Yellowknife United Church

This is what you are to look for...

This is what you are to look for...
Christmas Eve Early 2008

Let us pray: O God, we gather in the warmth and expectation of this night. Fill our souls, guide my words, and lead us to a place which is beyond our dreams. Amen.

    It’s a scene depicted on any number of Christmas cards, shepherds spread out across the hillside, their sheep dotting the nighttime fields. The Bethlehem townscape is in the background with depictions of the kind of buildings the artist imagines would have been seen in a Middle Eastern community some two thousand years ago. Perhaps there is a bright and shining star hanging over the town skyline, a light pointing hopefully in the direction of what is about to unfold.

    It’s a peaceful, bucolic tableau - pretty in it’s own way, and generally settling in the mood it expresses. In some ways it might describe the kind of mood we hope for as the frenetic activity of the season is set behind us and we prepare for the day and days to come. If you aren’t ready for Christmas now (as just about every one you have met in the past two or three weeks I’m sure has asked) then there’s not much use worrying about it, and perhaps the next few days might give you some of the peace that has only been a distant dream in the time leading up to now. Perhaps not. For some of you, it just might be that the busyness, excitement, and scurrying around will reach their peak tomorrow morning, hopefully at a somewhat merciful hour of the day.

    It was likely much the same kind of situation for those shepherds watching over their sheep on the Palestinian hillside, except for one thing. They didn’t know what was about to happen to interrupt the calm and peaceful mood of the evening.

    We seem to forget their first reaction when the serenity of the situation was interrupted first by a solitary angel and then a host of angels telling them what had happened in the town spread out below them in the valley. They were terrified. And why not. The calm, the normalcy, the everydayness of their nighttime duties had been interrupted in a most profound way. And probably all the more frightening because it happened in the night.

    It’s good for us to be reminded of their first reaction. It’s good for us to pause and reflect for a moment on their terror. It changed quickly, with the assurance of peace from the host of angels that joined the solitary herald of things to come. But for just that moment they were consumed not by the promise of peace, or good times ahead, or the good news of the birth of a Messiah, but by fear.

    How many of us have come this evening with fear on our minds? Perhaps this year it’s a bit closer to the surface with concerns about the kind of year that 2009 is predicted to be, but I expect that far more than fear, there is a sense of peace, warmth and comfort surrounding you this evening as you gather with loved ones. Perhaps there’s some anxiety about whether the holidays will be as wonderful as you hope, and despite the fact that there’s not much more you can do to be ready for Christmas, you may be wondering if it has been enough.

    Let me offer to you this evening two things. One of them is a gift and hopefully, the other one, if you don’t see it as a gift to begin with, will become so for you as time progresses. Now for the gift. It’s one that because I’ve given it before, could perhaps be called a traditional gift. Three years ago on Christmas Eve, I invited everyone to take a minute in silence, as a gift of the peace we might need, perhaps as a moment to take a deep breath and rest comfortably in the thought that you are as ready as you are going to be, or perhaps a minute of strengthening time to get ready for tomorrow. So, I invite you to take the minute that follows, and use it quietly to settle your minds and your souls and rest in the presence of God - God who comforts, God who forgives, God who cares, God who loves.

One minute of silence.

    God also stirs us up, invites us to transformation in our thinking and in our actions. God invites us to make something new for our lives and the lives of others. The message that speaks to us so clearly in the birth of Jesus in a manger in a stable in an unfamiliar town with shepherds who were strangers to the scared and young parents is to expect the unexpected, that God’s ways are not our ways.

    And I think our world is crying for a message like that. We’ve seen already over the past few months that some of the old ways have been found wanting. We’ve seen the hope that can come when something new is upon us. Yes, there is fear with change. Yes, there is fear when the normal, expected patterns of life are interrupted, but there is also excitement, anticipation and hope. The shepherds reaction was perfectly normal, but look how quickly when the message was given to them, their fear changed into a message of hope that has continued on through the ages reaching right into this night.

    And so that’s the other gift I hope you will receive this Christmas Eve - the gift that in God’s words says: “Behold I make all things new.” Child in manger - who would think? A backlot hotel stable in a teeming little town yet we focus on just three people among the many, and perhaps the ones who could most easily be missed. And yet they are the ones the shepherds found.  For here’s the good news - God would think! And God continues to stir us into imagining with that kind of thinking. Expect the unexpected. Delight in the mystery and creativity. Look for insight in places you would never dream. Hope in ways you would never have hoped. That’s the Christmas message. Merry Christmas. Amen.
© 2008


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