December 18, 2011 "Nothing is Impossible (For God with Us)"

2nd Samuel 7:1-11
Luke 1:26-38
Earlier this week, someone stopped me to say, “You better be planning something really spectacular for Christmas! We usually have a big family dinner with all the relatives, we sing carols, and tell stories as we eat Christmas cookies staying up late, then we go to bed and get up before dawn to open our presents to one another, before we have a huge breakfast. And you want us to change our tradition, by coming to Church both Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning! All I can say is, you better be planning on doing something really different.”
The Word of God becoming Flesh and blood, the birth of God, the coming of the Savior of the World, somehow just does not stack up against our snicker-doodles and rum-balls.

This passage from 2 Samuel 7 is a wonderful word for us at this beginning of the 4th week of Advent. For this Word brings together all the dangling threads of promise that went before, and establishes everything that will come after. Since Genesis 12, we have followed stories of God's promise to a family, that Abraham's children would be a great Nation, would live in comfort and peace in a land flowing with milk and honey. Since the Exodus presentation of the Law and Commandments to Moses, we have followed the movements of the Ark leading in battle, resting only momentarily within the Tent of Meeting. And not since Cain and his brother Abel, have we had a Man who wanted to DO FOR God. In the case of Adam's sons, to each make offerings for God which led to Cain killing Abel; in this case, King David dwelling in peace, given rest from all his enemies, living in the luxury of palaces, wanting to build a house of cedar and gold for God, that will lead to his killing Bathsheba's husband. As Handel's Messiah described “The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed, because the Mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Not, we are a people who have dwelt in peace and prosperity, wanting to experience greater and greater spectacles, so show us the glory of the Lord!

How curious that King David, ruler over the greatest most powerful nation on Earth, would seek advice from the prophet Nathan. In our Nation's Capital, there is a role for Chaplain of the Senate, who prays in the beginning of the meetings, but when it comes to decision making and policy, the Cabinet are composed of Political, Financial and Military advisors. I wonder what would have happened if in the course of these long years of wars in Muslim nations, our leadership had sought the advice and counsel of American Muslim Clerics, Jewish Rabbis, Priests and Pastors.

We have to question, what Nathan did not that day. Why does the Great King desire to build a palace for God? Is it purely out of faith, or is it to be seen as being devoted, that David would be remembered as having built The Palace for God? What God reminds Nathan in the night, is that God is the prime actor, and being created in the image of God, we respond and react to God. When we try to be the prime movers, when we define who God is and where God is allowed to be in our lives, we try to make ourselves God. Perhaps, part of the message of this passage is why we need to give the gifts we do this Christmas? Is it as response to the other being in our lives; or is it to be seen as being generous, as ignoring the reality of the economy?

I remember one Christmas long ago... after years of having a Lionel train circle round the tree and presents, neighbors with lights making their houses glow, my brothers and I thought it would be exciting and different if we created a tree-stand that would rotate. More even than the tree, we fashioned a plywood base on which the tree and presents could be placed. In this way, we could stay still and Christmas would spin round and round, showing all the beauty of all the ornaments, and bringing the presents to us. We wired the lights to the stand, and the stand was connected to a rheostat dimmer. When the tree was decorated, we flipped the switch and those large egg shaped colored electric lights began to glow, then we turned the dial and the tree and platform began to move. After three revolutions, we turned the dimmer down, confident all was prepared. Christmas morning, we returned from church, with snow on the ground and the smell of coffee in the air, we came into the living room as the sparkling tree and stacks of presents slowly spun in the middle of the room, but as the dimmer warmed up, the tree began spinning faster and faster and faster, ornaments began flying off the branches as Christmas was out of control. Quietly, calmly, Mother went to the wall outlet and unplugged the tree, which slowed and stopped, bringing Christmas to quiet.

Mothers have a way of quieting things, centering. Mary is described in Latin as THEO-TOKIS the one who bears God. Overtime, this became one of the great schisms between the Protestant Churches and the Roman Catholic. Whether Mary was a simple common woman, as the God-Bearer,Theo-tokis or whether Mary was to be revered as being like-God? The point of the Magnificat, is not to venerate the Virgin, but to realize that Nothing is Impossible for God, not even that a common, simple girl could be the mother of the savior of the world, or that we like her could also present God to the world.

Mary gets what the Prophet Nathan, and David the Great King of Israel, both had forgotten. Mary did not volunteer, saying: “Hey God, I am financially secure and ready in my career to have a Baby!” or “I am going to have a baby, and I want him to be the Messiah!” No, but when God acted, when God sought out Mary, saying you have found favor, God has appointed that you bear God's son, who in this way will be fully Human and fully Divine, Mary responded “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord, let it be to me, according to The Word of God.”

The wonder of these passages, is that no matter what, Nothing is Impossible for God...
not that God could make a Father, and lineage out of a man like David;
not that a virgin could give birth, nor even that God could become human through a common person, nor that any of us could be servants of God, Theo-tokis, bearers of God to the world!
The words of affirmation have become a colloquialism, so common to us that we forget the meaning: “You shall call his name Emmanuel,” this is the greatest impossibility of all, that God would be One with us! Rather than Pygmalian's myth of an Artist making a statue so lifelike that it comes to life and becomes real... that The Creator, the author of Life, the Almighty, the Artist of Reality, should choose to enter into Creation and become vulnerable, become human, even forgive the world for all our sins. But that is the real power of forgiveness... Forgiveness is not forgetting what took place, letting the other go. Forgiveness is the realization that the division between us is causing great pain and suffering. Hearing this word tis morning, that not of our own volition, not because we are so comfortable or powerful that we choose to, BUT instead, in response to God, we see ourselves in the role of bringing God to others by our forgiveness.