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Believing

A sermon preached by Bishop Dean E. Wolfe at Grace Cathedral, Topeka
Christmas Eve 2006

Come Holy Spirit and kindle the fire that is in us.
Take our lips and speak through them.
Take our hearts and see through them.
Take our souls and set them on fire.

If ever you could believe in something you could not see, this would be the night for it -- this night, when heaven and earth collide, when angels speak and shepherds receive their “good news of great joy for all people.” This would be the night for believing in things you can’t see but know for absolute certain.

Of course, knowing for absolute certain is not as simple as some folks make it out to be. Wide-eyed believing is easier for those who haven’t had their hopes crushed by despair, for those who can still follow a star which seems a little brighter than all the rest.

When you’ve experienced 40 or 50 Christmases, or 60 or 70, you come to see that each one of them is unique, and there are years when it’s easy to believe this miracle we celebrate tonight. There are years when it is as if the angel Gabriel himself has whispered the secret in your ear, and the joy which fills your heart naturally overflows into the hearts of those around you.

But there are other years when the angels remain hidden and quiet. A deep hurt – the death of someone close to you – a broken relationship – makes it so much harder to find the belief which seemed so simple the year before. Many have loved ones living too far away to come home for Christmas. Many this year have children in harm’s way in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe. Even those who usually find it easy to experience the wonder of the season can find such joy strangely elusive.

Remember the little girl in the movie, “Miracle on 34th Street?” She desperately wants to believe in Saint Nicholas and, at one point in that classic film she says, over and over again, with her eyes tightly shut, “I believe. I believe. I believe.” Her doubt dances with her faith in that moment as she moves back and forth between faith and unbelief. But she always wants to believe, she always hopes to believe, intends to believe, strives to believe, and that, I believe, makes all the difference.

This year has been like that for me. I have been closing my eyes tightly and saying, “I believe. I believe. I believe.” But I haven’t felt the Christmas spirit wash over me as in past years. It’s been harder to embrace the miracle this time around. My father died this past summer, and I have not felt like it was Christmas this year.

For me, the season has seemed quiet and spare, and there have been no angelic visitors to reassure me of the miracle. I’m left thinking that the whole thing can be a little like receiving a gift you didn’t want or never really expected. You may come to see the value of the gift eventually. You may grow to adore the giver for thinking of you in such an unexpected way. But if at first a gift isn’t what you wanted or what you expected, you’re either disappointed or inconvenienced or simply un-amazed. “You shouldn’t have” you stammer, and you mean it.

I can remember a Christmas from my childhood when my mother was certain she had hinted clearly for the gift she most wanted, and my father, being as clueless as any other man in those circumstances, bought her an extravagant gift he was certain she would like. But, of course, it was not the gift for which she had longed. We laugh about these moments later, but they reveal a profound and sometimes painful truth. What we need is often not what we want or expect.

This baby, born in a manger, may have been what the world needed, but he was not what the world wanted nor was he what the world expected. What did we want? Well, we wanted what we always want. We wanted what we can understand and embrace. We wanted what we might be able to comprehend at first sight. We wanted it all to be clearer, and more quickly understood. We do not like to wait for the revelation.

If God had come to earth as a king or as a general we could understand that. We understand that kind of power. If God had come to earth in the middle of Rome, in front of the Senate in session, or in the middle of the Coliseum or in the great Marketplace, that we could understand. The in-breaking of God into human history at the epicenter of human activity, that we might expect.

If God had come to earth as an adult, we could get right down to business. God could begin to be God immediately. But it didn’t happen like we expected.

It happened so far out of the center of ancient life that the urban sophisticates of Rome would have needed a good map to find the place. And in the place of an appropriately impressive representative of the divine, we found instead a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. No mere representative he, but actual very God of very God, begotten not made, the Alpha and the Omega enfleshed, incarnate.

My friend, Curtis Almquist, is an Episcopal monk in a monastery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has just written a small and beautiful book entitled, Unwrapping theGifts, The Twelve Days of Christmas. In it he observes,

“Joy takes time. It is not fast food. It comes as a by-product of living a savored life, of having time and taking time to ‘smell the flowers.’ Joy needs time. There is this old monastic insight about living a joy-filled life. Take time; take at least some time each day, to do one thing at a time. Take time; take at least some time each day, if you are walking, to just walk. Take time; take at least some time, if you are looking, to just look; if you are listening, to just listen. If you are sipping iced tea or watering the plants or petting the dog, take time to do just that. Do one thing at a time, and do that as often as you can. Take time to let the fragrances and aromas of life penetrate to the deepest part of your being, where they can be savored. I think we call this ‘being there.’ I don’t think it has so much to do with the pace of life as it does with the intentionality with which we live our lives. It presumes that each moment is pregnant with God’s real presence and provision and promise. Look for it; wait for it; savor it.”

It takes a long time for this particular joy to unfold. It takes more than 30 years for the infant to become the man and to be revealed for who he is. God must laugh at our notions of efficiency. God allows the fragrances and aromas of human life to penetrate into the deepest parts of this child. God allows the child to savor life, grow into maturity, and then the man reveals what was always present in the child, that he is the Son of God come to save the world from sin and death.

And it all began as such a simple affair, really, as simple a series of events as you will ever find. A couple, not long married, is forced to take a trip they don’t want to make. She is pregnant, which is a source of great joy and a great embarrassment all at the same time. He is older and uncommonly understanding, which is a blessing. She is young and uncommonly faithful, which is its own blessing, as well.

Mary makes this journey after having her encounter with the angel Gabriel, and she carries around her the sort of after-glow such an experience leaves behind. The angel reveals the plan to Mary, and she doesn’t say, “Absolutely not!” or “Why me?” but instead she asks the simple question of a village girl, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” And after the angel explains it all to the girl, who is so young, so very young, she says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary simply says “yes” to God.

Now, in the midst of such a sacred exchange, Mary knows everything in her life is going to be different. She knows she will be changed forever, and that moment is going to be the first moment of the rest of her life. But then the angel goes back to whatever ordinarily occupies his time, and there you are, on a long journey, pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and certain thoughts begin to creep into your mind – thoughts unhelpful, thoughts un-good. But Mary is able to continue to believe. “I believe. I believe. I believe.”

We often think an angel’s appearance would quell even the possibility of doubt, but experience tells us that just isn’t true. The subtleties of God are such that people often ask, having just been in the presence of the Holy, “Was that real or was it just something I imagined?” The disciples, who traveled and ate and camped with Jesus for years were still confused enough to doubt what they’d seen and heard with their own eyes and ears! Joy takes time.

The gospel according to Luke doesn’t mention Joseph being spoken to in a dream. That information is available only in Matthew’s version of the story. Mark and John either don’t know the story of Jesus’ birth or they don’t see it as important enough to include in their gospels. For them, the story begins with the ministry of Jesus. For them it was never about the Christ child but about Jesus the man who becomes the Savior.

So, in Luke’s version of the story, Joseph takes this all on faith alone. He simply says “yes” to Mary without help from angelic visitors or dreamy revelations. He just says, “Yes.” I love you. I believe in you. I will trust your belief, even if I don’t yet believe. The joy will take some time. But Joseph always wants to believe, he always hopes to believe, intends to believe, strives to believe, and wanting to believe is a prayer in and of itself.

Perhaps that is all that can be asked of Joseph. Perhaps that is all that can be asked of any of us. We have not seen angels in our rooms at night. We have heard no heavenly host. Most of us can only say “yes” to our hope.

This miracle invites us again and again to say “yes” to God, to believe when it seems silly or imprudent or ridiculous to believe. To believe when it will cost us something and force us to risk everything we value. To believe when our heart says “yes!” and our head says “wait!”

If ever you could believe in something you could not see, this would be the night for it, this night, when heaven and earth collide, when angels speak and shepherds receive this “good news of great joy for all people.” This would be the night for believing in things you can’t see, but know for absolute certain.

“For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”