“Christmas Choice”
A sermon by Sid Burgess
December 21, 2008, 4th Sunday of Advent
Lectionary Year B: 2 Samuel 7:1-11,16, Luke 1.46b-55, Luke 1:26-38
Two famous messengers from God open today’s scripture lessons--one a prophet, the other an angel. One delivers a message to a newly installed ruler, and the other to a young girl. Both messengers must have been utterly shocked by those chosen to be recipients of divine blessing! Oh, I suspect both couriers were discreet. Surely they would have tried to hide their shock. But I also doubt they fully succeeded in hiding their feelings that God was making big mistakes--first selecting this fellow David, a man with a checkered past; then choosing this very young girl, Mary, with hardly a past at all.
Old Nathan, the prophet of II Samuel, knew this upstart, David. Nathan knew that David has been banned from King Saul’s court. And he knew that the former shepherd boy had become an outlaw living in the badlands of Judea. Nathan surely knew David had been a mercenary fighting for a rival kingdom; and, that he was a political opportunist who had seized the throne of Israel. Just goes to prove the point: With God, there is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future.
By contrast to what Nathan knew about David, I doubt that Gabriel knew very much about Mary. What was there to know? She was likely just a child! Consider this. According to the Jewish custom of the time, girls were promised in marriage at the age of 12 or 13. Then, they remained with their families for one more year before being sent to live with their husbands at the age of 13 or 14. So, imagine the angel Gabriel “doing a double take” when this skinny young girl answers the door. The person Luke portrays as the Mother of our Lord is not the mature, somber woman of Renaissance painting but, more likely, a shy young girl.
Read the Bible from book to book, and it soon becomes clear--God has a habit of making unlikely choices. And this is good news! Good news for mere mortals like us, because I have it on good authority--divine authority, in fact, that God has now chosen us. God has chosen us to receive God’s very presence through the coming again of the Christ child. The message is strong and clear. It comes to us not by prophet, not by angel, but in black and white, through Holy Scripture. The message of the Bible is that just as God chose unlikely David for a dynasty, and improbable Mary to be the mother of Jesus, so God has chosen us. It is for this that we have been watching and waiting. Advent is coming to an end. Christmas is almost here. The Bible’s sacred message is this: the holy one of God is about to be born anew in the heart of each one of us.
While you ponder God’s choice, let me tell you a story that is making the rounds among preachers. You’ve heard of the angels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael. Let me tell you the story of the angel Harold.1 It seems Harold was an apprentice angel in heaven with big-time aspirations. He loved taking messages to people from God, but Harold never got any of the high profile missions. One day there was a great commotion in heaven. The rumor was going around that God was going to do something really strange--something unheard of in the history of heaven. Instead of sending an angel, or a prophet, to give the divine message to humankind, God was to send God’s only son. When Harold heard the rumor, he followed the crowd to see what was going on. The heavenly host was hovering over a tiny village named Bethlehem, looking down in total amazement. There in an humble manger, lay the very Son of God-- a tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. This was utterly bizarre! Such a birth should have taken place in heaven, or at least in a palace! Even worse, nobody in Bethlehem seemed to be paying the least bit of attention. They were going on about their business as if nothing had happened. Just carrying on with their routines, going from here to there oblivious to the fact that the Son of the Most High God had been born in the midst of them.
Harold said to himself: “Somebody ought to go down and tell ‘em
what’s happening.”
So he flew around the crowd of angels trying to find one of the big
names--Gabriel, Michael, or Raphael. But they were too engrossed in
conversation about the newborn baby boy. So Harold decided to take
the initiative, seize the moment. He decided to go to Bethlehem and
find someone to make the announcement. So young Harold flew down and
looked all over that little village trying to find someone to tell.
But everyone was so busy. It was, after all, the tax season--and
everyone had a deadline to meet!
When he expanded his search out into the countryside he found some shepherds watching their flocks by night. They were not the kind of folks Harold was looking for. They were a scruffy looking bunch, a little dirty and smelly--but they seemed to be about the only folks available with time to listen. So, Harold began, and as he spoke he began to feel warm all over. He began to shine with the glory of God, as angels do when they’re really happy. But the light scared the shepherds, so Harold found himself having to say, “Fear not! I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be for all people.” Well, now he had their attention. So he told them, “Unto you---is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Just then, all the other angels saw Harold’s light, so they rushed over to join him. And suddenly there was with Harold a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people, with whom God is well pleased.”
Well, the story of Harold the Angel races on past today’s reading, past today’s date on the Christian calendar. The story races on to Christmas Day, and the good news we can hardly wait to hear. But let me call you back. Let me summon you back to today’s biblical stories. To those two unlikely choices. First, David. In the story Samuel tells David listens to the divine promise that his descendants shall rule Israel forever. The King stops just long enough to offer a prayer of thanksgiving. Then its back to business as usual: waging war, engaging in political intrigue, womanizing. At it turns out, David is not the least bit concerned about succession--about who will follow him on the throne. Even with this announcement from the prophet Nathan, David never plans for a transition in power. Never makes out a will. Upon his death there is a bloody, battle royal for the throne. And David’s “united kingdom,” his would-be dynasty, doesn’t last a full century!
By contrast, Mary takes time to comprehend the radical implications of God’s news. After Gabriel’s visit--after the startling announcement that she is God’s unlikely but certain choice--Mary’s goes away on retreat. She retreats to her Aunt Elizabeth’s home in the Judean hill country. And there Mary lingers in seclusion for three months.
While there, Mary comes to understand the awesome impact of what God is about to do. Her insight is preserved in “Mary’s Song” from Luke, chapter 1, the poetic response we read this morning. Mary recalls the nature of God’s work. For the biblical record is clear--
God has scattered the proud....
52 God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich (packing) (Luke 1).
In other words, God has made a career out of reversing fortunes. And this is the work that God’s son will take up-- this is the calling of the one whose life stirs in Mary’s womb. The implications of this impending birth make “business as usual” a dangerous preoccupation for the proud.
My friends, God has chosen us. We can argue the point. We can debate the timing--right here at Christmas, and all. But faith of the matter is, God has chosen the Church--and, in particular, this very congregation. Comes now, our time to choose. Choose God--the God who lifts up the lowly and fills the hungry. Or choose the status quo, governed by the proud and the powerful. Choose God, take up our Cross and follow Christ the Son, commit ourselves to God’s justice, cast our lot with the poor and the oppressed. Or, choose the prevailing powers of this world. Keep on working for our slice of the pie, our “piece of the rock.” This is the Christmas choice. To follow Christ, or follow the proud.
While you think about that let me offer an insightful verse from the poet Madeleine L’Engle and her poem entitled “After Annunciation:”
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
God’s choices seems always to be irrational. And so, too, is human response to God. Not mindless, not thoughtless, but certainly, illogical. Remember, the “proud” may hold exclusive rights to reason--but the church has the franchise on faith. The former is fleeting, but the latter is forever and ever.
So, what will it be in the days to come? A brief pause with King David, then back to routine, to business as usual? Or, will it be with Mary? Will we join her in recognition of the radical nature of God’s entry into the world-- and with it, the implications for change in our own values and priorities? God has made God’s choice. Time now for us to choose.
To Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his
blood
and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6
1Leininger, David E, First PC, Warren, PA, in a sermon posted at http://www.presbyterianwarren.com/harold.html#1, quoting from SERMONSHOP 1995 12 24B", Note #22 by STEVEN RP WESTON 12/19/95.