Sermon, December 24, 2003
Christmas Eve
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Sermon, December 24, 2003
Christmas Eve
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
The Gift is a Person
The scientist Robert Oppenheimer said, "The best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person." Tonight we celebrate the idea of God wrapped in the swaddling clothes of the person of a newborn baby. We use a theological word and call this day the Feast of the Incarnation. Jesus was the incarnation of God. But I like the simpler version of one little girl -- "Some people couldn't hear God's inside whisper, and so he sent Jesus to tell them outside." 1
It may be that the most defining characteristic of Christianity is that we find the revelation of God primarily in a person. It's unique among the major religions of the world. In Judaism and Islam, Moses and Muhammad receive revelation, but they say more modestly that God is revealed in them as prophets, not in them as persons. In those traditions, God is revealed in the words of the Torah and Qur'an. And in Buddhism, it is the teachings of the Buddha which disclose the path to enlightenment and compassion, not the person of the Buddha.
We who are Christian find the primary revelation of God in a person. Now that doesn't make Christianity superior, just different. We say something like this: "If you want to know what God is like -- what God is passionate about -- what God's heart is like -- then look to Jesus. Jesus is what can be seen of God embodied in a human life. So we who are Christian find the ultimate disclosure of God in a person -- not a book; not a set of beliefs. And we can say that Jesus is the decisive revelation of God for us as Christians without needing to say that he is the only and exclusive revelation of God. God, like the sower in Jesus' parable, who scatters seed extravagantly, has infinite means to reveal the divine nature. So we can say, God is defined by Jesus, but not confined to Jesus.2
So what do we discover about the heart of God when we see Jesus? That's hard to summarize in a few sentences. It's what we talk about every Sunday here. It is the "Gospel" which means, literally, "Good News." Behold I bring you Good News. And what is the bad news that Jesus is the good news for? For those of us who find ourselves in any form of bondage -- the Good News is freedom, liberation. For those who of us who feel estranged, exiled, lonely -- the Good News is reconciliation. For those who live in any darkness -- it is enlightenment. For our sense of sin and guilt -- unconditional forgiveness. For the manifestation of death in its many forms -- God's Good News is the new birth of resurrection. For the hungry and thirsty -- it is food and drink. Above, and maybe below all of this is love. Jesus reveals God essentially as love, compassionate personal love. And all of these ideas are delivered not in words, but in a person. So God invites us to know God deeply, intimately, personally, and to live in a community created for this new way.3 The Christmas story is our story of a wonderful way that God brings this Good News. Not just in ideas or words, but in a person.
I've got another Christmas story. It is set in a frontier trading post in what is now upper Michigan in the year 1761. It was a time of war known in America as the French and Indian War. On the Island of Mackinanc, which is now a lovely resort town, there lived a minor chief of the Chippewas named Wawatam. Three years before our story takes place he had a vision while praying. Through that vision he understood that he was to extend a most generous welcome to a stranger who would be revealed to him.
Three years later, in September 1761, a 22 year old Englishman named Alexander Henry arrived to begin working in the tiny trading post at Fort Michilimackinac. There he met Wawatam who studied the young white man very closely and determined that he was indeed the one foretold in his vision. Two months later, on November 20, 1761 Wawatam loaded his entire family and a wealth of furs and meat into four great canoes. They crossed from the island to the fort on the mainland and confronted the unsuspecting Englishman. Alexander Henry's diary tells us that after the briefest of explanations about the vision Wawatam said these words:
I have come to offer you my heart and my hand, my lips and my eyes and my arm, my family and my house. With these gifts, which I hope you will accept, you will be a friend to me, yet more than a friend; you will be a brother and more than a brother; you will be a son and more than a son. I will be bound to honor you and love you, to trust you and help you as I would the dearest friend, the finest brother, the most beloved son. If you accept these things, I will forevermore regard you as a member of my family and they too will so regard you. Tell me now, will you accept?
Amazing! Can you imagine how it would feel to hear these words coming out of the wilderness? How amazing and improbable they must have seemed? How strange their sound in a world known more for selfishness and defensiveness than generous vulnerability? If you can imagine that, then you can begin to grasp what God is saying to you this Christmas Eve.4
God comes to you to offer God's heart and God's hand, God's lips and God's eyes and arm, God's family and God's house. In the form of a little child filled with Spirit and love, God offers these gifts, which I hope you will accept. With that gift you become a friend to God, yet more than a friend; you will be a sister or brother, yet more than a sister or brother; you will be a child of God. God is binding himself to honor you and love you, to trust you and help you as a dearest friend, the finest brother or sister, the most beloved child. God forevermore regards you as a member of God's own family. All you need do is trust the message and the messenger, and simply accept that you are accepted; you are adopted by God; you are loved unconditionally.
That's a message best delivered in person. No matter what the cost. And that's a wonderful gift worth treasuring on this Christmas Eve. Every prayer we offer, every carol we sing tonight speaks to the person and the gift. Jesus is God's promise of companionship and love to us.
Let me add one more little thing. Consider making a promise to yourself tonight. Promise that if what I've said means even a little to you that you won't put it away with the other Christmas stuff. Promise that if it's even partly true you'll know that it's worth following up. Maybe even worth learning about. Maybe even worth changing for. Maybe, just maybe, worth committing to others, to a community, to a way of life that says that this child's life is what we are trying to follow.
The very best Christmas gift is actually a person. A person who embodies the gifts of freedom, reconciliation, enlightenment, forgiveness, resurrection, nurture, intimacy and most especially love. He is the very heart of God, enfleshed in the heart and hand and lips and eyes and arm and family and house of God. The gift of God, for the people of God.