The Hidden Message of Christmas

December 20, 2009 [4^th Sunday in Advent]

Psalm 8:1-8

O LORD, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouths of babes and infants

you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,

to silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet,

all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

NRSV

John 1:43-46

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth ." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth ?"

NRSV

The psalm you heard is one of the most beautiful in the Bible.

Here is the heart of it:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet…

What a wonderful praise of humankind!

It paints a vivid-color picture of who you and I are! Gifted…tremendous capacity for kindness and love…inquisitive and smart…creative

And against this backdrop of the beauty and promise of humanity, something happens.

Two stories.

Over 50 years ago in a hot, dusty town in southwest Texas, a little girl sat in the back seat of the family car outside a Methodist church. Her father [had debated about whether or not they should go in, but decided against it. He drove away.] The little girl, who was Hispanic, didn’t understand. That girl, who later grew up to be a United Methodist bishop, looked out the back window at the white people streaming into church, wondering why she wasn't welcome in the house of God.

Another story, this from a Japanese-American woman, told in her own words:

My husband and I have had rocks thrown at us as an interracial couple. Our children have been called [names]. My parents, looking at a house for sale, were told that the neighbors did not want them living next door. My sister and I had a racist epithet screamed out a car window at us as we chatted on a sunny sidewalk in San Francisco. But the one piece that most names me and my family is this--that my parents and grandparents and all my aunts and uncles were interned in "camps" during WW2. They were loyal American citizens, but they left and lost almost everything they had because of a federal mandate, issued because they looked like the enemy. Even worse than the loss of their prime California farmland was the sense of shame for what was never their crime, the racism that continued in the years afterward, the lives that were irrevocably altered.

Yes, we’re created a little lower than God. Yet we little-less-than-God people can do some incredibly tacky things.

Ingrained in our DNA is a gene that makes us separate people into “us” and “them.” And when “us” has the power and “them” don’t, the meanness and brutality—not the compassion and beauty—of the human spirit comes out.

Prejudice is sin at its worst—a sin that degrades other people who are also created “a little less than God.” Prejudice can breed hate, and can result in ugly violence.

And so, to flush this sin out of our hearts, God came to us—but not in just any way.

People were expecting the Messiah to appear in power and in glory. They expected to be overpowered by him. They expected to follow him, with swords raised, to drive out the Romans and establish God’s Kingdom once and for all.

That’s what they expected.

And what did they get?

A child, conceived out of wedlock.

A child, born in a place reserved for cattle, with the aroma of manure hanging in the air.

A child, born to poor parents, pushed around first by the Roman emperor and then by Jewish political leaders.

Jesus as Messiah was totally unrecognizable.

Jesus as Messiah, as a matter of fact, could bring out the worst in people. Thirty years after his birth, a man named Nathanael hears of him. Remember what he says? “Where does he come from? Nazareth? They talk funny there. Their SAT scores are way below the average. They eat moon pies and drink RC cola down there. Come on—Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

I can relate to Nathanael. Can’t you?

He wanted the Messiah to be born in his image, according to his expectations. I do, too. That Jesus is most comfortable to me.

We all want the sweet baby Jesus to bear a striking resemblance to us. To those who are white, we want him to be white. To those who are Republican, we want him to be Republican; to those who are Democrat, Democrat. To those who are Cardinals fans, we want him to be a Cardinals fan. [After all, we KNOW he’d never be born a Cubs’ fan.] We’d like a little mirror in the cradle in the Bethlehem—we’d like to look and see a baby Jesus who looks just like us, and we’d say, “Aww, isn’t he sweet? Isn’t he beautiful?”

Let’s be realistic. Jesus didn’t look anything like the way he’s portrayed in most nativity sets. He was Palestinian, with Palestinian features: brown skin, not white; black hair, not brown; dark eyes, not blue. His customs and his language would be as familiar to us a Martian’s.

If I’m honest with myself, I’m glad Jesus didn’t look anything like me. That’s because the Jesus who conforms to me is not the Jesus who transforms me.

This is the hidden message of Christmas.

CHRIST COMES TO US IN THE FORM OF AN ALIEN—SOMEONE DIFFERENT FROM US. IN COMING TO US AS AN ALIEN, WE’RE FORCED TO LIVE BEYOND HIDDEN PREJUDICES, WIDEN OUR VIEW OF LIFE, AND BE IN RELATIONSHIP WITH THOSE DIFFERENT FROM OURSELVES.

To that white church in southwest Texas, Jesus was born among them as an Hispanic.

To that angry, post-Pearl Harbor America, Jesus was born among them as a Japanese American.

In an earlier sermon, I told a story from my seminary days in Atlanta. I had worked in an inner city school, and developed a relationship with Reginald, an African-American eighth-grader who lived in a housing project. I went to church one Sunday where Reginald went, and as I entered the sanctuary—which was a converted theater—I was struck by a huge mural at the front, behind the altar. It featured a black Virgin Mary, holding a black baby Jesus.

I have to admit, I didn’t see things like that in Poplar Bluff!

As I reflect on that scene, decades ago, it strikes me that that was a hallowed, sacred moment. A black baby Jesus tells me of the alienation and oppression he felt in the South in the 50’s and 60’s. That Jesus feels the put downs and the insults because of his skin color. That Jesus sees family and friends brutalized.

And that Jesus responds, not with violence, but with faith and dignity and power that comes from saying God became flesh and dwelt among the oppressors, full of grace and truth.

So this Christmas, when you see the baby Jesus in a manger, I invite you to change the way he appears in your mind.

Pick a baby…any baby.

If we see him in a skin tone different from ours…If we see his facial features different from our own…If we see this “stranger” newborn squinting and squirming, and hear him making sounds infants make…And if we see his parents, with the same skin tone, holding him, caressing him, loving him, protecting him: we catch the hidden message of Christmas.

Looking at such a “different” Holy Family breaks down the barriers we put up, and connects us as flesh-and-blood to flesh-and-blood.

Years ago there was a woman who, along with her husband, was involved with the Sanctuary movement. This is a program that provided shelter to families fleeing political persecution in El Salvador and Guatemala.

One Christmas day, they and several other church members provided a potluck supper for newly-arrived Salvadoran refugees. Here is her description of what happened:

Our older daughter Katie ran happily among the tables with the other children, but 3 month old Emily was scooped gently away from me the moment we arrived and passed from one pair of refugee mother's arms to another all evening long. I realized there probably was not a Salvadoran woman in that room who had not had to leave at least one of her own children behind when she left home…I still recall [one young mother's] face, bent tenderly over my baby girls, smiling with her eyes full of tears.

A child has the ability to move us beyond our limitations, and connect to a deeper side of life.

And when that child is Jesus, then we connect to the Father in a way we’d never done so before.

The infant Jesus who looks like us is pleasant.

But the infant Jesus who looks different from us—that is the Jesus who heals our hearts. That is the Jesus who restores to us the “glory and honor” God meant us to have.

There was once a one-room schoolhouse, out in the country. Most of the children, being children, took advantage of every opportunity to come to school late or leave early, except one little girl. She was, well, different. She always came early to help the teacher set up the room, and stayed after school to clean the erasers. During the day, she gave the teacher her undivided attention.

One day, when the class was unruly, the teacher pointed to the little girl in the front row, and asked, “Why can you not be as she is? She comes early to help, she stays late to help, and all day long she is attentive and courteous.”

“It isn’t fair to ask us to be as she is,” said one boy from the rear of the room.

“Why?”

“Because she has an advantage,” he replied.

“I don’t understand. What is her advantage?” asked the puzzled teacher.

The boy paused.

“She’s an orphan,” he almost whispered, as he sat down.

— Adapted from Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 16.

So was Jesus. He was different from us.

And by him, we are saved.