On the Second Day of Christmas

 

The Night AFTER Christmas  by Albert Brewster

‘Twas the night after Christmas and all through the house,
again no creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Mama in the bedroom; me asleep in my chair,.
totally relaxed without a worry or care.

When all of a sudden came a great rush of thought!
We had received so much more than we had bought.

And to think about that one Christmas day
was just about enough to blow you away.

The children had been especially nice to each other.
(You would never have guessed they were sister and brother.)

Together at the table; each in our place;
no pushing or shoving while I said grace.

We shared our love, our songs, our laughter.
We shared the chores and didn’t even have to!

Just what was it that made it all work?
Was it all planned, or simply a quirk?

As I think back I seem to recall
a series of messages from a man named Paul.
Andrew, Simon, John, and James,
Matthew, Bartholomew, and other odd names.

Someone is gone but is coming again,
We’re all brothers, or some kind of kin.

Coming from childhood these thoughts surround me.
Complex truths so simple they astound me!

The Word that reaches me doesn’t come through my ear -
from so far away - and yet so near.

Now I am looking for answers, and they must be viable.
I open the desk drawer, and dust the Bible.

We counted our blessings this wonderful day
and knew it could always be that way -

Or, would we let it escape us and again be gone,
when we get back to routine; and turn the TV on?

Bert Brewster  UMC Pastor: adbrewster@aol.com

Christmas: A time for Recognizing God With Us

 

Isaiah 52:7-10
John 1:1-14

So, for us in the church, this is the Fourth Sunday of Advent – a time for us to contemplate why we celebrate Christmas anyway.

Again, this year, during these weeks before Christmas, we have been looking at the very earliest documents we have to ascertain just how those earliest Christians celebrated Christmas –
hoping to find clues as to how we might have a better understanding and actually experience a better Christmas this year.

The first week of Advent, we looked at the very earliest writings we have –
the letters of Paul and some of the writings that were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammurabi and other places in the desert country of Egypt and Syria and Palestine,
and the very earliest Gospel in our Bible:
the Gospel of Mark – which was published around the year 70.

We actually have several texts now that were published during these early  years – during the first 75 years or so after Jesus was killed.
And, look as we may, it is obvious that none of these texts say anything at all about the birth of Jesus.  
It just was not important to those earliest believers.

Yes, Jesus was a pivotal figure in their history,
yes, Jesus was a pivotal figure in their faith,
yes, Jesus was a pivotal figure in their life experience –
in their understanding of who they were and what they to do.
Clearly, they each articulate a faith that in Jesus, they saw God incarnate – God in the flesh –
for them,  Jesus was Emmanuel – God with us.

The second week we looked at the second Gospel of Matthew, published some 15 years after Mark, and intended for a somewhat different audience.
Matthew begins his Gospel with a detailed genealogy setting Jesus firmly in the Jewish camp – a descendent of King David,
and even Father Abraham, himself.

In the 15 years between Mark and Matthew an interest in birth stories had developed.
Matthew’s community wanted to believe that their Jesus was no less a god than the mighty Caesar or any of the other gods they encountered among the cosmopolitan culture of the Roman Empire.
Every other god had a miraculous birth story to show their specialness, so, Jesus should have one, too.

The Gospel of Luke is the third Gospel of the collection in our Bible.
It was published some 15 years after Matthew.
And, again, it was intended for a different audience than Mark or Matthew.

Again, we are reminded that during these early years, indeed, for the first 100 to 150 years, there was no separate Christian church.
They were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah and revered as Emmanuel – God with Us – and they would meet as small groups –
sometimes even sharing meals and resources and living arrangements –
but, when they worshiped, they went to the Temple.

We see Luke being addressed primarily to a predominately Gentile audience to show that belief in Jesus in Emmanuel conflicted in no way with their ability to serve as good citizens of the Roman Empire.

And, we see that each of the Gospels have a very different starting place.
Matthew starts very differently than Mark does – again with that long genealogy.
And Luke starts differently than either Mark or Matthew does with that miraculous birth story – not of Jesus, but of John.

And, here in the Gospel of John, we have an even stranger beginning.

Most scholars agree now that this Gospel of John was published no earlier than 110 years after the death of Jesus.
Clearly this Gospel was addressed to people under stress –
there was a conflict between the communities of believers in Jesus as Messiah
and the communities of believers in John as Messiah;
and there was a widening rift between these communities of Jesus believers
and the other believers of Judaism.
The break that we know today was occurring by the time John was published.
And this Gospel is written in that context.

Again, dwelling on establishing the specialness of Jesus with stories of his birth was not important to these people.
What was important, was how their faith in this radical new religion based on Emmanuel –
based upon the Incarnation –
based on God now being with us instead of dwelling from on high –
how life based on this new faith fits into the cosmic scheme of things –
and how it is different from the old ways of doing.

Curiously, we know from the writings of a Jewish Greek philosopher from Alexandria, Philo, that this concept of God as the Doer, the Speaker, the One who Acts, the Word
was emerging in Alexandria some 50 years before the Gospel of John was published.

Here, Jesus is remembered not primarily as a specific man at a specific time in history, but
as the embodiment of a wisdom, a sophia, that pervades all things and all people.

The Word has existed from the beginning, and the Word came and dwelt among people, “they knew him not.”

Here, John tells the story in a radically new way.

Jesus is identified with the Logos – the Word of God –   and becomes something other than a man from Nazareth born of flesh and blood –
but nothing less than a construct of God –
a part of Almighty himself –
a very part of the cosmos itself.

Like I concluded last week,
I think it is important for us to ask why each of the Gospels treat the birth of Jesus differently.
And to remember that the story that you and I have learned and could tell on a moments notice, actually does not occur in any of our gospels.

The story you and I learned,
and the story you and I tell,
is really a composite of the stories we see in the Gospels.
We tend to take a part from one and combine it with a part from another and a part from another, and lo, we have our story.

But, if we actually did what those early Christians did, we wouldn’t revere any of the details of any of these stories;
but, we would come up with our own story –
like they did.
A story that begins with an experience with Emmanuel –
an experience of God being with us –
and then coming up with an explanation as to how special that experience is.

For you and me to fully understand and celebrate Christmas, we have to seek out and identify times of Emmanuel for us:
times we have been in the presence of God,
times we when we have been absolutely convinced that God is with us.

And, so we say Where or where is Emmanuel today?
And we are on the lookout for signs of Emmanuel in our times:
for some, like the shepherds in Luke’s Gospel, it is in celestial music;
for some, it will be in coming to the Lord’s Table;
for some, it will be in helping feed the hungry at the food closet;
for some, it will be in sharing special time with loved ones;
however and whenever and wherever;
this Christmas will be the best you have ever had when you open yourself to the presence of Emmanuel and recognize God with us.
Amen.

The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, experienced this sermon during a worship service December 24, 2006

Gaudete!

 

Isaiah 12:1-6
Luke 2:8-20

Throughout these days before Christmas, we have been looking at some of the Christmas stories – trying to determine what was going on when they were being told, what they mean for our faith, and how they might impact our personal and corporate life today.

There is an ancient proverb that says: “God created man because he liked good stories . . . .”
Well, we have some mighty good stories that are passed down to us about Christmas.  
And, the fact of the matter is, you will not hear these stories anywhere else.

This third Sunday in Advent has traditionally been called Gaudete Sunday.  
Gaudete is the Latin word meaning, rejoice!  
That’s what we hear the angel Gabriel telling Mary: “Rejoice!”
And that’s what the shepherds heard the celestial voices singing.

As we reflect on Christmas and Advent this year,
I am introducing the word theophany.  
A theophany is an event where God becomes visible –
when a person glimpses the holy.

And, our story of Christmas is punctuated by many theophany stories –
with the climax being the ultimate theophany –
the Incarnation, Emmanuel!
The incarnation of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Creator of all that is, the great Jehovah, into our very lives.  

Because, you see, the Christmas stories are stories of cracks that occurred in the cosmic egg that traditionally separates the holy from the mundane – cracks through which people were able to glimpse the divine,
cracks through which people encountered the holy.

So, this year, during this Advent season we are purposely focusing on these encounters with the holy from days gone by –
through the stories we hear and the stories we tell.

Through our telling and hearing these stories again, this Christmas, maybe, just maybe you and I can encounter the holy.

So, each week we have been looking for the breakthroughs in the stories of our faith and in the days of our lives.  

The first Sunday of Advent we looked at the stories about angels that show up in the Christmas stories – there are five of them, five stories about messengers of God, angels, coming to speak to different people,
five theophany stories describing how God and God’s will is made known through angels .  
And we are reminded to pay special attention to the disadvantaged in our midst, for oftentimes we entertain an angel unawares –
and, Jesus said, this is the way we encounter the Christ himself.

Then, we looked at the dream stories.
There are three stories about God speaking to people through dreams – three theophany stories describing God and God’s will being revealed through dreams – and we were reminded that dreams provide windows to the very soul of a person.

Next week, we will look at how an act of hospitality ushered in the ultimate theophany story

And, today’s theophany story is about the time the heavens opened –
a time when the cosmic egg cracked –
a breech occurred in the space-time continuum – and real life people heard celestial music –
the music of the spheres   –
singing of God’s glory
and of God’s wish for peace on earth.

Luke lets us know that some local shepherds in the hills above Bethlehem experienced a theophany that night – actually, two theophanies.  
While they were tending their sheep –
as they did every night,
night after night after night –
an angel suddenly appeared to them:
the first theophany they were to experience that night.

Now, as we are to understand, this was an extremely unusual occurrence for them.  
This had never happened to them before.  
This was far from their normal day to day –
or night to night – experience.
And, so, when it happened, they were afraid –
like you and I might very well be.  

After the angel calmed them down,
reassured them and gave them God’s message of this special baby being born,
Luke vividly describes another theophany:
An actual rift,
a tear in the fabric of the cosmos,
a spacial worm-hole through which mere mortals got to glimpse the holy –
through which the divine was seen and heard.

To their amazement, the shepherds actually heard the music of the spheres singing of God’s glory and God’s wish for peace on earth –
sounds they had never ever experienced before.

And we are reminded that theophanys can occur through the expression of music.  

You don’t have to tell this to anyone who sings in a chorus or choir.  
There are times when your voice is blended with the others in such a way that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and you are transported to another plane of existence –
and for a time you experience a theophany –
an encounter with the holy.

The reality of that experience is why we offer so many opportunities for all of us to lend our voices in song throughout our worship services with congregational singing.  

Shortly after I planned this Advent series and set up the topics to be addressed each Sunday, I was in Borders bookstore browsing the magazine section when my eyes fell on the December edition of Astronomy magazine.  
I don’t know if you’ve looked at your copy of Astronomy magazine yet.
Astronomy magazine is a professional journal published for scientists with the latest findings in the field.
And, right here on the cover of Astronomy magazine is the headline: The Music of the Spheres –
and the lead article proclaims
that space is alive with music
and tells about scientists’ encounters with the sounds of the cosmos
as they purposely listen in for breaks in the space time continuum and hear sounds from the beginning of time.

Like those shepherds of old, let us listen to this music with open minds and eyes and ears
and experience a celestial encounter with music of the spheres.  

There is an old old story of how God called the angels of heaven together one day for a special choir rehearsal.
God told the angels that they were to learn a special song . . . a song that they would sing at a very significant occasion.
The angels went to work on it.
They rehearsed long and hard . . .
with great focus and intensity.
In fact, some of the angels grumbled a bit . . .
but God insisted on a very high standard for this celestial choir.

As time passed, the choir improved in tone,
and in rhythm,
and in quality.
And finally God announced that they were ready... but then, God shocked them a bit.
They were told that they would sing the song only once . . . and only on one night.
There would be just one performance of this great song they had worked on so diligently.

Again, some of the angels grumbled.
The song was so extraordinarily beautiful and they had it down pat now . . .
surely, they could sing it many, many times.
God only smiled and told them that when the time came, they would understand.

Then one night, God called them together.
God gathered the celestial choir above a field just outside of Bethlehem.
"It's time," God said to them... and the angels sang their song.
O my, did they sing it!
"Glory to God in the highest . . .
and on earth peace and good will toward all..."
And as the angels sang, they knew there would never be another night like this one,
and that there would never be another birth like this birth in Bethlehem.

When the angels returned to heaven, God reminded them that they would not formally sing that song again as an angelic choir,
but if they wanted to, they could hum the song occasionally as individuals.
One angel was bold enough to step forward and ask God why.
Why could they not sing that majestic anthem again?
They did it so well.
It felt so right.
Why couldn't they sing that great song anymore? "Because," God explained, "my son has been born... and now earth must do the singing!"

Once each year, Christmas comes around again to remind us of that . . .
God's Son has come to earth . . .
and now it is up to us to do the singing!
And look at how we have tried.

Without question, one of the best and most beloved parts of the celebration of Christmas is the music!

The good news of Christmas is so awesome,
so full of wonder, that it's not enough to just talk about it.
We have to burst forth in song.
We have to sing it.

These are moments of theophanies.  

These are moments God breaks through to us
to let us experience the Christus Praesense  –
the presence of Christ in our lives –
the holy in the mundane world we know and live in –
and glimpse the true nature of God.

There are times when we can hear the celestial music.
The celestial music resounds throughout all creation – and we can hear it if we try.
The celestial music pulses with the beat of the heavenly drum.
The celestial music hums under the sounds heavenly harmony.

Do you remember Nipper, the RCA Victor dog –
for years and years, RCA used the image of this dog, Nipper, sitting in front of a phonograph with his head cocked – and the caption read “listening to his master’s voice.”

In a real sense, that is what your and I are called to do during this time of Advent as we prepare for the coming of Christmas.
Celestial music is being made.

Celestial songs are being sung.
 

You and I are called to sit like Nipper, with our heads cocked, listening for our master’s voice.

Listen.
The song is being sung.
 

Listen.
The music is there.
Listen.

The shepherds did.
And that night they encountered the holy.
That night their lives were changed forever.

Listen.
This Christmas you can and will encounter the holy.
Amen.

Clyde Griffith
 

Adapted from a sermon experienced by the congregation of Christ Presbyerian Church, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania: December 18, 2005.

Christmas Is for Adults - About the Adult Jesus

The bottom line is this:
however touching they are to our heartstrings,
however much we love to hear them and to sing about them,
however much we enjoy the feelings prevalent this time of year,
the birth stories are not really about the baby Jesus.


The birth stories are told and remembered because of the adult Jesus –
and what people experienced with him during his earthly ministry,
and what people experienced because of him after his death –
and what people have experienced through him through the ages,
and what people continue to experience with him day and day out.


For me, at its essence, Christmas is really about Emmanuel.
That Hebrew word that means “God With Us”.


The Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 12:2-6
Matthew 1:17-25

For over 1500 years, the church has set aside this time before Christmas as a time of preparation –
a time for believers to engage in opportunities of study to better understand the enormity of what it is we celebrate at Christmas and its profound impact on the faith passed on to us from previous generations.

This year, in an attempt to help us focus on the real reason for the season –  what is so central to the faith we hold – I am trying to address what was important to those very earliest of Christians.

Last week we looked at the writings of some of the very earliest Christians and looked at what they had to say about the birth of Jesus.   
The very earliest writing we have in the New Testament is a letter from The Apostle Paul, written around the year of 35 AD.
The earliest Gospel we have is attributed to Mark.  The Gospel of Mark was most probably published around the year of 50 AD.
In the past 60 years, many other documents have been discovered that date back to the very first decades after Jesus’ death.
When we read these documents looking for what they say about the birth of Jesus, we discover one thing in common.
None of them have anything to say about the birth of Jesus.  Nothing.
It simply was not important to them.

Oh, for sure, they were all convinced that the experiences they recalled with this Jesus of Nazareth were extraordinary.
In fact, as the years went by, they were convinced that they had experienced nothing less than the in-dwelling of God Almighty.
That, for sure, they experienced the holy –
that, for sure, for a while, and even now, they experienced Emmanuel –
[a Hebrew word that means God With Us].

[As a side note: I related to the congregation an article that was published just the day before by Bayler University’s Center for Christian Ethics, wherein, the author spells out much of the same things I did in our sermon last week!
I just wanted them to know, and the reader to know, that really, I don’t make this stuff up!]

Now, the second oldest Gospel text is the Gospel of Matthew.
It was written about thirty years after Mark – around 80 AD.  

Matthew is somewhat different than Mark.
Matthew obviously knew about Mark’s Gospel.
Matthew includes the entire Gospel of Mark.
Yes, he edited freely and rearranged some of the scenes, but its all there.
Everything you read in Mark is in Matthew.
But, Matthew includes much more.
And, the editing and rearranging he does reflect his own emphasis, and are worthy of study and noting.

Matthew also includes writings and sayings from a second document that was circulating during those days –  
a document that Luke knew about and used also;
a document that Mark did not know about or didn’t care about.  
(Scholars call this the "quelle" document  – or “source” document.)
Matthew also knew and used material from a third source –
stories that were circulating among some circles that were becoming known as the infancy narratives – stories relating to the birth of Jesus.

I believe we are lucky to be living in these days, because we are discovering new source material all the time.
It seems that every month or so, something new crops us that provide new light on old documents, and old practices, and old beliefs.

One of the most exciting discoveries, to me, is that we are discovering that those earliest Christian believers were a pretty diverse bunch.
Contrary to what we may have taught, those early Christians, right from the beginning were not of one mind about their belief
or about their practices
or about their place in the world.

We know that after Jesus’ death, his followers scattered and hid.
But, shortly after, many came to the conviction that something extraordinary had happened – something that changed their perspective on who Jesus was and he would mean for the future of their movement.
It was their experience of the resurrection experience that led the disciples to come to think of Jesus as somehow more than just a prophet, but as the Messiah himself.   
And that’s when they began to organize around his memory.

But, we must remember, the earliest form of the movement was as a sect within Judaism.
Jesus was a Jew.
Jesus disciples were Jews.
Jesus was a Jewish Messiah.
They are followers of a Jewish apocalyptic tradition.
They are expecting the coming of the kingdom of God on earth.
It was a Jewish movement.

For sure, it was made up of small groups.
At least one of them was based in Jerusalem, but others were spread all over the countryside, including at least one or more in Galilee.
These were small, homebased groups, that met together weekly, studied together, ministered to one another, and prayed for and with one another.
But, when time came, they went to the temple for worship.

What we have discovered is that pretty much, each of these small groups developed their own take on what they experienced with Jesus of Nazareth and what had happened to him at the end of his public ministry.

Some groups seemed to be in competition with one another –
especially as they considered how closely they were to observe the Jewish laws of the Torah.

One historian writes, “Christianity, or one should rather say “Christianities,” of [the early years] were a highly variegated phenomenon.”
We can see from recent discoveries that there were very different views of Jesus in the various types of Christianity.
Another historian reminds us that it was “a time where there was no fixed formulation what the set of Christian beliefs should be.
What Christian rituals should be.
What they should think
or what they should tell about Jesus.”

The Christianity of Rome was different that Christianity of North Africa
and that was different from what we find in Egypt,
and that was different from what find in Syria
or back in Palestine.
So, we see each form of Christianity beginning to tell the story of Jesus in different ways.

And, so we see different “Gospels” emerging from these different groups.
You have heard about the Gospel of Thomas that has been translated and published with the last few years.
There is also the Gospel of Philip,
the Gospel of Truth,
The Gospel to the Egyptians,
the Apocryphon of John,
Secret Book of James,
Apocalypse of Paul,
the Letter of Peter to Philip,
the Apocalypse of Peter,
the Acts of Thomas, the Acts of Paul,
and the list goes on and on and on.
So far, some 52 different Gospels have been discovered – besides the four found in our Bible.

And within our Bible, we see how this gets played to a small degree.
We noted that Mark just wasn’t concerned about Jesus’ birth.

Matthew was.
Matthew was very concerned about showing Jesus as being the embodiment of Hebrew prophecy –
the presence of the long-awaited-for Jewish Messiah.

This was important to Matthew because at that time, another man, Simon bar Kochba, was leading a Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire.  bar Kochba was imploring his kinsmen to take up arms: “Come join us to fight against the Romans.
You believe God is going to restore the kingdom to Israel, don’t you?  Join us.”  

bar Kochba was leading the revolt as the Jewish Messiah.

And, this set some of the Jewish Christians back a bit.
“Bar Kochba can’t be the Messiah – we already have one.”

And so, Matthew takes a clue from the Romans who gave all of their gods some sort of divine birth story.

Others were circulating birth stories of Jesus to show that Jesus was second to no Roman god.

So, Matthew includes some of the stories that were circulating at the time.
But, Matthew wanted to make clear that not only did Jesus have a special birth like the Roman gods,
but that Jesus was clearly a Jew.

The religious community that produced the Gospel of Matthew took pains to place their understanding squarely within its Jewish heritage
and portrays Jesus as one whose Jewish identity is beyond doubt.
After copying Marks first verse, Matthew begins by tracing Jesus’ genealogy.

Now, everyone knew, he only needed to show that Jesus was a descendent of King David.
But, Matthew takes no chances.
He traces Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Abraham.
It was that important to Matthew.

He wanted to show Jesus as even greater than Moses.
And, he edits his narrative to have Jesus constantly reinterpreting what was commonly known as Jewish law.
“You’ve heard it said . . . But, I say to you . . .”

The bottom line is this:
however touching they are to our heartstrings,
however much we love to hear them and to sing about them,
however much we enjoy the feelings prevalent this time of year,
the birth stories are not really about the baby Jesus.

The birth stories are told and remembered because of the adult Jesus –
and what people experienced with him during his earthly ministry,
and what people experienced because of him after his death –
and what people have experienced through him through the ages,
and what people continue to experience with him day and day out.

For me, at its essence, Christmas is really about Emmanuel.
That Hebrew word that means “God With Us”.  

For all those early Christians,
for all those writers of faith documents for their communities,
this word reflects what they affirmed had happened in this man from Nazareth –
what they continued to experience long after he had gone –
that Jehovah –
the Great I Am –
God Almighty –
Creator of the Universe and all the worlds that are –
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob –
the One God of the faith of our fathers and mothers –
deigned to enter our world and become as we are
to let us know there is no separation now from holy and mundane,
from sacred and profane,
from work and ritual.
No.
In this man from Nazareth, we see Emmanuel!
Through this man of Nazareth, we know Emmanuel.
With this man of Nazareth, we experience Emmanuel.
God is With Us.
That’s what we hear.
God is with us.
That’s what we sing.
God is with us.
That’s what we believe.
God is with us.
That’s what we celebrate.
Each and every year at Christmas.
Each and every week in worship.
Each and every morning when we get up.

Emmanuel!  This Christmas.
Emmanuel!  All year long!
Emmanuel!  Every minute of every hour of every day of your life!

Amen.

 

The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, experienced this sermon as a part of their worship service Sunday, December 4, 2011 - the Second Sunday of Advent.