Can Christmas be Just Around the Corner?
Sermon by James W. Crawford
Third Sunday in Advent
December 13, 1998
Can Christmas be just around the corner? As Linda and I consult our social schedule, anticipate the return of our now grownup children, wade into the technological swamp of grandchildren's toys, size up Christmas trees, calculate the time needed to scribble cards, bake cookies, decorate the house and focus on the opportunities here at church, we wonder, "Is it really that time again? It seems we just put our decorations away." I suppose most of us detect signs of Christmas just after Halloween when the Furbies make their way to a CNN special and Macy's and Filene's take over the Herald or the Globe.
Some of us, of course, learn to accept other signs of Christmas looming. Erma Bombeck for one. Her kids got sick. She recites a Christmas saying at her house: " We got measles. It must be Christmas." But that is not all. Down at the laundromat, she writes, people knew her as Typhoid Mary. "What are you having this year for Christmas?" they ask as she sorted her clothes. Well I've got one exposure to Chicken pox, one who has mumps only on his left side and two just threw up to keep things interesting. . ."
I don't know what triggers your panic, but most of us ask, and this recent blast of summer weather intensified the question, "Can Christmas really be just around the corner?"
Another perspective, of course, compels us to consider the question. Somehow the anticipation of Christmas highlights a world desperately out of kilter with the Christmas promises of peace on earth and goodwill among all peoples. In the very village where the Christ child came into the world Palestinians and Israelis confront one another with fierce hatred exploding in rocks, car bombs and bullets. Did you see the reference to Serbs poisoning wells in Kosovo? Or the competition between and the Iraqis and the Americans for gifted but financially bankrupt Russian scientists to help with the development of toxic biological weapons? In other areas of our world religion seems to be as good a reason as any to massacre your neighbor. And myths of national, cultural, racial superiority provide excuses for oppression and slaughter. In that kind of world how can we help but ask, "Can Christmas be just around the corner?"
We are not alone in asking that question, you know. A character in our lesson this morning asks the same question: John the Baptist. There he sits languishing in Herod's prison looking out on a broken and bruised world. And knowing John we can guess what put him there. King Herod is not a nice man. John knows it and calls him a lecher to his face. Herod might plead, "So what, everybody's doing it," and deflect the accusation, brush it off, and label it a noxious rumor. But John will not go away. He tells Herod that he and the kind of world he rules face certain doom; that the justice and peace promised centuries before by the prophets will blossom forth any moment and that Jesus of Nazareth only now coming onto the horizon represents the new society breaking in, ready to shatter the old. With that kind of stridency from a desert fanatic what can Herod do? John meddles with his private life--outrageous enough--but more, he threatens what Herod perceives as revolution. Herod does what he must do with a subversive character like that: he throws him in prison.
So, in Herod's prison John broods. He waits for the new age promised by God to arrive. He recognizes Jesus as its harbinger; he expects a decisive chasm to open between the old world and the new, he anticipates thunderous world events signaling a rearrangement of social hierarchies, economic strata, political power. "Thank Heaven, the Christ pitches among us! " John asserts. "Prepare for radical change!"
But nothing happens. Everything goes on just the same. Herod remains in power; his cruelty increases; corruption, cynicism, power abuse and deceit pervade public life. "What's going wrong?" John wonders. "Let's get this show on the road," he protests. So he impatiently delegates some friends to visit Jesus with a question: "Why are you stalling?" he asks. "Are you really the one we look for, or should we search for another?"
Now friends, I think this encounter of Jesus with John offers us a key to Christmas. I believe our doubts about Christmas may arise something like John's. We just cannot live in this world without questions and doubt from time to time about the integrity of the Christmas promise. We not only look at the world with its chaotic upheavals and bloody messes. We look at the church, too. What do we see? A community committed to ushering in a Christmas world, yet for over two thousand years failing to bring about peace, even doing our part now and again to subvert the promise. We have every right to ask the question of the Christian Church, "Are you really the one or is the Christmas Community just a fraud, a fairy-tale, a sentimental illusion? Must we search for another?"
I wonder how many people passing this beautiful building this very moment--during this Advent Sunday Boylston Street shopping bonanza-- I wonder how many even entertain the question. I suspect most of them have stopped asking it altogether. Why? Could it be because we tend to follow more the religious style of John than we do Jesus? One commentator suggests as much. He reminds us John represents an intense religious style. He is like a monk - dressed in skins, living in the desert, eating locusts, drinking polluted water, praying day and night, attending the temple regularly, following a zealous regimen . . . clearly a heavy-duty religious type, announcing a world-wide revival, calling us all to prayer, hoping for a massive return, if you will, to church by a world wildly distracted by a million interests, a church imploding on its own sacred irrelevancies.
But Jesus reminds John--he reminds us--of another approach to the religious life. Jesus finds this new life in the prophet Isaiah. Remember? In response to John's query, "Are you the one?" Jesus does not promise a religious revival. He does not point to renewal of the church. He does not posit an overflowing sanctuary. Jesus answers John's inquisitive delegates with a vision of change coming across the whole world initiated by the creative and compassionate efforts of the faithful; where, in graphic and creative images the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.
You see, sometimes I wonder if we are not a little more like John than Jesus. We pray, we set time aside for church, we love to sing the carols, we join in the all important rituals of worship and institutional massage and support. (And my friends, in no way do I belittle nor diminish that; Oh, how I'm glad to see you here this morning!) We do these things to celebrate the coming of Christ, to surrender ourselves to the mystery and to assemble for communion with God, illustrating one of the high purposes of our very creation. But, when the world asks us, "are you the ones or are we to wait for another?" we cannot answer, "Well, the place is packed on Christmas eve. You should see us on Easter!" We need respond with word and deed about organizing justice, we need demonstrate that somehow our life together and our purpose enable the lame to walk, the blind to see, the poor to hear and realize good news.
So what do we look for? What should we look for if Christmas is just around the corner? Peace amid chaos, love taking on hatred, hope conquering cynicism. What a task--a Christmas task! Did you see that wonderful article in last Sunday's Globe written by Dr. Jonathan Mann, the pioneer AIDS researcher who died in the tragic Swissair crash off Nova Scotia last Summer? Just before Dr. Mann died he wrote an article designed to coincide with the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed in San Francisco, December 10, 1948. . . a Declaration recognizing what it calls "the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, [this dignity and these subsequent rights] serving as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." Dr. Mann, playing on these noble words of the preamble, insists an appreciation of "the role of simple human dignity lies on the cusp of thinking in both public health and human rights." He insists violations of dignity represent "pervasive events with potentially severe and sustained negative effects on physical, mental, and social well-being." He believes, as he writes, "Injuries to individual and collective dignity may represent a hitherto unrecognized pathogenic force with a destructive capacity toward physical, mental and social well-being at least equal to that of viruses or bacteria. . ." Of course!
But more. We celebrate these 50 years of this Declaration of Human Rights this week reminded by Amnesty International that 1.3 billion people live on less than $1.00/day; 117 governments torture their citizens; at least 55 governments unlawfully kill their citizens; at least 87 governments jail prisoners of conscience; at least 31 governments make their citizens 'disappear'; and at least 40 governments execute their citizens." In face of those statistics, more than 10 million people around the world put their signatures to a document pledging, "I will do everything in my power to ensure that the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights become a reality around the world." And in church, as we sing our carols, recite our prayers, offer our gifts we can pray this declaration no longer claim the tag as the "world's best kept secret." It resounds with echoes from the prophet Isaiah; it bears the promise of human dignity embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, in whose highly anticipated presence Christmas is just around the corner.
And, of course, the impact of the pending Christmastide bears not only a cosmic hope, it bears intensely personal implications. Each of us can tell a Christmas story of our own. Is it a marriage patched up, a lost child come home, someone with whom we resolved a mutual forgiveness? Is it courage through an illness; a grief transcended, an addiction beaten - hope against hope? I would call it an occasion we might recognize as Emanuel, God with us.
And so we ask, can Christmas be just around the corner? Well, in a few minutes up on our second floor we will join in a gala holiday meal, sing some robust carols, enjoy one another's company. The room will be beautiful, rocking with children's' voices, and a never-missing pot luck will stuff us all. After dinner our church school will present its annual Christmas drama. I want to tell you how one of those dramas ended--not the one here, but it could well have been. The story involves a boy named Wallace Purling, a boy big for his age, not particularly athletic, his grades at school not so hot, sometimes a nuisance to the others, but a friendly, ebullient kid, and one, it turns out, with a peculiar sensitivity to the underdog.
In any case, when it comes time for the annual Christmas pageant at church Wallace Purling, eager as usual to be a shepherd, nonetheless gets assigned to the part as innkeeper, the director believing his size just perfect, lending authority to his pending surly encounter with the Holy family, and a part not too demanding of memorization, his lines being abrupt and simple.
The congregation gathers for lunch, they sing the carols, they thrive on one another's company; then the lights go down and the Christmas extravaganza begins.
You know the scene: a manger, angels, crowns, halos, kings--the world's greatest bathrobe drama--and Wallace Purling waiting in the wings for his special part. The drama rolls toward its climax, Joseph and Mary with the babe stroll slowly toward that Bethlehem inn. Joseph knocks on the painted cardboard door. Wally swings it open with a powerful gesture and gruffly asks, "What do you want?"
"We seek lodging," replies Joseph.
"Seek it elsewhere," Wally commands. "This inn is filled."
Comes another plea: "Sir, we asked everywhere in vain. We traveled far and are very weary."
Wally insists sternly: "There is no room in this inn for you."
And again, "Please, Mr. Innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary, she is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired."
With that Wally's sterness seems to falter. He relaxes a little. The words fail to come as fluently as before, the audience tenses, feels embarrassment for the obvious struggle of the boy to come up with his lines. A voice from behind the curtain prompts him, saying, "No! Begone!"
Wally stammers out the words automatically, "No! begone!"
Joseph places his arm around Mary, she lays her head on his shoulder. They retreat from the inn.
But heed that innkeeper. He does not slam the door. He stands there. He watches the forlorn pair move away. His brow creases. His lips tremble. Is that a tear in his eye?
And suddenly this pageant takes a 180 degree turn. It is different from all the others. "Don't go, Joseph," pleads Wallace Purling. "Bring Mary back. You can have my room."
Can Christmas be just around the corner? Count on it!
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