SERMON

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2002

CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER

Did you all understand the Gospel for today?  While it is one of the most beautiful versions of the Christmas story, it is not easily taken in as a story.  It is more of a poem, couched in metaphor and subtle allusions.  It is the Christmas story, but there is no Virgin Mary or Joseph, manger, shepherds, angels, or star in the East.  If it were the only version of the birth of Jesus, we would not know Christmas as we do.  Most of us prefer the Nativity as told by Luke, the one we read on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  For children, about whom so much of our Christmas revolves, John’s story is puzzling and not especially beautiful.  The concept of the Word coming into the world, in fleshly form, and being rejected by his own people is complicated and not the sort of idea that fits easily into story form.  The entire Gospel according to John is more philosophical and theological in its overall effect than the more obvious narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 

I am aware of the complexity as well as the adult beauty of John, but because this is the time of year when children like to hear the familiar story, I want to focus on the story of Jesus in terms of children rather than philosophy. 

 In our front hallway at the rectory the crèche sits upon a chest of drawers, a very simple nativity scene that we bought years ago in Florence.  Carved of wood and brightly painted, the crèche is a focus for this season in our home.  When our twin grand daughters were just tall enough to peer into the stable, one of them was concerned that the baby Jesus would be cold, so she found a tissue and folded it into a blanket to cover the infant.  I mention this because it attests to the appeal of the baby born in that manger for little children everywhere.  In fact the appeal of children never diminishes.  There’s something quite wonderful about babies, as I tried to show last week at the Family Eucharist when I held a six-month-old child in my arms.  Everyone loved seeing that baby girl.  Babies are so fresh, so innocent, so true, and utterly dependent.  They know nothing of the nastiness of life.  They need us all the time, and in their way they are grateful without saying a word.   

Artists have painted Mary and the baby so often over the years.  The bond between mother and child reminds us of a primal truth, the love that God has for us, shown in the eyes of parent and child.  Some artists paint a halo around the child’s head, but it is hardly needed.  The child’s holiness, his divinity, is to be revealed soon enough.  In his infancy he shares the holiness of all new-born children.  His human side comes through so clearly in those pictures.  The child is winsome, beautiful, untainted in any way.  He reaches out perhaps for food or a cuddle, all very natural and normal.  He cries and he has to be changed, fed, and kept warm like any baby.  It is easy to think of him as our relative; kinship is so easy with a baby. 

We know from some references in the gospels that Mary and Joseph had to take their very young child far from Bethlehem, during the rampaging of Herod who was afraid of the possible kingship attached to the baby Jesus.  Eventually, the wicked massacre of innocent children over, they return home to Nazareth.  Unfortunately none of the gospels tells us anything about the childhood or adolescence of Jesus, except for the story of his slight rebellion at age 12.  The story goes that he went to Jerusalem with his parents for a religious festival, and on their way back to Nazareth they can not find him in the crowd.  We imagine their fear, distress, and some anger.  The parents return to Jerusalem and discover Jesus has stayed behind in the Temple to talk with the elders and rabbis.  He explains with confidence beyond his years that he had to be about his father’s business.

The episode has all the elements of legend, but it is all we find in the gospels – not a very helpful picture of a youngster in the first century.  We do know that the adult Jesus is pictured on several occasions in the presence of children, and that he is welcoming and compassionate each time.   

Our evidence of Jesus the child comes to us through the familiar Christmas story only.  I wonder why his infancy is so attractive, so nearly irresistible to believers.  Jesus is a sort of universal baby – utterly human himself, but hedged around with divinity in the angels, and the star in the East.  However, it is in his innocent humanity that he appeals most.  His words and deeds will come later, but at Christmas he is one of us.  Because we love the miniature life of an infant, he appeals to our sweetest side.  While a jealous minor king may be threatened by rumors of the birth of a competing king, Jesus is unaware of the danger.  He is more interested in his mother’s milk and the calm warmth of his early hours of life.  There may be angelic music, but the circumstances of his birth are far from glamorous or privileged.  Born to Mary, an unwed mother, his birthplace is a borrowed animal shelter.  His earthly father has cause to be embarrassed and fades into the background soon after the child’s arrival.   

One of the great gifts that a new-born brings into the world is love; another is possibility.  We cannot help think of what a baby will become.  (In fact sometimes our pride turns into unattractive ambition and a lessening of a child’s freedom.)  But mostly we are thrilled with the arrival of new life, a sign of parents’ love and their hope for a future and permanence.  Parents know objectively that a new child may face difficulties, even very serious obstacles in life.  But parents desire the security, health, progress, and growing of the new life for whom they are responsible.  And through all the growing of a child, the parents must trust their instincts and experience far more than manuals of “how to raise your children” that fill bookstore shelves in abundance.  The other afternoon as I held little Sally Lawrence Chope in this pulpit I was reminded yet again of the wonder of life, of new life, the real miracle that God has allocated to his children in the cycle of generations of births.  It is one of the great joys of ministry to hold babies and baptize them, to hear the news of babies on the way or recently born, to sense the wonder in the parents’ voices.  Some of us are invited as grandparents and great-grandparents to experience yet again the miracle of new life.  Such a miracle is what Christmas is all about.  Angels do not sing at the birth of our children and grandchildren.  Maybe it’s just that we can’t hear them, being overcome as we are by the loveliness of the birth day we are celebrating.  Our own hearts and spirits are music enough. 

In the spirit of Christ’s brotherly, motherly, and parental love I would ask you to include in your prayers today and always those children who are hungry, cold, sick and untreated, abused and forgotten.  Their births too were miraculous, but their outlook meager.  They deserve to thrive as much as every baby who comes into the human family.  They too are the children of God whose heart grieves for them. 

So Saint John says, the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.  In other words, Jesus was sent by God to be born as a human child, a baby.  He lived in this world and was full of love and truth, a gift for you and for me, a pattern for our lives, a miracle of the most wonderful kind, in the flesh, real, and for all people. 

                                                                        The Rev. Richard H. Downes

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