"Impossible Is What You Will Not Do", Christmas Eve Midnight

Isaiah 9:2-7 Luke 20: 1-20 Of all the worship services of all the year, this is my favorite. Some pastors dread it, assuming that those attending are doing so out of obligation, but I love this night because we know those who have been out in the world, away at college, in war, those who married and began their careers come home, juggling the realities they know, with what they were taught to believe. Coming home, knowing in experience that life is not as easy as we thought. Moving away from this little village, living in love until death us do part, is not what we thought. More than all the Sundays when we have “Given” texts to preach upon some more obscure than others, this night everyone knows the story, we have heard it since before we were two, before we could walk, or talk, before we knew a Manger was a feed trough WE KNEW THIS WAS JESUS CRADLE. And those who have passed these stories to us from Matthew and from Luke, knew also, that the one who came to be born in a stable was the One WHO WOULD DIE ON THE CROSS. So this is not the pajamas story, but wrestling with making meaning of life and reality. 2012 is a difficult Christmas, as hard as many have been this one even more so. For first there was FEAR, in the wake of RECESSION, Government stalemates and partisan bickering, an ECONOMY headed for the cliff, The ARAB SPRING which still is settling out as SYRIA's leadership is killing its own citizens. Then Super-storm SANDY, followed by SANDYHOOK ELEMENTARY. The description of being a people who have lived in darkness and fear, seems only too appropriate. That passage from Isaiah is about the past is over and gone, living in fear, in darkness, in blood is over. FOR unto us a child is born. The simple story shared this night is a story of hope, a story of the IMPOSSIBLE being REAL. This is a story never before portrayed, and never repeated. That God, the Creator of TIME & SPACE, would become Mortal, become human. That truly God so loved the world that God sent God's Only Begotten Son. A Gift, an unwarranted, undeserved, unexpected, even Rejected Gift, of an innocent baby, who IS GOD AMONG US, Emmanuel. Since the Reformation there has been a pendulum of human acceptance of the DUAL NATURE OF CHRIST. At times the Church, the World both emphasized Christ's Divinity, that this Jesus was HOLY and Pure. At times the Church emphasized the Humanity of Jesus, as being just like all of us with Temptations, with fears and suffering. Recently, I saw the Film LINCOLN, if you have not seen it, I would highly recommend. It focuses upon the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the question of whether All PEOPLE are Equal Equal to one another, Equal Under the Law, With the Same Inalienable Rights. Equality was the issue of Slavery. Equality was the Issue of Women's Suffrage. Equality was the issue of Child Labor. Equality was the Issue of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Equality has been the Issue of Women's Rights. Equality continues to be the issue which divides us and causes us to struggle, struggle with whether equality can be and must be legislated, or whether equality can be granted by us all in relationship. Witnessing this, it made me recall a verse from Philippians 2 “HE DID NOT CLAIM EQUALITY WITH GOD A THING TO BE GRASPED he poured out his divinity, taking the form of a Servant and was made Man.” Suddenly it occurred to me, that that is the crux of where we are today. Not only whether we are equal with every other person, or even just a little more equal than everyone else, but we live in a world where it is possible to believe, to desire to be Equal with God. We want to be able to determine how we shall live, whom we shall love, what we will become, when we will have children, when we die, how we feel. All the Powers of God over us. And yet, that passage names that Jesus, who could have Claimed Equality With God DID NOT! Instead, God chose to be ONE with us. That there is something about the human experience, the experience of life and love and death and after-death, that is uniquely human and precious unto God. I BELIEVE that in EVERY sense the IMPOSSIBLE has BECOME POSSIBLE for us. The Only distinction between what is Impossible and what is possible is what we are unwilling to do. BUT still the question of The Savior is CAN WE CHOOSE to not claim equality with God, Can we intentionally choose to take the role of The Servant? When everything is possible, limited only by what we will not do, what limits what we will do and what we will not not do? Instead of claiming some tasks are too menial, that we are not being treated equal, that we choose instead to risk and to serve.