A number of years ago, the children of a church were being organized into their annual Christmas pageant. Everyone had been assigned a role—as a shepherd, a wise man, an angel, Mary and Joseph. And the newest little baby born in the congregation that year was staring in the title role of the Baby Jesus.
But one little girl had been assigned the role of the innkeeper and she was not happy about it at all. She did not want to have to be the one to turn Mary and Joseph away. She memorized her line all right, but she continued to stew about it. When the night of the performance came, she stepped forward and declaimed—loudly and clearly—with just a touch of defiance in her proud little voice that only her parents detected at first, she said: “I’m sorry, but there’s no room for you here in the inn tonight. But wouldn’t you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”
What a delight to welcome you all in tonight for a cup of coffee of sorts. To invite you into these beautiful moments of holy awe and reverence. To invite you into this safe and luminous space for silence and reflection, into this trusted and trusting place, where you can open your heart, and know again that God’s intent for us and for the whole creation is “love.”
There’s a wonderful story about a little boy and his dad on the boy’s first visit to the Grand Canyon in Northern Arizona. That deep gorge, formed over time by the powerful Colorado River, is a mile deep at points, spanning some 277 miles of gorgeous peaks, cliffs, canyons, ravines and layers of rock telling the story of a hundred million years of earth’s history. On the sides of the cliffs, you can still see Pueblo and cliff-dweller ruins. Called one of the most awe-inspiring of the Earth’s wonders, it is rightly called “the Grand Canyon” and once you’ve seen it, you’re not likely to ever forget the sight.
The dad had taken his son to see it for the first time. Standing at the edge, holding his dad’s hand tightly, looking all around, trying to take it all in, the boy finally exclaimed: “Dad, something must have happened here!”
Might we not say the same sort of awe and wonder draw us here this night? You know, a stranger to all this happening to drive by, or maybe an alien from another planet, might observe us all filling the sanctuary so late on this night, lights aglow, faces full of joy and hope and wonder “something must have happened here!”
Indeed! Something has happened. Something is happening. Something so wondrous and beautiful and mysterious and compelling that we return again and again, or we dare to step across that threshold tonight for the first time, to see for ourselves, to hear again the ancient and ever-new story of the birth of Jesus Christ.
No matter who we are this night, how we come, how we’re feeling—it’s all here for each of us. The wonder of this night. The promise. The hope. The beauty. The joy. The saving grace of Christmas. Something is happening—and it’s here for us all—for those of us who are happy and joyous and for whom this is a perfect Christmas with loved ones gathered ‘round and presents under the tree. For those of us who are aching and sad, grieving the loss of a precious one, lonely this night. For those of us who aren’t quite sure why we’re here, except that we couldn’t be anywhere else. For those of us who just hope for another chance, a new beginning, a bright tomorrow—for each of us and all of us Christ is born this night. Something is happening!
In the glistening silence, Christ is born. In the carved out and worn-down desert places of our hearts, Christ is born. In our hopes and in our fears, Christ is born. In our eagerness and in our longing, Christ is born.
One dark night, a very long time ago, a young couple, Joseph and Mary, were required to travel a great distance to pay their taxes. Can you imagine? Now it’s just a matter of getting our returns in the mail in time. But then it meant a journey. And on the way it came time for the baby to be born. In the little stable next to that inn with its “No Vacancy” sign out, the animals shared their warmth and their love. The shepherds on the hillside heard angels—imagine that—angels singing in the night sky—and somehow in that moment all creation knew that something very special was taking place, something almost unthinkable, something so wondrous, so miraculous would happen—that God, the awesome, Creator God, would come as one of us, to be with us. That God would put flesh and bones on the Word, on God’s very self, all for us. So that we could know and see and hear and touch that very Word in the baby born that night. God made love incarnate in that little baby so that we would know God’s great love for each of us.
There is an awesome, a fearsome wonder in this night, when the angels bend low to touch their harps of gold, when heaven and earth come so close that they touch. In Michaelangelo’s great painting of creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, those fingertips stretch out, God reaching out to us. But on this night, our fingertips actually touch the very fingertips of God. The stars are bright and the angels sing and somewhere, deep down in our hearts, we find ourselves in holy space, holy time. And there is not much that words can say, because the mystery and the truth of it all swallow us up in joy. And no matter what, we know that there is for us, for each of us, a great gift of new birth that can carry us past all our sorrows, all our failings, all our doubts, all our fears, to a bright place of light and peace.
So tonight, through the streets we come, in the light of the full moon we come, into the beauty of this sanctuary, into the music and the silence, into the laughter and the prayer, into the singing and the speaking, into the listening and the hearing, and somehow we know, deep down that God is God. Somehow we know that truth will prevail. Somehow we know that peace is God’s intent for this world. Somehow we know that love has the final word. Somehow we know that all will be well.
Oh, I know that some of you out there are a little skeptical. Maybe even a little bit very skeptical. And you’ve got your reasons. And they’re good reasons and you’re ticking them off right now in your heads. Yeah but this, yeah but that. Preacher: if you only knew the day I’ve had, the week I’ve had, the year I’ve had…And all those things are quite very real. They’re part of that darkness John talks about. In some measure, we are those very people who sit in darkness….
There are very good reasons in this world and in our lives to be skeptical about all of this. There isn’t much evidence, is there, that peace and love will have the last word? There isn’t much news that sounds very good to us. It’s all the same old, same old. Death and taxes, just like for Mary and Joseph after all. War and rumors of wars. A time to live and a time to die, as the old preacher, Ecclesiastes put it. And if you’ve lived very long, you’ve seen it all. And here those voices come, tonight, speaking up in your head. Yeah but this, yeah but that. Even as we come this night, there is some of that darkness in us.
Maybe that’s precisely why we come. Needing to hear the story again, like a child wanting to hear the very same story, “don’t-change-one-word-of-it.” Christ is born. Christ is born! The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a savior is given. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace. Unto us a child is born.
Maybe we’re here tonight because we think we need to act skeptical, but in our heart of hearts, we want to be reassured that all this is quite true. Did you know that under our practical crusty old exteriors, 8 out of 10 of us Americans believe in miracles, the pollsters report? We believe that things can happen that we cannot easily explain. We believe that we ourselves have known moments of healing and forgiveness and reconciliation that can only be described as miraculous! We believe that God’s love for us is so strong and so insistent and so deep that God would come down at Christmas to love us and save us and heal us and set us free.
That’s maybe the greatest miracle of this night, this time and space, these few reverent moments when we can dare to open our hearts and know for sure that God’s intent for us and for the whole creation is love. Each Christmas, you know, someone looks up from prayer, and in the darkness, in the candlelight, a miracle happens. “A cynical and abused heart is healed. Someone is touched by a distant truth and goes home to reconcile with a loved one, or reconnects a broken friendship, or shows a little love in spite of him or herself.” Someone looks up and out beyond self to remember the nearly 10,000 babies who will be born around the world as we worship this night along with the Baby Jesus, so many of whom need our commitment and our love. A heart is opened and arms stretch wide. Another miracle happens.
It’s Christmas and something is happening here. For each of us just needing a few moments of rest and renewal, something is happening here this night. For each of us needing healing and hope, something is happening here this night. For each of us who seek more from this life and for this world, each of us who believe in miracles, who perceive an alternate reality greater than human reason can ascertain, something is happening here this night. For each of us who dream a new heaven and a new earth, something is happening here this night.
That something is God’s gift of new possibility, of delight, of dignity, of healing and hope in our savior, Jesus Christ.
May Christ bless you this night. May his birth among us renew your hope. May his incarnation transform the world with peace. And may the miracle of his abiding love fill you with great joy. Amen.
Notes:
Bass Mitchell, “”Something Must Have Happened Here”
Melvin E. Wheatley, Jr., Christmas is for Celebrating. Nashville: The Upper Room, 1977.
Bill Tully, “The saving grace of Christmas”, Crossroads, St. Bartholomew’s Church, December 2007.
ReligionLink, December 3, 2007. “Modern miracles: belief endures.”
Edward L. Beck, Unlikely Ways Home: Real Life Spiritual Detours. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
And inspiration from “Where Peace and Love and Hope Abide: Christmas at St. Olaf, 2007,” broadcast on KCET.
©Patricia Farris, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
"Something's Happening Here"