Christmas Eve sermon-Dec. 24, 2007

Sermon-Christmas Eve-2007
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
Tonight is a great story.
Now, I’ve told this one before but it’s worth hearing again. At my first church I had a young couple who actually came and VOLUNTEERED to work with the youth. The man of the couple, Brian, went on to seminary, was ordained, and became a priest. At his first assignment, he was the assistant at a large church. And one of his tasks was to find an appropriate baby Jesus doll for the church manger. So Brian went to the Sunday School classroom of 5 year olds and asked each child to bring to church their favorite doll to audition for the role of baby Jesus.
A dozen kids bring their favorite dolls-with children all very anxious to have theirs chosen. There was a worn out cabbage patch doll (this was the 1980s); a doll named Thelma with short matted hair (she used to have long brown hair but she had her hair “permed” with chlorox”; a doll named Angel with one eye that would not open, another that would not close, and only one leg; and one boy doll-a GI Joe who was naked with the dog’s teeth marks all over his head. And Brian asked the kids to vote on who should be in the manger that year. They chose Thelma. But when Father Brian explained that the doll would have to be in the manger for 2 whole weeks, the owner declined. As did the child with the back up doll. And all the way around the room. 12 dolls, 12 “no’s”. Everyone wanted their doll to be Jesus-but they didn’t want to be apart for 2 weeks. So the very wise Sunday School teacher pulled out a very nice doll from the storage room for the church manger-and suggested to Fr. Brian that all the dolls be blessed as honorary “Jesus’s” and put in mangers-in their homes. Which he wisely did. Everyone wanted Jesus, but no one wanted to give him away.
All great stories of hope are based on stories of love
It’s Christmas eve, when we romanticize stories of babies born in mangers and shepherds out in the hills, and people too poor or lost to even found a room to stay in. But there was nothing pretty about Christmas. And when Mary gave birth in a stable with no diapers or a midwife, no clean sheets or Lamaze coach-she must have thought that all the angels words to her and Joseph about a special child being born to them must have been some kids of cruel joke. There was nothing pretty about Christmas to the people who were there. It was a story that meant almost nothing-until 30 years later. Until Jesus was raised from the dead, no one would ever have remembered or ever retold this story. The only time when looking back matters, is when something extraordinary has happened later.
All great stories of love are based on stories of sacrifice
There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about holidays, like Christmas. One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a service in the farm community in which they lived. She asked him to come, but he refused. "That story is nonsense!" he said. "Why would God become a man? That's makes no sense!" So she and the children left, and he stayed home.A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then another thump. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese caught in the snowstorm and they were disoriented and lost. They just flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. The man wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them and they moved further away.He tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe. Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?" If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud.He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn--and one by one the other geese followed it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!" Suddenly it all made sense. The man fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first ever prayer: "Thank You, God, for coming as a human to show me the way out of the storm!"
All great stories of sacrifice are based on stories of hope
Vaclav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic once wrote, “Hope…is not the same as joy that things are going well…but rather an ability to work for something that is good-not just because it stands a chance to succeed. Hope is …not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense-regardless of how it turns out.”
Christmas is the day of hope. Not everything turns out the way we want. Things/ our lives are not always going well. We do not always feel optimistic. But when we hear the story of Jesus being born, we believe that all of this, all of life, makes sense-regardless of how it turns out. Tonight we remember hope.
All great stories of hope are based on stories of love
All great stories of love are based on stories of sacrifice
All great stories of sacrifice are based on stories of hope
Tonight we remember that God loved us, and sacrificed for us, and gave us hope.
Amen.