A Song of Joy

The song of the angels in Luke 2 is one of the most joyful songs in all of scripture. But where is the joy in our world today? Oh, it's there -- but sometimes we have to search for it. This sermon might give you some ideas where to look.

It was a night like any other night. The sheep were calm, moving quietly through the pasture. Some were softly munching grass, while others were sleeping peacefully in the starlight. The shepherds were quiet, too. A few were keeping watch over their wooly charges, but the rest were enjoying some well-deserved sleep before dawn broke. Suddenly, without warning, the night became as bright as noontime, waking the shepherds, and paralyzing them with fear. An angel voice boomed from the heavens: “Don’t be afraid! I have good news for you! And not just for you – for everyone in the whole world. The Messiah has been born in Bethlehem! If you want to find him, look for a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And then, there were millions of angel voices all singing together, their music surrounding the shepherds in a great cloud of harmony: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, God’s peace to everyone!”

The light disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving the shepherds stunned and bewildered. It took them a few moments to realize what had just happened. The skies had split apart, and heaven had touched earth. They had seen the glory that surrounds God with their own eyes! They looked at one another in confusion. “What should we do?” one of them asked. “Should we go tell a priest?” “No,” answered another. “A priest would never believe us. Let’s go find that baby!” And, of course, that’s exactly what they did. They ran to Bethlehem as fast as they could and searched through stable after stable until they found a brand new baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. What do you suppose they thought when they saw him? He looked like a very ordinary baby, after all. Do you think that they were disappointed? Maybe they secretly wondered what all the fuss was about. I doubt if he was surrounded with the heavenly glow that we see in all the nativity pictures. He was just a baby. But in that baby, the veil between God and humanity split apart, and heaven touched earth. His birth was good news of great joy, indeed!

That is our joy, too, on each Christmas day and on every other day of the year. God is with us! But sometimes that reality is very hard to see in the darkness of our world. We have to search for it, just like the shepherds had to search through dark, crowded, smelly stables until they found what they were looking for. If the angel hadn’t told the shepherds where to look, you know, they might never have found that baby. We need some help, too, to find the Child that is living among us. We aren’t looking for a baby in a manger these days; but we are still looking for signs of Emmanuel, “God-with-us.”

What would the angel say to us today? Maybe the announcement would go something like this. “Listen, I bring you good news of a great joy that is for everyone in the world! God is among you! And this will be a sign for you. Look for a man who is helping his elderly neighbor by carrying in her groceries for her, by shoveling her snow, and by checking up on her every now and then.” We might have to search to find something like that. Oh, we know that there are many caring people in the world, but they don’t usually post a neon sign when they show that care to others. On the contrary, they are as secret as a baby born in a stable. God is among us.

Or maybe it would be an announcement like this. “Listen, I bring you good news of a great joy that is for everyone in the world! God is among you! And this will be a sign for you. Look for a woman who carries bags of toiletries and comfort items in her car, and gives them to the homeless people who stand on street corners begging for help.” That would be even more difficult to find! How many cars in the WalMart parking lot would we have to look through before we found something more than gift wrap, cheap trinkets, and bags of bows? But I assure you, there are folks in our midst who help the homeless on a regular basis. God is among us.

If we traveled to the Middle East, the angel’s announcement would sound a little bit different. “Listen, I bring you good news of a great joy that is for everyone in the world! God is among you! And this will be a sign for you. Look for a Jewish boy who is friends with a Muslim girl.” That might be the most difficult of all to find. But I guarantee that such children exist. And they are our hope for the future. God is among us.

Actually, that angel could give us all kinds of signs that God is among us. This will be a sign for you: “Look for a woman living in Chicago who is caring for her three grandchildren because her daughter is in prison for dealing drugs. Even though she has already raised a family, she makes sure that those grandchildren are fed and clothed and educated.” “Look for a man in a small Pennsylvania town who helps to staff the volunteer fire department every single holiday. He wants the younger volunteers to be able to spend the holidays with their families.” “Look for a young girl in Phoenix who insists on giving away her own Christmas gifts to the family down the street who just lost everything they own in a fire. She doesn’t want anyone to be without at Christmas.” Those are the signs that Emmanuel is here; but we usually miss them because they are so ordinary. They don’t look special at all – but neither did the baby who was born in a barn and laid in a manger. They all show Emmanuel, God-with-us. The spirit of God that fills them is the source of our joy. They bring the good news that is for everyone in the world.

“Fear not! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be to all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and singing, “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill to all people.” That joyful song is our song, too! Sing it with everything you’ve got! Sing your lungs out! And as you are singing, give thanks that the signs of God-with-us are all around. We just have to look for them.

A Song of Victory

What do Rosie the Riveter and Mary, Jesus' mother, have in common? More than you might think! If this comparison intrigues you, you might want to read this sermon to find out more!

In our travels through Christmas music in the Bible, we have come to one of the most famous songs in the New Testament: Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-55). We Protestants don’t talk about Mary except at this time of the year. The rest of the time, we pretty much leave her to the Roman Catholic church, and she fades away into the wallpaper. When we talk about her at all, we call her “gentle Mary, meek and mild.” That’s the image of Mary that most of us have. She’s wearing a blue tunic over a white garment, and her head is encircled by a halo. Her hands are folded in her lap, her eyes are cast modestly aside, and her expression is quiet. Actually, she doesn’t have much of an expression at all. No wonder that “gentle Mary, meek and mild” fades into the wallpaper! But that image isn’t biblical. It actually comes from the Middle Ages, when many paintings depicted Mary in just that way. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church taught that Mary was the ideal woman. And what did an ideal woman look like? Why, she sat down and shut up, she folded her hands quietly in her lap, and she cast her eyes modestly aside – just like the pictures of Mary. Ideal women in the Middle Ages were gentle, meek, and mild. But in those pictures, Mary doesn’t look like she is capable of blowing her nose, much less giving birth to the Messiah!

That’s not the Mary of the gospels, though. The Mary of the gospels is strong and capable; able to deal whatever life throws at her. And Mary had to deal with a lot in her life! From the beginning, she was thrown every curve ball in the book. When the angel Gabriel showed up and asked her if she was willing to birth the Son of God, Mary was still a virgin. Any woman who was meek and mild would have run for the hills; because pregnancy outside of marriage was frowned upon in those days. In fact, women were stoned for it! But Mary, strong and capable, agreed to God’s plan! When she was 9 months pregnant, Mary made a difficult journey to Bethlehem, bouncing along on the backbone of a donkey; and then she gave birth in a barn, with no support from family or friends. Matthew tells us that the whole family had to become refugees in Egypt to escape King Herod, who was so terrified of Mary’s baby that he slaughtered all the young boys in an entire town in an effort to get rid of him. When Jesus became a man, she had to watch him walk away from her when he left his home to become an itinerant preacher. At the end, she watched him die on a cross. No, Mary wasn’t “meek and mild,” she was the original steel magnolia! Why, Mary is more like Rosie the Riveter, strong arm bared and face determined, proclaiming “We can do it!”

This song of Mary’s reflects her inner strength. It’s a song of victory – God’s victory over all the forces that would keep us oppressed: the proud, the rulers, the rich. Today she might sing about God’s victory over Wall Street, over Congress, and over clueless political candidates; but regardless of the details, it’s the same take-home message. The people who are in power are unjust and arrogant; but God has claimed victory over all of them! Mary stands in a long line of biblical women who sang victory songs of their own. Moses’ sister Miriam was the first one. She stood on the banks of the Red Sea after it had drowned the Egyptian army, and led the Hebrew women in a victory song: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea!” (Exodus 15:21) The Hebrew judge Deborah sang a song of victory after the Israelites defeated the pagan general Sisera. “Hear this, you kings,” she sang. “Listen, you rulers! I will sing to the Lord! I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel.” (Judges 5.) Hannah sang, too, when, after remaining barren for years, she gave birth to a son who would grow up to be the prophet Samuel. Her song is a lot like the one that Mary would sing many years later: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my strength is lifted high! My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance!” (I Samuel 2:1-10) Mary carries on that tradition of women’s victory songs that celebrate what God has done for them.

We don’t very often sing victory songs at Christmas time – but we should. Christmas, after all, spells the doom of the forces of evil in this world. When God came to be with us human beings as a human being himself, the forces of evil didn’t stand a chance. Greed, pride, oppression, hate, misery – they’re all doomed! Just as D-Day was the beginning of the end for the Nazi forces during the Second World War; God’s incarnation was the beginning of the end of evil. God’s victory is already on the way, sweeping across our world like Allied tanks swept across Europe on their way to defeating Hitler. But, just as the Nazi forces fought the Allies even more fiercely after D-Day, evil is still fighting against God and against God’s people today. That means that we need to be like Rosie the Riveter, too, just as strong as Mary was. Like Mary, we need to be prepared to cope with all the difficult things that life throws at us. Christmas, after all, isn’t for meek and mild people who quietly fold their hands in their laps and modestly cast their eyes aside. Christmas is for those people who are sick and tired of evil always winning the jackpot in the lottery. Christmas is for the folks who see a homeless veteran begging on a street corner in tattered clothing and say, “I want to do something about that!” Christmas is for all the people who would say to an angel who has just suggested some crazy scheme that can’t possibly work, “Let it be to me as you have said.” Mary said just that when Gabriel announced her pregnancy; and we all need to say it, too!

UCC pastor and author Quinn Caldwell reminds his congregation every Christmas Eve:

“If you came to this place expecting a tame story, you came to the wrong place… If you came to hear of the coming of a God who only showed up so that you could have a nice day with your loved ones, then you came for a God whom we do not worship here. For even a regular baby is not a tame thing, and goodness that cannot threaten complacency and evil is not much good at all, and a God who would choose to give up power and invincibility to become an infant for you certainly didn’t do it just so you could have dinner. But. If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling while heaven comes to peasants… If you came for a story of reversals that might end up reversing you… If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery, where strong and gentle people win, and the powerful and violent go down to dust, where the rich lose their money but find their lives, and the poor are raised up like kings… If you came for salvation and not for safety, then, ah, my friends, you are in precisely the right place.” (You can read the full text of his remarks in All I Really Want, Abingdon Press, 2014, pp.110-112. I cannot recommend his book too highly.)

As we move through the final days of Advent, I invite you to join in singing Mary’s victory song!

“My soul praises the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are arrogant.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things."
Sing with courage! Sing with joy! Sing your lungs out – because this child changes everything!

A Song of Gratitude

You may not know that the Bible is full of songs. Last week, my sermon considered an Old Testament song from the Psalms -- a prayer that asked God to rescue the people from their troubles. Today, the song is "The Benedictus" from the Gospel of Luke. "Benedictus" is the Latin translation of the first word of the song: "Blessed." It is a song of gratitude for God's goodness. Could you use a little more gratitude in your life?

Gratitude abounds during this season of gift-giving, but we don’t usually offer in advance. It would sound a little nervy to say, “Thanks, Uncle Ezra, for the great Christmas gift that I know you’re going to give me this year!” That kind of gratitude is risky, because Uncle Ezra might well say, “How do you know that I’m going to give you something this year? I’m still waiting for a thank you note for last year’s present!” But gratitude in advance is perfectly appropriate when a promise is involved. If, during your senior year of high school, Grandma announces that she plans to buy you a car when you graduate, I’d say that some gratitude is not only appropriate but absolutely required! It is in that spirit that we read this morning’s scripture, the song of Zechariah from the gospel of Luke (Luke 1:68-79). When the old man sang this song of gratitude for a savior, the child Jesus hadn’t even been born yet! He was still being formed in his mother’s womb, several months away from the long trip to Bethlehem and his birth in a barn. But listen to Zechariah! He is singing his lungs out, as if the savior were already standing in front of him. He’s singing his thanks for what God has done in the past, all the way back to Abraham. He’s singing his thanks for what God is doing right now, especially for his new baby John that he is cradling in his arms. He’s singing his thanks for what God will do, for the “mighty savior” that is already on his way to being born. And to get the real impact of Zechariah’s song, you need to hear a little bit of the backstory that led up to this magnificent song of gratitude.

That story started nine months ago, while Zechariah was in the Temple performing his priestly duties burning incense as an offering to God. All of a sudden, without any warning, an angel popped up at his elbow. And it wasn’t just any angel. It was Gabriel, God’s right hand angel! As Zechariah stood slack-jawed in amazement, Gabriel announced that Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth was going to give birth to a son, and that his name would be John. What’s more, John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born, and he would prepare the people to receive the coming of the Messiah. Now, this was all just a little bit too much for Zechariah. He and Elizabeth had no children, and they were way past the years when that was a consideration. Why, they’ve been on Medicare for 10 years now! A child? Get real! And Zechariah said as much. His response to Gabriel was something like, “Really? I’m an old man, and my wife is no spring chicken, either.” Now, telling an angel that you don’t believe his message is not a wise thing to do! Gabriel didn’t take too kindly to his lack of belief. In fact, the angel struck Zechariah silent, and announced that the old priest would stay that way until after baby John’s birth. And that’s just what happened. Not a peep was heard from Zechariah until after that baby was born and was named “John.” Then, the very first thing out of Zechariah’s mouth was this beautiful song of praise! His skepticism of God’s promise kept his mouth shut; but when he saw that God’s promise could be believed, his voice was freed for praise. Christians all over the world still sing Zechariah’s song. In fact, it’s traditionally sung during morning prayers by Christians who observe daily morning and evening worship. As they sing Zechariah’s song of praise, they pray that their voices will also be freed to sing God’s praises.

What we say – or what we don’t say – has a powerful effect not only on others, but on us as well. Talking about things makes them real to us. Once you tell someone that you love them, for example, you can’t really take it back. It makes that love permanently real, for better or for worse. Imagine the impact that statements like these have after they are spoken aloud:

• “I’m gay.”
• “I’m pregnant.”
• “I’m an alcoholic.”
• “I’m turning my life over to Jesus.”
• “My husband abuses me."
• “I forgive you.”

We can’t unsay these statements any more than we can unsee the images that we see on the evening news. Once we speak them, our feelings are real, both to us and to whoever is listening to us. Zechariah’s song of gratitude made that gratitude real – to himself, to the people who heard him, and to God. And it did something else, too. It made Zechariah one of the people who helped to prepare the way for God’s coming, just like his baby son John who would one day proclaim that God was on the way!

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing, too? Aren’t we supposed to be preparing the way for the Lord? We can do that by expressing our gratitude to God a little more often than we usually do. Oh, we might say “Thank you” to God on Sunday morning in church; but do we dare to do it in public? Sitting on the sidelines and keeping our thoughts to ourselves may be safe, but it doesn’t help other people to see how God is working in our lives. Our society is full of people right now who spout doom and gloom like a pot boiling over. Just go on Facebook or Twitter and you can read all kinds of hate-filled messages. Does everyone feel that way? In the words of the late great singer Peggy Lee, “Is that all there is?” I, for one, believe that there is goodness in our world even though it might be hard to see at times. What if those of us who are getting ready for the Messiah would decide to point to that good? What if we, like Zechariah, decide to sing songs of praise instead? What if, during this Advent season, we make it our mission to express gratitude whenever we hear a negative thought? When the conversation turns to greedy politicians who seem to care only about themselves, what if we point to local people who are benefactors of the arts? Ben Schuster and Miriam Rosenthal are just two people here in Dayton who left beauty as their legacy; and there are many others who are still doing it. God is working through their hearts. Or what if, after acknowledging the suffering that is all around the world, we lift up all the people who participate in relief efforts to help relieve all that suffering? Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and our own United Church of Christ all take great risks to help others who are in need. God is working through their hands. What if, instead of asking, “How can God possibly fix this?” we say, “I can’t wait to see what God is going to do next!” Could we change our skepticism into confidence that God will do what God has promised to do? I believe that it would make a real impact on a society that seems to have lost faith in anything good.

“Blessed be the God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them! By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace!” That was Zechariah’s song of gratitude. May it be our song, too, as we get ready for the coming of the Christ child!