai Stevenson.” He should have known better. At least, he should have examined one of the packages of walnuts before he started sending them out. But he was in a hurry and did not give much thought to what he was doing. We do that sometimes, don’t we? Give gifts without much thought to them?
Not so with God. God knew right from the beginning what He was doing. God gave us what we most needed. God told us who we are. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” That’s who we are children of God. When we know that, the meaning and purpose of life changes.
Marjorie Tallcott was married and had one child during the Great Depression. The family managed to scrape their way through, but as Christmas approached one year Marjorie and her husband were disappointed that they would not be able to buy any presents. A week before Christmas they explained to their six-year-old son, Pete, that there would be no store-bought presents this Christmas. “But I’ll tell you what we can do,” said Pete’s father, “we can make pictures of the presents we’d like to give to each other.”
That was a busy week. Marjorie and her husband set to work. Christmas Day arrived and the family rose to find their skimpy little tree made magnificent by the picture presents they had adorned it with. There was luxury beyond imagination in those pictures a black limousine and red speedboat for Dad, a diamond bracelet and fur coat for Mom, a camping tent and a swimming pool for Pete. Then Pete pulled out his present, a crayon drawing of a man, a woman and a child with their arms around each other laughing. Under the picture was just one word: “US.” Years later Marjorie writes that it was the richest, most satisfying Christmas they ever had. (4)
Pete’s card summed it up. “Us.” The love and security of a family. It’s the kind of picture God presents to us on Christmas Day. Read God’s Christmas card: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” Christmas is an act of God, not of humanity. God acted in the only way that God could have acted without taking away our freedom. God became a tiny baby. And God told us who we are: God’s own children. We don’t need to fear anything. We belong to God.
1. Best Sermons 3, Harper & Row, 1990, pp. 49-50. Cited in a sermon by Dr. Mickey Anders, First Christian Church, Pikeville, KY. http://www.pikevillefirstchristianchurch.org/Sermons/Sermon20000827.html
2. Pastor Dan Mangler’s Sunday Sermon, http://www.smlc-elca.org/Sunday_sermons/march_13_2005_sermon.html.
3. http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/news/alert_123.shtml Posted on Trinity News 3.
4. Mike Turner, jmturner58@bellsouth.net, The Rock Baptist