4th Sunday in Advent, Dec. 22, 2002

Pastor Marcia Sietstra

(With thanks to Marcus Borg for the title and thesis of this sermon.)

A world-famous scientist raises his champagne glass high to toast his daughter and new son-in-law at their wedding reception. As the guests grow quiet he begins, ‘Cupid drew an arrow from his quiver, pulled back the string on his bow, and shot it into the air’’ It is a touching moment. A Noble Prize-winning astrophysicist speaks of an arrow shot by the winged infant Cupid to account for love. He turns to a poetic and mythic image (and not a very sophisticated one, at that!) to honor the love of this young couple. The analytical, scientific vocabulary of his discipline and his precise measurements of the cosmos are not sufficient to express his deepest feelings at a time like this. When he seeks to describe the indescribable only poetry will do.

Perhaps the gospel writer of Luke, when he searched for words to describe Jesus, also had to resort to poetry at times—including angel choirs and a Christmas star. Over the years people have asked me questions like: Do you really believe Jesus was born of a virgin? Do choirs of angels really sing in the sky? If there was some special astronomical phenomenon at the time of his birth, how could a single star in the night sky point so precisely to a single pinpoint on earth, that it could actually lead wise men to a stable?

Did wise men from the East, long thought to mean Persia, take the usual 2 years to make such a trip? If it took two years, why in nativity pictures, do we see wise men kneeling at the manger of an infant instead of a 2-year-old, and why in a stable when Mary and Joseph would presumably not still be living in the stable two years after the birth? What about the dating discrepancy in Luke, since historical records suggest that Herod’s reign and Quirinius’ census did not coincide.

My answer to these questions is this: These questions put the emphasis in the wrong place. Because the truth of these stories is not dependent on their exact historical accuracy in every detail. Rather, these stories are true because they are ‘poetry plus, and not science minus,’ to echo a Swedish proverb. There is deep truth in these stories because they point to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the one who revealed God AND they speak to the human condition, both then and now.

Yes, Christmas is certainly about a real birth 2000 years ago, the details of which we are not sure, but to focus on the past is to miss the central meaning of Christmas. It is about the coming of Christ in the person of Jesus, but more importantly for us it is about the coming of the Christ consciousness in the world. The stories are full of archetypal symbols that address our deepest needs and longings. Archetypal symbols represent models for all humanity.

It’s no accident, for example, that the early church fathers chose to celebrate Jesus’ birth in December, even though we have no record of what time of year he was born. In December, darkness is with us’nights are longest and coldest in the weeks leading up to Christmas. So the symbols of darkness and light are that much more meaningful to us as images of the human condition: at night, we can’t see and easily become lost and frightened. In the darkness we feel alone and cold; we yearn for the coming of the light, the dawn.

Enter John’s gospel: ‘The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.’ The birth of Christ is about the birth of the enlightenment Christ brought, and the hope and comfort and understanding that came with it.

Another archetypal element of the story is its king language, as we sing—’Christ the Lord, the newborn king.’ Because Jesus is a window to God—showing us what life could be like if God were king. It would be a kingdom of reversals, in which the proud are made humble and the lowly are lifted up. That’s why the gospel writer puts this speech into Mary’s mouth, words meant to remind the early church of the words of a prayer uttered by Hannah a thousand years earlier, recorded in I Samuel 2. In this kingdom of reversals, the Almighty God comes to us as a helpless, vulnerable baby, in order to reveal God’s self to us. It doesn’t matter to me whether Mary actually spoke the words before Jesus was even born. It does matter that this is the kingdom Jesus showed us.

Have you ever noticed that Christmas songs have their verb tenses all mixed up? One moment we’re singing about something in the past, and the next moment we’re singing about something happening in the present. Take ‘Joy to the World’, for example. We don’t sing, ‘Joy to the world, the Lord has come.’ We sing, ‘Joy to the world,’ ‘the Lord is come.’ Here, now, present tense.

We don’t sing, ‘O come, O come Emmanuel, that ransomed captive Israel, that mourned in lonely exile back there, until the Son of God appeared.’ We sing, ‘O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.’ And we are the captive Israel, in need of God’s coming to us.

We sing, ‘Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.’ It’s in the present tense, and uses the age-old images of sleep and darkness and longing and light.

Listen to the last verse: ‘O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.’ Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ now, because God’s kingdom of reversals is experienced by anyone who cradles his teachings in their heart.

What seems impossible can and does happen when God enters the picture. In this kingdom of reversals, people manage to love in spite of fear’to create justice in a world ruled by the Herods of power and greed and meanness. Things are not as they seem when God enters life. And at Christmas we sensible, modern, adult people have a hard time explaining the wonder of it. And so we sing Silent Night by candlelight; we stand in hushed awe at a baby’s manger bed.

Think back on that first Christmas, and every one since’what was true then is true now. God comes to us in the most straw-like mangers of our lives, in the stable of loneliness, poverty, depression and problems. God repeatedly comes to us in meager, humble circumstances, in which we are as vulnerable as babies. And miracle of miracles—hope and peace of mind are given, wherever hearts are willing to cradle him. That is the age-old truth in the archetypal symbols of this story. It is experienced in every generation—Christmas in the present tense. Thanks be to God.