A Conspicuous Birth

I will try my best to be brief.  Try as I might I still need to bring good news or why bother reading?  I did not know who would be here tonight, and I did not know that you would be here. Perhaps this homily is not for you. 

• This is not for you unless you cannot see what is clearly before you, and you wish to see the world as it really is.
• This is not for you unless you have parts of your life that have crippled and incapicated you and kept you from living freely.
• This is not for you unless there are deep areas of your life that are cut off from others and make you less than acceptable.
• This is not for you unless you have grown tired, numb and indifferent, even resigned to living in a daze of zoned out hopelessness
• This is not for you unless you are poor: in money, spirit, too many debts with diminished credit.

What a list! What a life right now! This message and this Christmas and this gospel reach folks exactly like this. I am one of them--trust me on that. While you listen, name the place in your life that is like this, and imagine Christmas is for that part of your life. And if you have no such place like that in your life, then forget about yourself and name a person who qualifies for this, and imagine the news of Christmas for just such a person.

Christmas is especially for those of us whose lives are scarred and hurt in debilitating ways. Oh we may look good on the outside but we all have places of pain. So, of course, this is for all of us. You see, Christmas is not about a baby, presents, trees, and good Merlot and all of that romantic business. Christmas is about a word from God addressed to a world in its sheer exhaustion—even wealthy folk are exhausted. God has spoken a word to us in many ways. Try this version on tonight; it is a word from Isaiah. It is addressed to people who are mired down, beaten up, wondering about what next and ready to give up.  It is for people who keep playing the same old tapes-going over and over and over and over again in their heads, about old quarrels and old hurts old failures old sins and old defeats. All of the what if’s that life throws at us.

Here is the gospel version to try on for tonight. It comes in two simple parts. First, do not remember the former ways.  Let me say it again and listen to me, I am a man of the cloth—Jesus came for those former ways—forget about it!  Forget about the “good ole days,” the nostalgia, what you wish you had said but didn’t, the shame, the regret, the anger, the resentment, the guilt that we like to carry because it is so comforting---yet exhausting. Take it put it in your hand and place it down behind you at your feet.   This is gospel—Emmanuel style. It is not romantic, it is hard work but necessary.

Let all of the fear and the stuff dissolve—can you feel it in your stomach?

Have you noticed that everything grows quiet at Christmas for a few hours, a few days, for a while? The whole world stops. In Europe it is more pronounced; even the trains stop. Here the market bell does not sound for a while. The whole earth pauses, like a break in the heaven, so that God can come to town and say—forget about it! Release it! Let it go! Abandon it! Do not remember the former things!

The second part is the really good news tonight: Behold I am doing a new thing!  In the midst of total cosmic silence comes, not Bieber fever but Emmanuel. And when God comes in Jesus—newness, healing, hope, a fresh start, a new beginning. Jesus is meant to be beyond our wildest imaginations, who brought healing and grace everywhere he went, who forgave and transformed and called people out beyond themselves to a newness they could not have imagined.

This is the word of the gospel for you tonight. Behold, God is doing a new thing in this conspicuous birth; new things in the world, new things for you, new things for us, to give us a new beginning from things that are old, tired, angry and honestly—broken!  In a coupla days the world will begin again. The quiet will be broken and everything will be crowded, the bell on Wall Street will call us to worship the anxiety of the traders. Except, it will not be the same. There is a difference, a newness. God has made a move toward new power in the world, power for life. If we will see it and seize it.  This gift of newness is not a magic act. It does not float down out of heaven. It is a word, a gesture—it is a gift, it is a crucifix with an empty tomb. And you may seize it. But it is up to you!

So this Christmas is for you to seize—the gift. 

• The good news newing tonight is that the blind can see with new eyes the way the world is-loved by God and so are you!
• The good news newing tonight for all who are lame is to receive power beyond all of our old handicaps.
• The good news newing tonight for all those who cannot get over their past stuff. God is not preoccupied with your stuff, not at least like you are. It is all so ordinary to God. You can be living in first class again--at least with a new start.
• The good news newing tonight is that the old mortgages of bad theology are not holding us back. God has declared amnesty on old bills unpaid, all outstanding accounts are now settled, all old hurts can be set aside and old shame guilt and mistake are forgiven.              

The world does not expect a gift like this. Friends, join the miracle, notice the gift, and receive new life. Begin again. Our new beginning is not just our idea. It is God’s act, God’s gift, and God’s promise. Don’t try and explain it you’ll go crazy; just seize it—it is a conspicuous birth!