December 23, 2012
Micah 5, 1-4 + Psam 80 + Hebrews 10, 5-10 + Luke 1, 39-45
We end this season just about as we began: waiting. We are waiting now to hear once again the story we know so well: Mary with child, Joseph with dreams, Elizabeth humbled, Zachariah silent, angels in full chorus, inns that are occupied, and animals looking on. The story holds up for us a model of community strong and courageous, frightened and awed, waiting for Messiah to come.
Mary waits for birth. Joseph waits for divine permission. Elizabeth waits for John. Zachariah waits for voice. The angels wait to sing. Good people, godly people walking in darkness wait for the light to come.
Waiting as I said at the beginning of this season is simply something we do not do well, especially in our culture. At all costs we try to avoid it. So, can’t wait for payday? Take out a payday loan. Can’t take time for a meal? Grab an energy drink, especially one loaded with caffeine. We text so we don’t have to talk, tweet so we don’t have to explain too much. We shop on line to avoid stores and parking, engaging people or having a conversation with the stranger in the line. Waiting in our culture is a disease!
But the story we will tell again soon is a story of waiting The prophet Micah had a vision years before Jesus came on the scene. He saw an alternative future, one where righteousness and goodness would prevail. He saw a good leader who would shepherd the people with compassion and hope. He imagined a man of peace. We are like Micah, dreaming and waiting, hopeful and expectant, faithful and grounded. The restlessness that we feel, the ongoing search for meaningful lives….. it is all about waiting for something grander that what is.
We are waiting for Christ, the fulfillment of all time to rescue us from the chaos of our messy lives. We are waiting for the Christ-light to draw back the curtain of darkness and for a baby to become a man, and for the man to rise from a tomb. The Christmas story makes no sense, and it is little more than a feel-good, no-involvement celebration which only invites us to look and be entertained always leaving us to feel that something is lacking come December 26th.
We may not be spectators of the Christmas story. We must even be more than the ones who tell the story unless it has become our story; unless we know what it means to to told there is no room, to wonder “How can this be?” in the face of some unexpected change of plans in our lives. Unless we know what it means for our soul to magnify the Lord, or to wonder how it is that the Lord should visit us? We are still spectators waiting for what? another Christmas?
The truth is, there is only one Christmas, one time when the Word of God takes flesh in us, a Bethlehem kind of people. The story we tell today is impossible historically. A fourteen year old Jewish virgin making a four day trip by herself is unbelievable and beyond reality. Luke’s gospel is theology, not history. This wonderful imatinative story gives Mary an occasion to sing her great hymn. It gives John the Baptist his first opportunity to recognize the superiority of Jesus. It all suggests, as Luke intends that something big is about to happen, but not in Bethlehem. It will happen in Jerusalem, in Norman, Oklahoma, in anyplace where people like Elizabth and Mary open themselves to the will of God and are willing to serve the will of God in obedience.
There is something greater than this, and it is about to happen. I love the balance of Luke’s Gospel images. At the end of Luke’s Gospel, disciples in Emmaus rush back to Jerusalem to be with those who have shared their experience of the Lord. Their they ponder what it all means and how their lives suddenly have meaning and purose. Now there is for them a mission. At the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, two women who have experienced the Lord come together to share their experience and ponder what it all means and how their lives suddenly have meaning and purpose. Now there is for them a mission.
Here we are pondering again what it all means and hopefully how our lives have meaning and purpose, because for those of us who know and live, remember and retell the story there is a mission. Those people in Emmaus and Jerusalem, in Bethlehm and in the Hill Country of Judea, as well as in Norman, Oklahoma have a mission and their lives have a purpose and there is reason to rejoice and jump for joy for not only has a child been born to us; that child has risen from the tomb with the promise and as evidence that we shall do the same. That is worth the wait.