Noah Webster, for whom the dictionary was named, was a lexicographer. He is responsible for the standardizing of American English at the beginning of the 19th century. As you might imagine, he was a stickler for the proper definition of words. One day his wife opened the kitchen door and discovered Noah kissing the maid. Mrs. Webster exclaimed, "Why Noah, I'm surprised!" He said, "No, my dear. We're surprised. You are amazed."

A surprise refers to the unexpected. Amazement refers to being made speechless, astounded at what you see. Actually both words are appropriate for the nativity story. The story read this morning is called the Annunciation, the announcement, the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she, above all women in the world, is to be the one to be the mother of the Messiah.

She was surprised at the appearance of an angel. It was not expected that an angel would ever appear to a peasant girl. "She was filled with fear." "Filled with fear" is a biblical way of saying she was amazed. She was speechless.

There are other annunciations recorded in the Bible. We read another one as the Old Testament lesson for this morning, the appearance of the angel to Abraham and Sarah, to announce that they were going to have a baby.

The story of the Jews begins with Abraham and Sarah, an old man and an old woman who are going to have a baby. It is a wonderful story. They are surprised to say the least, and act as you would act, I imagine, if you were their age and had been told that you were going to have a baby. They laugh.

The story says Sarah overhears the angel saying to her husband that she is going to have a baby. She is in the kitchen, her ear is pressed to the door. She overhears the angel say to Abraham, "In the springtime Sarah, your wife, is going to have a baby." She laughs.

This is not the first time the angel appears to Abraham. Earlier in the story he appears to Abraham and tells him, "Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars." But he has no descendants. When he heard that, the text says, "Abraham fell on his face and laughed." Of course, being prone is the proper posture before divinity, but laughing is not. So you could probably more accurately translate the phrase, "When he heard that his wife was going to have a baby, he fell on his face, laughing."

You have to laugh at the promises of God. Anyone in his right mind is going to laugh at the promises of God, because they are so incredible, so contrary to expectations, so improbable in light of the inevitable realities of this world, the inevitable disappointments humans experience. In the real world, the world that you and I live in, the promises of God will almost always appear ludicrous.

Which is why some theologians point out that from a literary point of view, the Bible is really comedy. If you use the classical distinction between tragedy and comedy, the Bible is comedy. Tragedy implies inevitability. It is about fate moving toward a predictable end. That is what tragedy is about. You see a Greek or Shakespearian tragedy, you know by the first act what's going to happen. For the rest of the play you watch some heroic figure defying fate, or cursing the gods. You've got to admire him, but you know what's going to happen. In the last act he's going to get zapped. You know that a cold, impersonal, relentless destiny will grind out the inevitable. That's just the way it is. That's what you have to say about tragedy. That's just the way it is. There is nothing you can do about it.

There's a tragic dimension in the Bible. I suppose you could say Job is about tragedy. But essentially the Bible is about comedy, because it's about surprises. Comedies are about the impossible happening. Comedies are about the proud being humbled and the humbled being lifted up and exalted. When you see that in a Charlie Chaplin movie, for instance, the humble, lowly, forgotten person being exalted, and the proud people being humbled, you laugh.

Have you ever thought about this? The histories of the world, the ones the so-called secular historians wrote, are always about tragedy. They are about kings and queens, decked out in ermine and scarlet. They are about jewels and gold, and medals and honors. The history of the world is the history of empires rising and falling. It's always the same. An empire rises, then it falls. Toynbee, who wrote the monumental history of civilization in our time, described history as "cyclical," the rise and fall of empires.

In ancient times there were no historians as we understand historians today, but there were "chroniclers" of the kings. The kings hired people to chronicle their reign so that they would be immortal. They are all the same these stories. The history of Egypt and the Pharaohs is no different than the history of Babylon and its kings. The history of Assyria and its princes is no different than the history of Rome and its Caesars. They are all alike. They are all about great people doing great things, building cities, fighting wars, leading armies, accumulating wealth. Then they die, every single one of them. Every empire dies.

But the history of the Jews is different. That history is in the book that we call the Old Testament. It is entirely different than the history of any other nation, because it is not the history of the greatness of kings. It's the history of the graciousness of God. Instead of siding with a great empire, a great power in this world—which is what you would expect God to do, and which is what they thought God did—God sided with an outcast people, a despised people, who had no land of their own, and who had no achievement that anyone could point to. God chose them, and said, "You will be my people, and I will be your God, and I will give you a great future, a land flowing with milk and honey." Can you imagine such a thing happening?

On their way to possess their future, they keep getting into unbelievable predicaments, like the Keystone Kops, from which God had to miraculously extricate them. When God chose their leaders, he chose the best among them, and they are all flawed. When Israel writes the history of its kings they say none of them were any good, really. Oh, maybe Josiah, but all the rest were no good.

Their history records all of this. It is just amazing. Every other nation could be described the same way, except they don't record it. They don't tell the whole world about it. They hide it. They put a "spin" on it. That is why we have textbook committees in our states, to make sure that only the authorized histories get into the schools. An authorized history is a history that puts the nation in its best light.

Israel's history is not like that. Compared with other histories, Israel's history appears to have been written by Mel Brooks. It records all the foibles, all the mistakes, all the sins of all the people. And it begins, incredibly, with an old man and an old woman being told, you're going to have a baby. And they laugh.

And you can laugh, too. Because Israel knows what all nations know, but are too proud to admit. That although you can

write a history of human achievement and national greatness, there is another history, the real history. The real history in this world is not the history of human greatness. It's the history of God providence. At the end of every chapter of Israel's story, at the end of every phase of its history, when all rational folk had given up hope, when all things were at their worst, there always came redemption and a new life.

There is a story about a rabbi who went to a retirement home to give a talk about the history of the Jews. He talked about how the Jews had been around for thousands of years, and have gone through all kinds of terrible experiences. But they have survived. They are the only people from that ancient world to have survived in tact. It is just amazing.

To illustrate the point, he asked the rhetorical question, "Have you seen any Babylonians lately?" An old lady in the front row, hard of hearing, raised her hand, and said, "No, but you don't have to tell me the neighborhood's changed. But," she said, "They keep pretty much to themselves. If you don't bother them, they won't bother you."

Have you seen any Babylonians lately? The Jews are still here. Their history indicates that they are here against all odds. Nobody could have predicted it. They are here because God entered a covenant with them through Abraham thousands of years ago, that said, "I will always be with you." Because of God's grace alone, God has kept that promise.

Now we as Christian believe that the coming of the Messiah meant that God has opened to all people the promise that he gave to Abraham. God now says to the whole world, "You are my people. You will have a wonderful future, if you believe." That is the promise. So the story of the birth of the Messiah is told the same way as the story of Abraham and Sarah, because it is about the same promise. Once again a promise is being made, only this time the angel says the glad tidings of a great joy goes to all the people, not just the Jews. Now it goes to all the people.

That is why the nativity scene in Luke begins with an old man named Zechariah, and his wife, equally old Elizabeth, who are without children. The angel came to the old man, Zechariah, and said, "Your wife, Elizabeth, is going to have a baby." And she does. The baby's name is John the Baptist.

So the New Testament, the story of the New Covenant, begins the same way the Old Covenant begins, with old folks being promised, "You're going to have a baby." You hear about Zechariah and Elizabeth, and you say, "Aha! I get it. It is just the same. It's the way God works. We've seen all this before, old people having a baby. We know what that means."

But it turns out that God is just setting us up for the real surprise. After the angel Gabriel visited Zechariah, Gabriel visited Mary. That is when you are supposed to laugh, or gasp in amazement. First of all, she's a woman. Angels only appear to men in that patriarchal society. This is the first time an angel appears to a woman. Even Matthew, in his version of the nativity story, says the angel appeared to Joseph, not to Mary. But in Luke, it's a surprise. The angel comes to Mary.

And what's more, Mary is not old, like the others. She is young. She is a virgin. Which is pointed out not so much to describe her sexual status, but to point out that she is young. It is not until later that the Church is fascinated with her sexual purity. Right now, Luke is interested only that she is young. That's the surprise. She's just a girl. She's an adolescent. Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, all of those who had miraculous births before her in the Old Testament, they are all old women. This is different. This is a surprise. This is something new.

It is told in that way to get our attention. This is something new. And the something new is that the promise that had been given to Abraham has now been given to us, that God will be with us and will never leave us.

Of course, the angel makes the announcement the same way he has always made it. He has been doing this for a thousand years. He's got it memorized now. "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"

Mary answers in the traditional way. She says, "How can this be?" Only, she doesn't say, "How can this be, because I am old?" She says, "How can this be, because I am too young, and I am too poor, and I am too humble? Besides, I have no husband." The angel says, "With God, nothing will be impossible." Which is what he said to Zechariah, and what he said to Abraham. "With God, nothing will be impossible."

That could be called the Bible's philosophy of history, "With God, nothing will be impossible." So don't ever say, "This isn't the right time." Don't every say, "This isn't the right place." And don't every say, "I'm not the right person." All of which have been used to dismiss the occasion of God's entering the world. God just loves it when we set up things for him that way. "It's never going to happen." "It hasn't happened here." "It will never happen this way." "It's never happened before." That's when God pulls the rug out, or places the banana peel in the path, or as Mary sang in the Magnificat, which we used as the Canticle and anthem this morning, "He knocks the mighty from their thrones, and exalts those of low degree."

Which is the essence of comedy. Comedy is when what you don't expect to happen, happens. The opposite of what is expected happens, and we laugh. Or when somebody who is exalted or arrogant, and struts around, is humbled, we laugh. Or when somebody who is humble, stumbles around and can't get anything right, all of a sudden is made the prince. Or when the underdog wins the game through a series of unbelievable events that nobody could ever have predicted, but they happen. When they do, everyone laughs, everyone cheers, because it is a happy ending brought about through a series of impossible events. That's what comedy is.

The Bible says, that's the way God rules history. It's a happy ending though a series of incredible events that nobody expected. You can see that especially at Christmas. So at Christmas you are supposed to be prepared to be surprised. God loves to spring surprises on the dull-witted, the narrow-minded, the near-sighted, the mean-spirited. He always makes it happen when we least expect it. God loves to put a banana peel in front of a rationalist to make him trip. When he picks himself up, maybe now he'll look for some surprises.

I think that's what Christmas is for. It's there every year. Most of us miss it. We miss it because we plan for a holiday, and not for a holy day. When we plan for it, that's a holiday. We make it predictable. We know it's going to happen. Some even plan the gifts that we are going to get. I'm not talking about the gifts we will give. We hand a list to somebody and say, "This is what I want," so there will be no surprise.

Did you read about the Methodists in Massachusetts who have covenanted together not to buy any gifts this Christmas. They said they were not going to buy any gifts, but make them. They were going to start early, think about it, and do something that they had given thought to, something they had worked on just for this person. They are going to keep it a secret and give the gift on Christmas, so it's a surprise.

One of the most beautiful presents I ever received, I received years ago when our oldest daughter was seven or eight, and taking piano lessons. She learned a little Bach piece, one Bach wrote for beginners, the practice piece. She practiced it and practiced it when I wasn't around. Then on Christmas morning we had to go next door to the church, because we didn't have a piano. We went into a Sunday School room, stood around. She played Bach for her father's Christmas present, because she knew that her father loved Bach cantatas. I was surprised. I was amazed. And I was deeply touched. I felt, this is what Christmas is.

We give gifts at Christmas for a number of reasons. But the gifts that are most like Christmas are the surprises. That's what happened. Nobody expected it. Not now. Not like this. Not me.

"How can this be?" Mary asked. The angel said, "With God, nothing is impossible."