Christmas: Morning service.  Keeping Christmas

 

The reading from  Isaiah this morning reminds me of the City of New Orleans—if there is any place on earth that needs peace and good will it is New Orleans.  You know Isaiah is quite a complicated book.  It’s not my intention to give a class about it or to burst a bubble.  But Isaiah was probably written in three different time periods.  First there was the book written for Israel before it went to exile, that’s 1-39.  Then there are the glowing chapters 40-55.  That promise those in exile stirring visions in which every valley would be lifted up, every mountain made low to create a smooth highway back to their home.  The prophet promises that the people who have walked in darkness would see a great light.  This was advertisement to get the people in exile to want to return.  You might call it false advertising, because the people returned to city walls that were broken down, the temple looted and wrecked, the palace burned to the ground.  They returned to devastation.

 

Today’s reading is from the final section of Isaiah.  Things go from bad to worse.  The first part of the third book recounts the depression of a broken hearted people.  The best and brightest did not return and God himself seems absent.  And the question that the people ask is what about all those glorious prophecies of the New Jerusalem.  Today’s reading from Isaiah is an attempt to deal with those questions.

 

Imagine going back to New Orleans.  Imagine that the Governor, the Mayor, the chamber have painted glorious pictures of the new city of New Orleans.  And they have promised you help to rebuild your home.  But the reality is different.  The city remains devastated. Our friend Vern who never left lives in a part of town that has gone from bad to worse.  He lives in what used to be a safe area of the city.  But now he lives in fear especially of car jackings or break-ins.  But lets get back to Isaiah.

 

In the third section which we heard from today, the prophet speaks of sentinels on the wall.  “All day and all night they shall never be silent.”  The prophet explains that they are reminding God to take no rest, to wake up and to speak and to come back to his City.  The prophet is reminding God of his promises, of his commitments to feed and care for his people. 

 

For us the long awaited return of God to his people comes in the stable, among the shepherds in today’s Gospel.  The angels gloriously proclaim the message, Peace on earth, Good will to all.  Does this old story that some call a myth, or a legend have any meaning for on Christmas morning in 2007?  I think so. I hope so.  I know so.  God is with his people again.  The word becomes flesh, God dwells among us as one of us.  God is one of us, but not a King, or a president or a chairman.  God is one of us as a helpless little one.  As someone who is not all powerful and able to change political realities. God is one of us and surprisingly, everything is indeed changed.  Everything is changed because God has become one of us and now, God has given us the reason to love each other as sisters and brothers.

God has given us the reason to rebuild New Orleans, because God is one of us.  God has given us the reason to care for the poor of Kentucky, because God is one of us.  God has given us the reason to pray and work for peace in the middle East, because God is one of us.  God has given us the reason, for whatever we do to the least of our sisters and brothers that we do for Jesus who was born in Bethlehem.

 

Let us keep Christmas, not only as the festival of our love of Jesus born in a stable, surrounded by shepherds and proclaimed by angels.  Let us keep Christmas as a celebration of our love for one another and for all humanity.  Let us keep Christmas.

 

I think of Dickens’ Christmas carol, about scrooge and the transformation he underwent.  At the end of the story Dickens tells us,  “Scoorge was better than his word.  He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father.  He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town or borough, in the good old world.  (As for Scrooge) it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge,  May that be truly said of us, all all of us!  And as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”

 

Let us keep Christmas ourselves and let us be transformed as Scrooge was transformed.  Let us begin the work of changing the world as Scrooge did and let us Bless all humanity.  Not just those who look like us, those who legal, those who are Democrats or Republicans.  Let us bless all humanity because Jesus is one of us.  And let us pray God bless us, everyone.