This is for you! A Christmas promise to shatter the darkness

Luke 2:1-20

“Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord!”

            The great thing about tonight is that I don’t need to preach—not really. I mean, everything tonight preaches itself. These are words that shatter the darkness where the shepherds are standing. Whatever I say is just pointing back at what angels have already given us. Then again, many who receive a great promise hear it suspiciously, as if it, like most things in life, are really too good to be true. Sometimes it’s not enough to hear the words; we have to actually believe and trust in them.

You see, the shepherds knew the words of the prophet Isaiah when he said, “You who stand in great darkness shall see a light” (Isa. 9:2), but who really thinks Isaiah meant that for them specifically? Which people actually believe they are the ones to whom God is speaking? Do any of us? Into a world of darkness comes this word: Tonight, a Savior is born for you! The reason I have to preach and the reason we need to do communion and light candles and all of this is because you need to hear these words tonight over and over again: this is for you. For every last one of you!

            We who stand in the darkness will see a light. There is a long history in the Bible with darkness. God created out of darkness. Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was wild and waste and darkness covered the face of the deep…” That’s where we always start: Sitting in darkness… waiting, watching.

            This has been our history: From the time before there were stars, before the sun, before the universe came—bang!—out of the mind of God into the reality we call “life.” This is the story we tell over and over again. Darkness versus light. Good versus evil. Dark is scary; it has a weight and a power to it. Deep darkness seems eternal, overwhelming, impossible to overcome. And, yet, the strongest darkness cannot match the tiniest flicker of light.

Mary knew

Luke 1:26-56

            This is the most wonderful time of year, isn’t it? Lights and presents and cookies and 20-below zero—hey, two of three ain’t bad!—and music! Christmas music! And Christmas music is a wonderful combination of all the best and the worst of all music. It’s the calm of “Silent Night” and the sweet ding-dong of “Carol of the Bells;” it’s the beautiful melodic canvasses painted by “Coventry Carol” and the joyful exuberance of “Jingle Bells.” It’s so much good stuff, and then it’s terrible songs like “Santa Baby” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—just go ahead and write off any song with “baby” in the title—and it’s other smarmy music that I’m not going to list because odds are some of you love it and that’s your own opinion, and, hey, we all like some terrible things.

            But there is one song that has to be mentioned on this Sunday where we read Mary’s Magnificat, because the Magnificat itself is so stupendous and timeless and bold. Whether it’s Marty Haugen’s version we’re about to sing, “My Soul Proclaims Your Greatness” or the “Canticle of the Turning” or many-a-Vespers service, Mary’s words have been put to music in many magnificent ways I suppose largely because the lyrics are so good. But there is a bad apple—a little song that some of you love because it’s beautiful and Pentatonix does a great version of it and it’s got a lovely melody and soaring bridge. It sounds lovely; it’s just that the words don’t add up. I’m talking, of course, about “Mary, Did You Know?”

            Now before you call me the Christmas Grinch that I undoubtedly am I just have to point out one little detail that jumps off the page from the first chapter of Luke every time I hear this song. “Mary knew!” If anyone in the Gospels knew who Jesus was it was Mary. She might be the only one but gosh darn she knew! She got it. Her song is a testimony to a revolution that she sees coming even when others are burying their heads in the sand.

The End of the Revolving Door

Joel 2:12-13, 28-29

            I just can’t believe in a God who… fill in the blank. We’ve all heard this. Somedays we probably think it. I just can’t believe in a God who…

            Of all the hard questions I get the toughest is the question of God and evil. It comes in many forms—the ones I just mentioned, “I just can’t believe in this kind of God…” or “But what kind of God allows this,” or just “Why?”

This feels apropos for the book of Joel, because Joel begins with lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and it’s fairly clear for Joel, as it was for all the prophets, that the “why?” of death and destruction is the peoples’ sinfulness. The people went astray. God punished them. That is evil explained for the Old Testament. This is the revolving door of history before Christ.

            Joel’s solution is that the people return to the Lord. Once they do that God will pour out his spirit on them and all, apparently, will be well in the world. This sounds great, in theory, but for those of us who’ve read the Old Testament you know it never seems to work out for long. The people chosen by God do eventually repent. They return to the Lord. But, before long, they turn again to their golden calves; they do what is evil in the sight of the Lord; they will forget the one who brought them out of the Promised Land. And so the revolving door continues. Evil, it seems, is very persistent.

            This kind of repentance-blessing, sin-punishment cycle runs its course while the chosen people are in exile. The prophets start to look for a different answer; a more permanent one. The old system just doesn’t work. East of Eden, people do not stay faithful. The expectations of the law are too much; they have short-memories and ravenous appetites. The chosen people and the unchosen people alike seem one and the same—sinful, through and through, capable of repentance, capable of returning to the Lord, their God, but ultimately bound for disappointment. What good is a spirit poured out that is dependent on our response when we inevitably fall short of God’s expectations for us? It is our flaw, born from our freedom that we stole from that tree in the Garden of Eden.