For a couple of reasons... this is a hard Sunday to get up for...
First... there is collective sense of “The day after the party”.
Whatever hopes and dreams and thoughts and expectations we heaped onto the Christmas event... well... it’s over... it’s the day after. Whether Christmas was what you thought it was going to be... whether you got all the toys you wanted or not... whether you are content and fulfilled, or left disappointed and longing for more... it’s now the next day.
And I for one would like to have had today off to sit and reflect on what just happened. (Like so many of us are doing now?).
But... life keeps rolling along... the kids woke up... had to feed my relatives... real life doesn’t wait on an event. Hospitals are still open and busy... soldiers are still firing weapons... families and people are still facing the reality of poverty and the whole Eastern Seaboard prepares to be slammed by another winter storm.
---
I would like to move back a day... to remember the events in the stable and live their for awhile. Oh sure... it’s shocking to think of the baby born in a stable... the initial smell of any barn takes some getting used to... but the hay is soft... fresh milk from the cow... the heat from the animals keeps it nice and warm... and if we are to believe the song “Away in a Manger” we’ve got a perfect child here... “no crying he makes.”
And then the lectionary burst the bubble. And before we’ve even had a chance to fully digest the festive Christmas meal, the story gets all too real and takes an all too familiar human twist.
Herod... threatened and afraid for his own power... his own throne.
And Herod does what all political power does when it’s threatened and afraid... he lashes out... and we get the story of the slaughter of innocent children. The senseless massacre. The story of Jesus becoming a refugee and fleeing the country. The story of vain attempts to maintain power through force.
And as the Christ child is whisked away to safety in Egypt, we are left with all the questions that such atrocities leave.
---
And I won’t list the massacres through time since then... I won’t list the wars that are going on now... I don’t need too... I know that the horrific realities of death and war are in the experience of some of us... and you would have to be living under a rock to not be aware of just how brutal humans can be to each other.
Questions of human suffering and brutality take centre stage... but today... let it be enough to know that it is into this real brutality... it is into this real chaos... it is into the real world... that the Christ is born. A thread of salvation begins and windes itself into the brutal reality that is life.
---
If the story read like dream where a perfect child is born and perfect people take care of him and no hardship ever befell him... well... it would only be a dream... it would not be real.
The story of God being born into human flesh is one that squarely takes on all the realities of human selfishness, human uncertainty, and human sin. The story of God born into human flesh takes on death... and defeats death... and offers a new way to be... gives a new promise of God’s faithfulness to all people. God does not abandon, by intimately windes himself in - God wades into the chaos..
The reality of suffering doesn’t just disappear. We still get to make choices so there will still be wars and those who are without... and this reality will be central to Jesus struggle. Jesus brings in a new Kingdom and new way to be that we don’t fully realize... And Jesus will die...
But Jesus IS the redeemer... the one who has made new promises to save... to be with us in all things not matter how brutal and harsh...
Wound intimately into us, Christ promises to be with, and to draw us in.
And God does all this through a life that begins as a fragile baby...
In the refugee Jesus, Christ is with us... Christ is working to save.
Amen.
First... there is collective sense of “The day after the party”.
Whatever hopes and dreams and thoughts and expectations we heaped onto the Christmas event... well... it’s over... it’s the day after. Whether Christmas was what you thought it was going to be... whether you got all the toys you wanted or not... whether you are content and fulfilled, or left disappointed and longing for more... it’s now the next day.
And I for one would like to have had today off to sit and reflect on what just happened. (Like so many of us are doing now?).
But... life keeps rolling along... the kids woke up... had to feed my relatives... real life doesn’t wait on an event. Hospitals are still open and busy... soldiers are still firing weapons... families and people are still facing the reality of poverty and the whole Eastern Seaboard prepares to be slammed by another winter storm.
---
I would like to move back a day... to remember the events in the stable and live their for awhile. Oh sure... it’s shocking to think of the baby born in a stable... the initial smell of any barn takes some getting used to... but the hay is soft... fresh milk from the cow... the heat from the animals keeps it nice and warm... and if we are to believe the song “Away in a Manger” we’ve got a perfect child here... “no crying he makes.”
And then the lectionary burst the bubble. And before we’ve even had a chance to fully digest the festive Christmas meal, the story gets all too real and takes an all too familiar human twist.
Herod... threatened and afraid for his own power... his own throne.
And Herod does what all political power does when it’s threatened and afraid... he lashes out... and we get the story of the slaughter of innocent children. The senseless massacre. The story of Jesus becoming a refugee and fleeing the country. The story of vain attempts to maintain power through force.
And as the Christ child is whisked away to safety in Egypt, we are left with all the questions that such atrocities leave.
---
And I won’t list the massacres through time since then... I won’t list the wars that are going on now... I don’t need too... I know that the horrific realities of death and war are in the experience of some of us... and you would have to be living under a rock to not be aware of just how brutal humans can be to each other.
Questions of human suffering and brutality take centre stage... but today... let it be enough to know that it is into this real brutality... it is into this real chaos... it is into the real world... that the Christ is born. A thread of salvation begins and windes itself into the brutal reality that is life.
---
If the story read like dream where a perfect child is born and perfect people take care of him and no hardship ever befell him... well... it would only be a dream... it would not be real.
The story of God being born into human flesh is one that squarely takes on all the realities of human selfishness, human uncertainty, and human sin. The story of God born into human flesh takes on death... and defeats death... and offers a new way to be... gives a new promise of God’s faithfulness to all people. God does not abandon, by intimately windes himself in - God wades into the chaos..
The reality of suffering doesn’t just disappear. We still get to make choices so there will still be wars and those who are without... and this reality will be central to Jesus struggle. Jesus brings in a new Kingdom and new way to be that we don’t fully realize... And Jesus will die...
But Jesus IS the redeemer... the one who has made new promises to save... to be with us in all things not matter how brutal and harsh...
Wound intimately into us, Christ promises to be with, and to draw us in.
And God does all this through a life that begins as a fragile baby...
In the refugee Jesus, Christ is with us... Christ is working to save.
Amen.
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