« Friday, December 25, 2009 Bulletin | Main | Sunday, December 27, 2009 Bulletin »
December 25, 2009
“A Question for the Shepherds”
Luke 2: 8-20
Christmas Day 2009
Last night I suggested that we go back in time and join the Shepherds who visited Jesus some 2015 years ago. I wish we could really do that because I have a question I would like to ask the Shepherds. My question would be this: Which of the following two occasions seemed more holy to you: The moments you saw and heard the angels sing? Or the moments you were in the stable with the baby? Since the shepherds aren’t here to hear me, I will give you a little inside information: It’s a trick question. But I think you may have already figured that out.
Now if I had asked which was the most awe-inspiring or the most obviously overwhelming, the answer would probably be different. It is obvious that being serenaded by a multitude of angels who bathed the night-scene in their brilliant God-given light would be an experience that would in many ways eclipse all others.
After all, only a few humans have ever seen single angels that were recognized as such, even fewer have been privileged to hear multitudes of Angels sing or chant God’s praises.
But as you remember, the question I would have asked the angels had nothing to do with visible glory or overwhelming sensory experiences. I would have asked which moment was the most Holy. And there can only be one answer. When they were in the stable gazing upon the baby in the unfortunate circumstance of being in an animal feeding trough, they were in the very presence of the Almighty God, the ruler and creator of the angels.
The angels were more visibly and audibly noticeable and overwhelming, but the baby was God. Not only was he God, but he was God who had combined his being with Humanity. He was fully human and fully divine. How Mysterious and Holy is that?
I know that it is Christmas morning and most of you are too tired or too excited to do any mental gymnastics, and so am I. So there are no tricky theological concepts coming your way from me this morning. I just want you to think about Jesus’ appearance that morning and during most of his earthly life. There was nothing visibly or audibly splendid about him. I would suggest that the Spirit whom the resurrected Jesus sent our way is quite similar to the Jesus who was born and lived on this earth. Neither the Son nor the Spirit are showy or visibly or audibly overwhelming for the most part, but they are certainly Holy since they are God.
I think the Christmas event being in a stable is a clue as to how God normally comes to us and lives with us. His holiness is not overwhelming nor overt and especially not showy. But it is holy and pure and powerful.
The manger scene is not only a description of an event that occurred when God came into our world as Jesus. It is a lesson that the Holy presence of God often comes to us under the guise of the quite ordinary and mundane.
My Christmas wish for all of us this morning is that we might be more able to discern the working and the presence of the Holy and Mighty God in the ordinary and even mundane events and people God brings into our lives for the remainder of our lives. That we might be more aware of Emmanuel, God being with us.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at December 25, 2009 10:59 AM