Christmas Eve Sermon: Ponder

 

“Mary Treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart.”

“Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

 

            With this devotional booklet,
I would like to invite you all into the 12 days of Christmas;
welcome to a season of pondering, as Mary once pondered.

            Pondering—a practice of both the head and the heart, love and contemplation wrapped together in imagination.

Considering the charged logic of the words that Mary received,
the combustible way they combine to make the Christmas story, our story.

Consider too, how precious these words are.
They are like the Velveteen Rabbit
—the stuffed rabbit is so cuddled and loved by its child,
that its eyes are worn smooth and fur is rubbed off,
and that sort of love makes it become a living bunny…
so too pondering these words can make the Gospel come alive!

            So yes, tonight I am setting you all up for 12 days of pondering all these words.

Prayer

 

Pondering all these words.

            Ponder both the fear and the joy of this proclamation.

“Be not afraid” the words of most every angel in scripture, the extraordinary among the ordinary
—heaven on earth
—is disruptive and frightening.

Think of the manger scene here,
and all those angels swirling about the tree
–to scale, that’s terrifying!
A host, an army of angels! Oh my!

            Fear placed next to joyous tidings,
Good News—Gospel…
Imagine if people were always so excited to meet a Christian because they knew the encounter with them would bring them good news!
Imagine, even, that, in a media environment saturated with bad news and sadness
—"It Bleeds it Leads”
we can share a story of joy!

            Joy and terror,
Awe and Gospel
—Isn’t that what Mary and Joseph are experiencing? Childbirth, bringing a new life into existence
—bringing a Holy Child here on earth…
Terror and Joy!

 

            Ponder the universal and the particular,
the old and the new.

            Luke’s Gospel insists upon its universality
—Jesus is for everyone.
In fact, in Luke,
if a man receives a miracle, then a woman will receive a similar miracle,
if an old person witnesses God at work, a young person will as well.
Luke understands this to be the fulfillment of prophecy from the book of Joel.
Sons and daughters,
youth and elders,
slaves and free
—“For all people.”

            At the same time, there is a particularly to the Gospel, “Born in the city of David.”
This good news for all people is grounded in the good soil of Hebrew Scripture
—God’s ongoing faithfulness to the Jewish people.
And what we read today is not an anomaly or a one off,
no, right before Mary Ponders, she sings
a song that is so similar to Hannah’s in the book of Samuel that Mary might have to pay copyright for it!
Right after today’s Gospel the Holy Family will do what all faithful Jews did at the time
—sacrifice in the temple.

            God doing something new flowing out of something old…
God’s goodness for everyone,
and yet found in a particular place and a particular time, upheld by a particular history.
The scandal of the universal
and the scandal of particularity.
God loves everyone…
to which we human so often ask, “even him?”
Or more often, “Even them?”
AND ALSO
God loves YOU,
uniquely and not theoretically.
You in your messy wholeness and unvarnished history.

 

            Ponder this one who is born—Savior, Messiah, Lord. What kind of Redeemer, Chosen One, and King is he?

            Not simply a High Priest
—insisting upon right ritual, micromanaged until we’re all pure.
Not a new David violently reclaiming a Kingdom.
Not Caesar, maintaining order at all costs,
even if the bodies pile up.

Not that kind of Savior
—even if his name, Jesus, does mean Save us.
And he will…
save us from our alienation and our tendency to get tangled up on our self.
He will make meaning and right the world through self-sacrifice and accompanying love.
His authority will be lowly
—like his first crib and first guests
—manger and shepherds.
Humble Lordship that will culminate in kneeling and washing his students’ feet.

           

            Ponder the sign of God—the Birth of a child.

God with us in common things
—bands of cloth, a trough,
so unremarkable that he is squeezed out of the guest room…
you noticed that language in the new translation, yes? Inns/Guest Rooms, either way—ordinary stuff of life,
that’s the sign of God among us.
God with us in the everyday, because the redemption of our every day is the work of God!

 

            Ponder, lastly, the glory in heaven and peace on earth.

            Glory is literally the heaviness of God
—that which is too much for mortals,
yet that frightening too-much-ness
—that swarm of angels and all it implies
—offers favor and brings peace. Peace, he brings to us,
and peace he leaves for us,
the one who bears heaven to earth, God with us.

 

            Yes friends. Ponder in the coming 12 days of Christmas all these words.

 

“Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

Amen.