"Christmas Eve Meditation: A Christmas Surprise"
December 24, 2006: Christmas Eve
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.unitedchurchonthegreen.org

Sermon:
And so the familiar cast is assembled once more: minister, choir, congregation, seasonal visitors, shepherds, angels, magi, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, all lying in a manger, just as we have been told... over and over and over again. What could be more familiar than Christmas? I know it's beautiful and all—very—but year after year, it's all the same: the same decorations, the same carols, the same old story. There's nothing surprising here. All the dramatic wrinkles have been ironed out in the rote retelling of it. Oh no! Mary and Joseph must travel to Bethlehem while she is "great with child"? Oh no! there's no room at the inn? Oh no! Herod doesn't really want to worship the child? We've heard it all before... many, many times. For all too many of us, it's simply one more holiday decoration—something inherited from our parents, perhaps, like that chipped ceramic Santa—something to be taken down out of the attic, dusted off, and displayed briefly—maybe even for just one night—before being mothballed for another year.

If that's the case, if there's nothing surprising about the Christmas story for you, then the church isn't doing its job very well. If somehow we've managed to domesticate the shepherds and angels and wise ones from far away, then I'm sorry—for you and for us. Because Christmas should be the most surprising story of all. Granted, some elements of the story remain painfully familiar some 2000 years later. Empires still sink their roots in foreign soil. Teenage girls still turn up pregnant, and are still subject to public disgrace. Governments still run roughshod over the rights of citizens. The poor are still treated less like persons than cattle. Political leaders still co-opt spiritual authority to shore up their own personal power. And religious institutions still sell their souls for a piece of the action. Of this we are all too certain.

But somewhere along the way, maybe, we threw the baby out with the bathwater. In the safety of our certainty, we may have lost sight of the surprise; after all, sweep aside the centuries of holly and ivy that have grown up around him, and it's still Jesus lying there at the heart of the story, lying in the manger. He is the surprise Christmas present whose delivery is meant to shock us—shock us back to life. This squirming, squealing little baby is the living sign that the Lord God Almighty, the power behind the universe, cares enough about peace, justice, and compassion here on earth to show up.

The good news which should be of great joy for all the people is that God doesn't stay high up and far away, like some politico surveying the scene of a disaster from the safety of a helicopter high above, but, in Jesus, God dwells among us, as one of us, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. The beating heart of the Gospel is that in Jesus, God shares our joys and concerns, our anxieties and our thanksgivings, because God loves the world—loves us, loves you—so very much.

In his poem, "Going to God with the Shepherds," William Countryman, an Episcopal priest and theologian, reminds us of the power of the Christmas story to take us by surprise, if only we're brave enough to let down our guard. He writes:

If you want to go to God, go without your certainties. Take your graces. Leave your certainties behind.
If you go looking for a Triangle inside a Trefoil inside a Conundrum, you'll miss the greatest sight of all: the Holy Trinity playing children's games on the lawns of heaven.
If you only look for the Madonna and Child, you'll walk right past Our Lady, laughing and telling stories with a group of friends.

The disciples knew not the Lord Jesus in his resurrection flesh. They were expecting someone else, someone they knew for certain.
And this was like, but was it he?
They knew him only when he handed them their bread

Go to God, then, taking in the hand of memory the silken light of a clear dawn after wet weather and say, with tears if need be, "You made this."
Take the name of your beloved and say, "You made him and in him you remade me."
Take the goodness of your life.
And take some moment of uncertain and life-giving hope, like an angel whispering or—sometimes—trumpeting in your ear.
These are your guides.

And so go with shepherds on their angelic quest.
Go to that hick town that David left as soon as he got the chance;
go to the stable, see what you never expected to see, the doors to God opening in that manger against all certainty.

And then return to find anew the tracks of grace: the beauty of men, the beauty of women, the delight of children, the running of a swift dog, the flight of birds, the sweetness of a pear, hands held in quiet.
If you want to go to God, leave your certainties behind.
But be sure to take your graces."

This Christmas, I invite you to dare to believe that there is more to this story, this faith, than you've been led to believe. Please, by all means, enjoy the familiar sights and sounds of this night. I know I do. But in the weeks ahead, I invite you to set some of your certainties aside and go to God with the shepherds.

Walk with us from here to Easter, from the cradle to the cross, and beyond, and see if God doesn't surprise you along the way. See if you don't "find anew the tracks of grace": the beauty of women and men, the delight of children, the wonder of creation, the miracle of love, the satisfaction of justice, the power of peace. See if you don't find the "doors to God opening in [the] manger, against all certainty." See if you don't find more than dusty familiarity, but new light from an old star and new life that really is life.