Life Begins in the Water

Genesis 1:1-5 / Mark 1:4-11

Baptism of the Lord

January 11, 2015

William G. Carter

We will spend a lot of time in the Gospel of Mark this year. Mark has no time for Christmas. He speaks of no manger, no shepherds, no angels singing the Christmas tidings. The little town of Bethlehem is never mentioned in the Gospel of Mark. No, Mark is in a hurry. Immediately he wants to get to the work of Jesus in the world.

I realize this is abrupt for a lot of people, especially if they have not yet taken down the Christmas tree. Ours went out on Friday. The ornaments went in their boxes for another year. Truth be told, the electric candles are still in the windows and there are two crèche scenes that we keep out all year around.

But Mark will have none of it. For him, the story of Jesus begins in the Jordan River, as the Lord comes forward to be baptized. We don’t know what Jesus has been doing before then. Mark doesn’t say very much. He says Jesus comes from Nazareth, a town up in the hill country. In chapter three, he tells us Jesus had a mother and some brothers. In chapter six, Jesus goes back to preach in his home town and the people say, “Where did this woodcutter get all of this?” That’s all that Mark tells us about the back story of Jesus. As far as Mark is concerned, the life of Jesus begins in the water.

There is a strange prophet out there. You will remember his name was John. He worked along the river, probably just a few miles north of the Dead Sea. It’s the lowest point on the earth, 1407 feet below sea level. The desert is extreme. The air is as dry as a bone, and John was working by a stream in the desert. He yelled at the snakes and welcomed the sinners.

Everybody who came to John had the past purged away with the offer of a new beginning. “The Powerful One is coming,” John promises. On the very first day of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus comes to put John out of business. There will be no further need to announce the Messiah is coming some day, when it is the day when he shows up.

Mark portrays a dramatic scene. He doesn’t say Jesus had any sins to confess, but he does make it clear there is a new beginning. As Jesus stands up again in the river, the sky is ripped apart like an old cloth. The Spirit comes down on him like a pure white dove. And a Voice booms out with a couple of quotes from the Bible. Psalm 2: “You are my Son.” Isaiah 42: “I am pleased with you.” Just as quickly, the whole thing is over.

There is no lingering by the river. It’s time for Jesus to get to work. For the next fifteen chapters, Jesus will hardly sit down. There are broken people out there who need to be healed. There are hungry souls who must be fed. There are those out there who believe themselves to be so privileged that they has stopped listening for God, and Jesus will speak generously to them, like a sower hurling seed all around a rocky field.

Mark has it right: Jesus begins in the water. And he keeps at it.

One of the difficulties of being the kind of church that baptizes babies is that some of those babies never grow up in their faith. I tried to think of a nicer way to say it, but I will leave it like that. The reasons for infant baptism are based in scripture. Just as the Jewish baby boy has no say in being circumcised as a member of God’s Tribe, parents of the Christian flock can declare their children will be raised in the covenant of Christ. Baptism is when the journey begins. But it doesn’t stop there. A simple drive-by splash and dash won’t do the trick. We have a God who grabs us by the shoulders and says, “Grow up! You’ve been baptized. Start paying attention and grow up.”

It’s like the story Will Willimon tells. When he was a United Methodist pastor in South Carolina, he says he got tired of long-time Methodists who sneaked off to neighborhood revival services and suddenly came back saved. He had a hunch some of them were merely falling for old-time showmanship and emotional manipulation. That’s not real faith, he said. It has no root system. It has no real depth. It will not last.

But his real scorn was for the guy who said to him, “I was a faithful Methodist for thirty-eight years. I showed up every week, sang in the choir, wrote a lot of generous donations, went to Bible study. But then I found Jesus and nothing else mattered.” Pastor Will said, “Henry, what do you think we were trying to get through your thick skull for those thirty-eight years?”

The Christian life doesn’t always neatly divide into “before” and “after.” Not if we have a God who rips open the heavens, comes down in the Spirit, and keeps speaking in the words of scripture. Certainly there is a beginning point in every person’s faith, but God is so sneaky that we might not notice when faith actually begins. And remember, too, that God is involved in the whole journey, not only in the moments when we wake up to see his hand, but in the long years of preparation and waiting, and in the long years of confirming our faith by the way we live our lives.

I’ve told some of you about my baptism. I hope you do the research to learn something about your own. I was baptized at thirteen months of age. I have always been a late bloomer. My parents had moved into a new town, Mom was three months pregnant with my sister, and they phone up the minister at North Springfield Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio. It was close to the trailer park where they were living. The minister said, “Come and meet with me about thirty minutes before the worship service.”

When they got there, three other couples were there, each with a little baby boy. The minister handed out an information form to each. That’s when my dad realized he had never actually been baptized, so the preacher went to the restroom, got some water in a small bowl, and baptized him in the church office before the service. “First things first,” he said. That’s how my father and I came to be baptized on the same day.

Neither one of us knew what would come after that. Certainly it continues to be quite a ride. I was raised in a family that went to church every Sunday. Faith didn’t all click right away, because it never does. I fidgeted through worship services, and endured church school classes led by good-hearted people who read the lessons off the page. I went to youth group gatherings to see pretty girls, and stayed up so late on teenager retreats that I fell asleep in those emotionally charged moments when the leaders gave the sales pitch for Jesus. Yet the Lord got through. I must have sat through a few thousand sermons as a kid, and I started to understand a couple of them. See, that’s my promise to you. Just keep showing up!

A lot of us have been on the long trail. For others, it's still awkward and new. When I survey my Christian life, I see it began in the water of baptism. That was when my conversion began, a conversion that is pretty much still going on. I mean nothing spooky by that. For me, conversion is nothing less, and nothing more, than the clear and growing certainty that we belong to God and we are doing what he is doing in the world. Jesus began by teaching, healing, feeding, serving, and inviting others like us to join him. As we join him, we have the growing conviction that we belong to him, that we are part of something really big.

This “something” is what Mark calls “the kingdom.” God’s kingdom is not a single geographic place. It’s a condition of the heart and mind of those who call him King. In the baptism of Jesus, God has somehow torn open the heavens and come down here. Jesus, the Christ, is offering all of us something different, something new – and God is ruling over all of it.  

It’s something like the annual invitation at New Year’s Day: cast off the old, embrace the new. We’ve had enough of the tired old destructions of the world. Let’s try it as God wants it to be.

Or as my very first middle school teacher addressed our new class, “No one in your new school needs to know you were a horrible kid when you were in elementary school; now you can behave like a brand new kid.” It was a liberating invitation. A new beginning. Christ is the Beloved Son of heaven, right down here. In time, there will be a whole new dominion over earth, and all of it will belong to God.

For the Christian, life begins in the water, the shocking yet comforting water of baptism. We baptize because God has come to us in Jesus Christ. Everything is different because of him. It is God’s turn to rule over earth as he does in heaven. We have had enough of the old ways of evil. God’s kingdom says it’s time for something new. It’s time for something so holy that it makes a difference in  the world.

I will long remember what one of the crazy uncles said at a baptism party that I attended one Sunday afternoon. He got it right. The pews had been full that morning. People buzzed about the baby’s dress. Now all the romantic members of the family were in the living room, opening her presents, and gushing over the gifts. The guest of honor, the little girl who had been baptized, was tuckered out. She fell asleep in the high chair.

There are yellow balloons and the remnants of a big cake. It’s a big social occasion. The neighbors are there. Among the sandwich platters and the sherbet punch, the little girl’s crazy uncle wanders up for another piece of salami. He hears some relatives cooing over the gifts, sees the little girl snoozing in her chair with chocolate icing on her chin.

So he goes up to the child and says in a loud enough voice: “Don’t ever forget what we did to you today. We commissioned you to fight the Devil.”

Conversation came to an immediate halt. The socialites looked like they were splashed with ice cold water.

With that, the uncle punctured their silence and spoke again to the little baptizee: “And when you fight the Devil, don’t be afraid. Jesus is on your side. He was baptized before you.”

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Homecoming

Jeremiah 31:7-14

John 1:1-18

Christmas 2

January 4, 2014

For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, “Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.” See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

The book of Jeremiah is a very complex book. It is a collection of the prophet's speeches, some of them written by a scribe, others of them remembered by Israel. The book doesn’t always read in a straight line. Scholars bicker with one another regarding the dating of this passage or that. Our text is one of those passages. We don’t know if it comes from the beginning of his ministry, the middle, or the end. And it probably doesn’t matter anyway, because he is speaking something we know. He's talking about going home.

We have just endured a season of snowmen and red-nosed reindeer. We deck the halls, offer tidings of comfort and joy, and sing about angels. These are festive songs, and rightfully so, at such a bleak time of year. But the tunes that cause us to sniff and wipe away a tear are the songs about the experience we know so well. "I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me."  "Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays.” That's the experience that Jeremiah talks about: going home. All of us know how it feels.

I remember the Christmas week when we buried my father's mother. Margaret Carter, my younger daughter’s namesake. She lived to the abundant age of 92. Grandma Carter was a prolific woman: she had eleven children, 29 grandchildren, 57 great-grandchildren, and seven great-great grandchildren. According to the family legend, she never lived more than ten miles away from the house where she was born. She grew up there, fell in love with a farm boy named Norris, raised their children there. It was her home.

Home is the place we remember. It is the one place where we are anchored. Regardless of where we roam, where is it for you? Where are you from? My grandmother would have said, "Dempseytown, Pennsylvania." And curiously enough, even though I was born in Angola, Indiana, and have now lived in this town longer than I have lived anywhere else, my quickest answer would be, "Owego, New York." That’s where I am from.

If we remember a home, it’s the place where we felt like we belonged. It stirs up all kinds of feelings and affiliations. Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, you recall the voices and the events that anchor that place within your heart.

But home can be a slippery memory. A couple of weeks ago I spent a night with my parents and took my younger daughter along. After getting my folks settled, we went out for a late-night ice cream, really an excuse for escaping for a bit and driving around the old haunts. Soon I was boring her with legends, and abruptly she said, “You really grew up in the sticks. It’s so different from the city where I now live.” Then she paused and said, “You don’t think you could ever actually move back here?”

It was a loaded question. I’m not sure I could, and neither do I think she will. Sometimes the place we remember is not the place we left behind.

A friend named Laura wrote about going home for the holidays. Her family met her at the airport with broad smiles and chatter. Her parent's house was bigger than she remembered, especially after the squalor of her little place. They exchanged Christmas gifts that night, and Laura kept trying to convince everyone that she hadn't spent much money. Then they had a banquet of wine and rich food.

Laura writes,

When I got up next morning, craving soda water, as I always do after a long night's sleep, I realized with dismay that my parents' refrigerator had never encountered such a thing. There were no croissants, and the only jam was full of sugar. The coffee was in the cupboard, not the refrigerator, and it was decaffeinated. With a sigh, I set about making some tea.

My mother walked in as I was singing along to a pop song on the radio. She looked surprised. "You used to listen to such nice music," she said, mildly enough. We curled up with the paper in the living room. We laughed and told stories, catching up with one another after months of absence. I let slip that I had been out to eat the Sunday before, in a restaurant. There was no comment, but the banter stopped for a moment. I watched the lips compress.

When I again flew home two days later, this time going the other way, I wondered: what did the prodigal son feel like the morning after the party? What would I feel like after years of freedom, having to move back home? Was that place even home to me anymore?

Then she says,

Home is attractive for many of us precisely because it is irretrievable. If we, like Dorothy, were given a magic pair of ruby slippers to transport us back home at the click of our heels, how many of us would go?[1]

The older I get, the more I think she's right: "Home is attractive, because it is irretrievable." We remember how home used to be, yet when we return, it never quite fits the familiar picture.

I recall a scene in a novel where there is a homecoming. A man has been away for some weeks. His young son gets some friends together and paints a sign that reads WELCOME HONE; it should have been spelled H-O-M-E, but the last leg of the M is missing, so it becomes an N. "It seemed oddly fitting," the man reflects. "It was good to get home, but it was home with something missing or out of whack about it. It wasn't much . . . just some minor stroke . . . but even a minor stroke can make a major difference."[2]

I wonder if Jeremiah got it right. In chapter 31, he proclaims the promise of the Lord: the faithful remnant of Israel will be gathered from the ends of the earth, and they'll return to a hometown called Zion. There will be singing and laughter. There will be dancing and abundance. Most of all, there will be comfort and consolation. "Everybody will be glad to go home," says Jeremiah.

But do you suppose he got it right? If Jeremiah is talking about life after the exile, then some seventy years have passed since those people have been home. A whole generation has come and gone. Any memories of the way it used to be must be tempered by the way it really is. Just imagine traveling back to that same address, and the whole town is different. And even if that homecoming gives you some consolation, a little child may pipe up and say, "Daddy, can't we stay in Babylon? This place has become my home."

Frederick Buechner makes a helpful distinction. When we talk about home, says Buechner, we mean one of two different things. The first is the home we remember, and the second is the home we hope for. All of us can remember a home where the hallways are familiar and the voices are known. When we make homes of our own, much of what we make is rooted in the memories of the homes which were provided for us. We use the same recipes. We talk the same dialects. We treat our children the way we were treated. And yet, try as we might, when we return to our homes, they are probably not everything we remember them to be.

But then there is the home for which we hope. And that's what Jeremiah is singing about. He remembers his hometown, but he hopes for a renewed Zion. He remembers the people who walked the familiar streets, but he hopes their spirits will be lifted and their lives will be given a surprising abundance. He remembers the familiar voices, and all the whining that people have taken on as a habit; but he hopes for a new song that shall cause all people to dance.

"I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow." That, my friends, is our dream home. The good news of Christmas is that a home like this is not only possible; it's available. In the midst of all our comings and goings, God comes to make a home with us.

The Gospel of John explains the mystery of Christmas this way: that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us -- that the eternal wisdom in which all things were created came down here and made a home among us. In Greek, it says quite literally that the Word became flesh and pitched its tent in our midst. Imagine that: the Eternal God whose Spirit blows as fierce as the winter wind took upon our flesh, put up a canvas tarp, and drove some stakes into the ground to live among us. Wherever we wander, Christ camps with us.

This is really the Christmas mystery. God has come down here. It’s the answer to the home that Jeremiah dreams of returning to. In the middle of our recurring homesickness, in the thick of dashed expectations of what home ought to feel like, God comes to us in the person of Jesus. Our everyday business is sanctified because he is among us. Our lingering disappointments can be filled with his presence.

This is indeed a holy mystery. We don’t have to wait for some far-off time in the future before we can flourish and rejoice. It can happen today. Right here. All we need to do is to stop running long enough to discover that he has never left us. And the emptiness we felt is actually the manger to welcome the radiance of the goodness of God. We remember that. We hope for that. And we are met this day by Jesus Christ, who comes to us in bread and cup and spoken word. He is the One who left his eternal home so that the life of God’s eternity would make its home in us.  

There is a Christmas carol that says it well:

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray.

Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Laura Smit, "The Image of Home," Theology Today (October 1988): 306-7.

[2] Frederick Buechner, Treasure Hunt, in The Book of Bebb, p. 529.

Between Consolation and a Sword

Luke 2:22-40

Christmas 1

December 28, 2014

William G. Carter

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 

There are nearly fifty Christmas carols in our new hymnal. There’s no way we can get all of them in this year, even if we started singing them at Halloween. Some of favorite carols have gotten longer – Joy to the World has an extra verse, which has been around for year, but just restored to our hymnal. Others have been “fleshed out,” so to speak, as in “What Child Is This,” which has a lot more words in it than we had expected.

There is something about the birth of our Savior that generates fresh words and music. More carols are written each year. One of my favorites was written in New Zealand, where Christmas comes at summer time. The first two lines go, “Carol our Christmas, an upside-down Christmas / the snow is not falling and the trees are not bare.”[1] What do you expect? They sing this in New Zealand.

That one didn’t make it into a North American hymnal, even though there is something upside-down about the main event. The invisible Creator becomes a creature with baby feet. The One who is eternal chooses to be bound by human time. The Savior chooses to come as a vulnerable child, and his very vulnerability is the means by which we are saved. It’s upside-down.

Luke knows this. On Mary’s lips, he places a Christmas carol about the mighty coming off their thrones and the lowly being lifted up. It is a theme of his Gospel to declare the first become last and the last become first. The sinner is forgiven, the righteous are exposed in their hypocrisy. This is a way to declare God’s saving work, which begins decisively in the birth of the Christ child. The nameless shepherds are sought out by angelic messengers, while famous Caesar Augustus and Quinirius are ignored.

All the way through the Christmas story are songs. Zechariah sings, Mary sings, the angels sing – everybody is singing. The best theology is sung. And the final Christmas carol is put into the air by an old man in the temple. His name is Simeon. Luke likes him a lot, calling him “righteous and devout.”

But the greatest affirmation is when Luke says, “The Holy Spirit rested on him.” Luke is always pointing to the Holy Spirit, pointing to the moments when the presence and power of God come upon a person. Jesus will be full of the Spirit, says Luke. So something of what would fill the Christ is touching down on old Simeon. That’s how he knows the Child, long before the Child will grow up to do his work.

The Spirit prompts his song:

Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 

for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 

a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

The Spirit also prompts Simeon to speak the truth to Mary:

This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel,

and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—

and a sword will pierce your own soul too. 

Christmas has an upside-down message: salvation comes in the child Jesus, and it shall come at a great cost. There is the consolation of seeing the One who is God’s gift to all the people, both Gentiles and Israel. But the piercing of the soul, the exposure of the resistance that lies within us – that suggests a lot of hard work that we must do. God’s Word comes to us as a sword, says the scriptures, separating true from false, cutting through old and new. And yet it comes with surgical precision to do the necessary work on our souls.

I spent some time chewing on this during Advent, pondering in my heart what Simeon must have seen. Here’s a bit of my own free verse, as if Simeon continues the conversation with God:

Spirit, your vision of peace pierces me.

You show me truth in this swaddled Babe.

No reason to see any more.
Any Lord who saves us through a baby
Is a God of upside-down imagination
uneasy with the world as it is.
I have seen enough
Let me go.

While I yet have breath

Let me speak truth to his Mother
So she remembers what will come.
The Child will come to a brutal end
For this is a broken dominion
That cares not for the weak and vulnerable.
Those who live by the sword
Bequeath weapons to their children.
It is hard for an old world
To give up old tricks.

I am sick of it.
Let me go.

For my days remaining

Let me be perpetually offended
By cruelty,
For hatred is not the way of heaven
Nor can it be the health of earth.

The Child swaddled in blue is sufficient for us.
Here I plainly see
Innocence before it suffers,
Vulnerability stronger than death.
Let me depart now
With a glimpse of Isaiah's peace
Seared into my heart,
Ever trusting this is the little Child
Who shall lead them.

I believe it.

Let me go.

Time is short. Before I depart

Let me speak to all peoples
Of a holy justice
Greater than what we see each day.

God’s final work is not punishment

For what we rightly deserve.

The upside-down God forges mercy

out of a twisted crown of thorns.

All God owns shall be restored.

My falling shall be Christ’s rising.

At my end, all shall be well.

I have seen what you have prepared.
So let me go.

In the nine remaining days of Christmas, may you be pierced by God’s Word and consoled by God’s grace. And may God reveal to all of us what Simeon has so clearly seen.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Shirley Erena Murray. Text at http://folksong.org.nz/nzchristmas/upside_down_xmas.html

Have Yourself an Enormous Little Christmas

Luke 2:1-20

December 24, 2014

William G. Carter

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Among all the songs of the season, this year one song has returned over and over. It’s not a particular favorite of mine, especially when the clock radio on my wife’s side of the bed presents it before dawn. But I have heard it a number of times in December. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

It is one of the few secular Christmas songs that wasn’t written by a Jew. Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas,” Johnny Marks composed “Rudolph.” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was written by Hugh Martin, and introduced in a 1944 movie by Judy Garland. She sings it to a sad little girl who doesn’t want to move from Saint Louis to New York.

A lot of people like that song, although it’s never been one of my favorites. Martin wrote down the melody and worked with it for a few days, before crinkling up the manuscript and tossing it in the wastebasket. Another songwriter said, “Try it again, it has potential,” so Martin pulled it out of the trash, straightened it out, and kept working at it. Judy Garland thought it was too dreary at first and requested a rewrite. And it became a hit, sung by no less that Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Garth Brooks, James Taylor, and the rock band Twisted Sister.[1]

But I have never really cared much for the song. Not just because the lyrics are sentimental, or that the harmony is rather dull. My difficulty is the word “little.” For a night like this, that song isn’t big enough.

I know we gather tonight in honor of the “little Lord Jesus.” But his birth is announced in the context of emperors and kings. Luke the storyteller wants us to know that Caesar Augustus is merely a pawn in God’s plan to have the Messiah born in King David’s hometown. Quirinius was only a glorified tax administrator, compared to child who would be King of Kings.

And that choir of angels, singing to the shepherds? It was a battalion of heaven’s warriors, a “host” of awesome angels, not a handful of friendly cherubs. The birth of Jesus was an enormous cosmic event. It was big.

Yet it was little, too. He was a human child, just like the rest of us. There were no trumpets to announce him. The church that now marks the spot would not be built for another 325 years. The halo over his head would be painted about 400 years later. It is hard for us, for whom Christmas is a big commercial racket run by an Eastern syndicate, to even imagine how small the scene actually was.

That was the sign it was true, said the angel to the poor shepherds. The Savior, the Messiah, the Lord is to be found where the animals are sheltered and fed. He is wrapped in bands of cloth, just like every other peasant child. God has come, the child looks like the rest of us.

Christmas is this paradox of great and small held together, “the little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay.” Glory to the newborn, “the newborn King.” Do you hear it? “Christ the Savior … is born.”

This paradox offers a model for authentic faith. To hear some people talk about “spirituality,” it’s this large, foggy cloud that doesn’t really have anything to do with poverty, farm animals, or diapers. At the same time, for those who fuss only about the rituals, the rules, and the annual routines can’t see how enormous the whole thing is. God is found among the peasants. That is explosive news. Heaven is concerned with earth. Daily life matters eternally. Everything large and small fits together, and all of it is available to God.

One of my teachers said, “The truth of the Incarnation is that God concerned with everything.” There is no aspect of our lives which is detached from holiness, for the Christ has come into the middle of it all. In the words of the ancient church, “In him, all things hold together.”[2]

It is exactly as the baby Jesus would grow up to say. Think of it this way: God’s rule over our lives is like the smallest of mustard seeds. It’s so small you can hardly see it, but it grows so large that it takes over everything else.[3] That’s the promise of Christmas, not that it is merely a day on the calendar but an event that changes the world. Something as small as a child’s birth grows to be as great as God’s claim over an entire planet.

Have Yourself An Enormous Little Christmas. That’s how I want to sing it. What happens tonight can affect the rest of our lives. It can bless the entire world, as long as we decide that it is just that big. It can be, you know. It can start here and it can grow.  

That’s how Howard Thurman saw it. He was a civil rights leader and a Christian mystic, and he loved Christmas. Here’s what he says about “The Work of Christmas” -

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers [and sisters],
To make music in the heart.[4]

Jesus Christ is born. God is found among us. Have yourself an enormous little Christmas!

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] For the back story, see http://www.npr.org/2010/11/19/131412133/the-story-behind-have-yourself-a-merry-little-christmas

[2] Colossians 1:17

[3] Mark 4:30-32

[4] Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations

Meditating with Mary

Luke 1:26-38

Advent 4

December 21, 2014

William G. Carter

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”   

 Then the angel departed from her.

I love this story. But I wonder how much more there is to it. The storyteller doesn’t go into much detail.  We get the summary without much more information. We learn who, what, where, how, and why. Who: a maiden named Mary. What: a male child who will be named Jesus. Where: Nazareth, a village on the edge of the hill country in Galilee. How: by the Holy Spirit. Why: to rule over us like his ancestor David, and to do so forever.

That’s the summary, and it goes as planned. Mary is realistically curious, but she does not push back. The angel Gabriel gives her the most remarkable news. She only asks, “How?” She receives a holy answer, not a biological one. Then she agrees to it all, saying, “Let it be with me, according to your word.” Her level of trust is amazing.

At the beginning of a book filled with people who come to faith, Luke describes her as the very first one. She will also stick around to the end. When Luke names those who gather in prayer and praise after the resurrection, he mentions “Mary, the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers” (Acts 1:14).

Today we hear how it all began. We have the short version. Long before the miracle of the birth, there is the miracle of the mother who trusts the word of an angel. That’s the miracle I want to know more about. How does Mary come to trust? That’s the miracle that I ponder.

Can you remember when you first learned to trust? I spent some time yesterday with the man who taught me to ride a bike. He didn’t simply point to the two-wheeler and say, “Get on it.” There was a three-wheeler long before it. And when I wanted a bigger bike, he pointed to the lawn mower and said, “Earn the money.” When I got pretty close to the financial goal, he announced, “I can see you’re serious about it.” So we got in the paneled station wagon and traveled to a shop where there was a genuine imitation of a Schwinn for us to take home.

Back in our own garage, he took out socket wrenches, installed a couple of training wheels, held the bicycle upright, and said, “Let’s give it a try.” Those were the days before helmets, you understand. He got me started, then he ran alongside. If I wobbled, he helped me catch my balance. If I tipped, he was there to catch me. And we kept at it until I was strong enough to do it myself. That’s how I learned to trust.

So we take the leap: how is it that somebody comes to trust in God?

Mary is promised a child. The little boy will be a small miracle and a major commitment. If children come into your life, you know it’s a lot more than rescheduling your yoga lessons and scaling back on your tennis games. The child rearranges your life. And Mary says, “Yes, let it be.” 

She had a good man, a man named Joseph. It wasn’t clear he would keep her after hearing the news. The announcement would be difficult and awkward, especially since the marriage had not yet taken place. She could tell him, “It’s from the Holy Spirit,” but would he raise an eyebrow? Or slip away in embarrassment? Could Mary trust God even with the ambiguity of what might happen when Joseph got the news?

Luke doesn't say. He doesn't fuss with the details. What he says is what she did. She said yes to God.

I am going to guess she practiced trust like some people practice the trumpet. It’s not something you merely think about, it’s something you do. She kept at it. The trumpeter plays the scales, exercises both lips and lungs, tries out some notes when nobody is around. We get better at the things we practice, and trust is like that. If we develop a habit of saying yes to God in the small things, when the really big matter comes, we are prepared to say yes for that too.

Picture the young Jewish woman in the small village. Every Sabbath, she goes to the synagogue. She sits with the other women, and stays out of sight as was the custom. She sings the psalms, listens to the promises of God, joins in the prayers, and goes home to light the candles. Every week she does this. It shapes who she is.

Within the home, she learns the commandments of God: love the neighbor, gives alms to the needy, do justice, walk humbly. When she sees the beggar on the street, she reaches in her pocket to find a coin, and offers it with her blessing. It is a small thing, but it shapes her character. She sees the value of living like this.

So it isn’t entirely out of the blue that the angel comes with an enormous assignment. It’s mostly out of the blue, but not entirely, for Mary already knows how to trust. She has kept the commandments. She has lived as God instructed. When Gabriel says, “You shall carry a child, and bear God's Savior into the world,” she knows the announcement comes from God, the baby comes from God, and if this wild, unimaginable assignment is ever going to work, it’s because it carried, in no small part, on the shoulders of God.

So Mary says, “Let it happen.” That’s her way of saying yes. That’s her way of trusting what she cannot yet see. She offers a simple yes, in spite of all the coming complications. And do you know why? Because her “yes” is her decision to go along with what God is already doing in the world. It’s the same sort of “yes” we are invited to speak each day. 

Let me say it straight: God wants to rescue the world. Not abandon the world, but to rescue it. That is heaven's mission. We can ignore this, or we can obstruct this, or we can say yes because we want to be part of that. It's just that simple and just that important. Each day God rolls up the Divine Sleeves, and begins again on repairing the world. It’s long and tedious work, made worse by so many people running amuck. But that’s what this is all about – the mission of God aimed toward the earth.

The Jewish mystics had a phrase they used: “tikkun olam.” It is a wonderful phrase. It means “taking the world in for repairs.” When we say “yes” to God, it affirms our trust that this is what God intends to do: to fix all that is broken, to restore what has been twisted out of shape.

If we trust there is such a God, we can trust that God wishes to heal all that is ill, that God ceases all that destroys, and promises to mend all that has been torn apart. The same God who keeps sending babies into the world will send Mary’s child to all of us. That Little One will grow up to teach us that every child is to be regarded as our neighbor. He will show us how every child of God is to be given respect and encouragement. And he will run alongside all who trust him until they keep from wobbling, ever ready to also catch them if they fall.

This is the kind of God we have. We know it because we light the candles, sing the psalms, listen to the holy promises, and care for those in need. In the thick of it all, we learn what God really wants to do: to rescue the world, one skinned knee or one bruised heart at a time.

We can be part of this, just as Mary was part of it. All she did was to say yes. Yes to God, Yes to all God wishes to get done. Yes to the Holy Child who comes among us. Yes to him as he leads us on God’s way. So we have the one word that unlocks the human heart, the one word that enrolls us in the work of heaven on earth. It is the single word where trust begins and faith takes root.

Keep that word close at hand. Speak it when you sense you can be an emissary of heaven and a force for good and let it be a life-changing word for you. Don’t be afraid. The word is “yes.”

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.