Never “back to normal”

Read: Matthew 2:13-23

 
First Sunday of Christmas - December 29, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

One might think that Martin Luther by the mid-point in his career as a world-known figure and hard-nosed theologian would not be bothering with things such as a new hymn for Christmas. 

One might say that by then he would have studied it all, heard it all, and would not feel the need to dwell on the Christmas story.

One would be wrong!

Our hymn of the day today is one that Luther wrote for his family and their celebration of Christmas at home in 1534.

That would be when his children were just old enough to help sing the hymn.

Some scholars have suspected that he used it like a little cantata, with the children and others singing particular verses as solos and everyone joining in at the end.

We can imagine it being accompanied by lute, recorders, or other instruments in those first years.

 

But this is not a history lesson, but a proclamation of Gospel.

As we sing the hymn, it is our turn to preach to and with each other.

 

What is so special about this hymn is the sense of wonder that is suffused throughout.

The bold announcement by the angel-messenger at the beginning leads us all to exclaim “How glad we'll be” and desire to come together to hear more.

The middle stanzas are thoughtful reflections on the event.

The wonder in stanza 7:  God's Son is a baby?

And in Stanza 8: You mean that the holy God doesn't give up on us?

We marvel in stanza 9: The One who is creator of all has humbled himself and is so small?

In stanzas 10 + 11 we recognize that our response should be the best we can manage, worthy of gold and velvet, but that Jesus has none of it in Bethlehem.

The wonder we express in Stanza 12 is that this Jesus is “for me,” the same wonder that we celebrate a bit later in the Holy Communion.

And about all this we cannot keep quiet; we simply must sing.

We join with the whole heavenly chorus in the final stanza: “Glory to God in highest heaven....” and announce with them “A glad new year to all the earth.”

 

It is that final line that we need to examine a bit more closely.

It is not talking about the typical New Year's Eve revelries; Luther is not referring to the civil calendar at all.

He is making the theological point: this birth signals that a completely new era is upon us.

It is not just any birth, but God come in the flesh to be among us.

The world can never be the same after this event; it is a new year, or better, a new era.

Those who hear this gladly cannot keep silent.

Those who decline to hear it quickly find excuses to run away, and try to “get back to normal.”

 

We in the church have this long tradition of a 12-day celebration of Christmas, and we're in no particular rush to get away from it.

Oh, yes I know there are some who have already put everything away, and the stores probably have the valentines out by now, and carols are gone from the airwaves.

But in the face of all that, we're saying that we're not going back to the old “normal”.

This celebration marks the complete change of everything that the world thought it knew about life and the will of God.

The British Bible scholar N.T. Wright wrote about his experience with a fellow professor who was  a non-believer attending a Christmas Eve service.

On his way out the door, the non-believer said to Dr. Wright, “I have it figured out now.

I know why you make such a big thing about Christmas; it is all about a baby, and a baby cannot threaten anyone., so the whole thing is a happy event that means nothing”

No, he didn't have it all figured out.

In fact, he missed the point entirely.

From the very beginning, this baby is assuredly a threat to everything and everyone who thinks that they are in control of all of the events that matter.

Matthew tells us of Herod and his well-known way of dealing with any perceived threat, which was to murder anyone in his way.

The loss of all the young children in a minor village was a small price for some peace of mind for Herod.

And that is just the beginning.

Throughout his life, some will see Jesus as a threat to their cherished ways of doing things and their sense of entitlement.

So Jesus suffers the fate of those who upset the manipulating games of the powerful: death on the cross.

 

We have to give up our imagined picture of a peaceful Christmas scene.

And Matthew goes on to portray what happens next,  that Mary, Joseph and the baby shortly become homeless refugees in Egypt.

Jesus will set about to change things.

There would be no point in arriving in comfort when the world is in misery.

There is no point in having an easy life when the world is filled with violence  and injustice.

Emmanuel is his title; God-with-us is what it means, so he needs to be with us wherever the pain is.

And his very presence is the beginning of the change in the world that is so desperately needed.

The presence of the baby Jesus is a threat, an attack on everything that Herod believes.

 

And it is also an attack on what we have thought  is “normal.”

Oh, there are certain people who can tells us about this.

They are the folks who were just bumping along, and calling it all normal.

And then they met up with Jesus, and everything got disrupted in their lives.

They were changed.

Rather than call attention to someone in this congregation, let's hear about a person from another town.

A pastor I know got a call from a retired business person.

They had met years earlier at a fractious school board meeting, where the business man came across as hard-nosed, insensitive, and unsympathetic to those in need in the district.

But now he was calling to enlist the pastor in a coalition to help develop a neighborhood center for the area's jobless and hopeless youth.

The pastor's surprise at hearing from the business man prompted him to say that he had a remarkable experience.

He said, “I met Christ.  He made me take a hard, honest look at my life, and I didn't like what I saw.

I had to be changed; I'm not the same person I was a few years ago.”

 

We can remember persons like

--Elizabeth of Thuringia, who gave away most of her fortune to help the poor in the area around the Wartburg Castle in the 13^th Century, until her family declared her crazy and imprisoned her.

--And Peter Claver who was called to be missionary to the black slaves in Columbia in the 17^th century, and served them and nursed them  despite deplorable conditions.

--And our folks who travel to the Selinsgrove Center to offer a party to those who are almost completely helpless.

--And those who help to shelter homeless families here at St. Marks through Family Promise.

--And the young vicar who was helping an old priest with a day-shelter in NYC a few years back.

At the end of a particularly grueling day, they started to close the door when a ragged man approached.

The novice muttered half under his breath “Oh, Jesus....”

to which the old priest said, “It might be.  We'd better open the door again.”

 

Jesus confronts us in the persons in need, and changes the way we respond to them.

We remember the way Jesus treats us, and look at others differently.

It is never going to be the old “normal” again.

 

And it all springs from the wonder of this day and season, from the joy of Christ come in the flesh to us, the joy that is expressed so wonderfully in this hymn we sing.  Amen.