"The Incarnation" December 24, 2013 Midnight

Luke 2: 1-20 Something happens to Christmas when we grow up, and stop believing. I am not talking about whether Reindeer fly or how Santa makes all the toys. As children, we accept knowing that there are things we do not know, we do not control. As children we may ask where Babies come from, without wanting to know anything about sex. As children we want everything, because we believe everything is possible, without any limitations. “Because Mom said so” is a legitimate answer when we are 2 - 10, but from 11 onward does not work. We know too much, we want too much to control and the exchange for control is trust, believing in what we cannot prove, cannot document, cannot ever know for certainty. Not knowing, not having answers, not controlling the future, mandates that we trust, that we believe! Lent, Holy Week, Easter, we can logically reason and accept. We may question IF a Savior would save us, we may question HOW atonement occurs, but the idea of suffering, the realization that we love because God loved us, we forgive because Christ died for us, seem to be knowable realities involving us through our acceptance. Christmas is different. Christmas is a gift. There is no return gift expected from us, the gift is not one we would know how to return, it matters not if we have a tree or stocking, if we were on the nice or naughty list because we know who and where we each are. GOD, ultimate Creator and Judge of time and space, God gives us the greatest gift of all. While miraculous, changing everything of culture and empire in human history, the gift is so simple. GOD became ONE with us. Like Pygmellean, the Creator recognized that the only way to correct the masterpiece, was for the artist to enter in and become a real part of the creation. That is what the Incarnation of Christmas is, that God is one with us. Consider with me, who the Almighty is? How God is different from us? What God would have to give to enter in and be one with us? Because that is the value of the gift beneath all the gift giving. Not to repay generosity with generosity, not to spend excessively, but to stop in holy sabbath to pray and consider who is God and the depth of God's love that no matter what: God chooses to be with us. Life would have been so much simpler, if God had not made us as we are. If like a Rock/Mountain we existed. If like the lake, our role in Creation was to be deep, to be a reservoir for others, home for fish. If we were like flowers or crops or animals whose function was to live and breed and die. BUT instead, God chose to make us to be able to LOVE God back. But of course love only works, is only real, if we are free to chose whether to love or not. The birth of Christ is not about our REDEMPTION. The birth is a gift of love from God, of God's self to us. That is INCARNATION, God changed God's way of being known to us, from the LAW of that time, to God becoming One with Us beginning “In those days”. Have you ever stopped to recognize the intricacies of time? We often complain about things coming at the wrong time. The great irony of Luke's Gospel is that there was no great Census at the time of the birth of Jesus. Luke is not writing History, the Evangelist was writing Theology, the difference being that there were several Censuses as the Caesars continually raised taxes, and this is set as a drama between the Empire of Rome where people must be counted to be assessed taxes and the Kingdom of God where you are known. But, “In Those Days,” identifies an amazing moment in human history. Because of the Diaspora, the great dispersion of Judaism throughout the world, because of the invasions of the Assyrians and Babylonians, Medes and Persians and Romans, Judaism was not confined to the Fertile Crescent of David's Kingdom. The Roman Empire brought Roads and City Governance, clean water and the transfer of sewage. For which the Roman Empire had required all people in their world to name “Caesar as LORD.” For decades they killed the Jewish people for refusing to do so, until Julius Caesar relented and allowed the Jewish people as the only people in the World to say YHWH is LORD and not say Caesar is Lord. When Julius Caesar was killed, the Empire was torn apart by Civil War, between Brutus, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, until finally 25 years later when Augustus Caesar enforced Peace through military dominance in the Pax Romana, for which Augustus was hailed as being The Prince of Peace. But as we said, while it was a new time, without Civil War, it was a fragile Peace, an Enforced Peace when Jesus was born, and from the Early Church on the Day of Pentecost until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Roman Empire did not and could not differentiate between Judaism and Christianity, so Christians began proclaiming “Jesus Christ is Lord” and Jesus is “Prince of Peace” during the only time in history in which this could have occurred and been spread throughout the world. A year ago, the Dalai Lama was asked whether he had Hope for the Future? He laughed responding “Of course I have hope! The future is not yet decided!” Is that what we all believe, or do we believe there is No Hope, as if the future has already been determined, that the fragmentation and divisions of our lives is permanent. Christmas is not about overcoming adversity, redeeming the lost, life after death Christmas is simply and purely about God acting in love, in hope and expectation, that maybe, possibly each and every human being on the face of this planet could still act to love. Today, I have had a series of phone calls and visits, from couples wanting to get married, wanting babies baptized, and looking for a church for Christmas. Sounds a lot like Mary and Joseph coming! Honestly, I think represents is a very natural request, that in the midst of our world, where we know every attack, we are informed of every Stock Market tick, we know too much of the world, too much of life. So we come to Christmas, wanting a Sepia-toned airbrushed image of a pristine Stable, aglow with radiant light coming from an unknown source. Because no matter how perfect, no matter how much we have, our lives are not sufficient unto ourself. We know there is something more we do not know, more than we expect. But we listen to Luke's narration, and the story is more earthy. The earthy part comes not only from the animals in a stable, but as any of us who have been present in Labor and Delivery can imagine, Mary as a young mother of 13 or 14 would have been petrified. Joseph would have seen himself a pawn of the world and overwhelmed. The Shepherds who were the first witnesses came not to see the Miracle of a Virgin Birth after-all the Caesars were top have been fostered by the Gods, but the scandal here was that God's Messiah would be born to a poor couple in a barn! So this Christmas, I would like to give you a gift that matters more than anything else. Thank you for sharing you! Our lives matter. Whether it is tucking in a child at night, or reading a bedtime story, making cookies, or visiting a neighbor, pioneering an idea to make others lives more comfortable, or believing that what we know is not all that there will be, your life matters.