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Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis, Vicar MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 22
Jul 02
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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God's
promise to be
a redeeming presence
Reflections on the lessons
for the fourth Sunday in Advent
19 December 1999
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
2 Samuel 7:4,8-16 / Psalm 132:8-15
Romans 16:25-27 / Luke
1:26-38
I forget, from year to year, how things tend to go crazy around Christmastime.
I wish I could remember, and maybe be a little more prepared for the inevitable chaos that always hits at this time of year.
I'm not being funny, either. I'm not talking about last minute shopping or too many gifts to wrap.
Every year around Christmastime I find myself spending lots more time than usual in hospitals, and on the phone, talking to people who are in all sorts of different kinds of real trouble. The only time I ever visited a vestry member of my church in jail was at Christmastime. I have done a disproportionate number of funerals in churches filled with Christmas trees and poinsettias over the years.
Who knows why this happens?
Maybe Christmas is no different from any other time of the year . Maybe I just happen to notice the ordinary upheavals of life differently in this context.
But, every year, when the reading from the gospel about the annunciation of Jesus' birth to Mary comes around on the Sunday before Christmas, it always resonates with my sense of disaster and interruption and calamity.
And I'm always led to think that,despite the calm and elegant surface of the gospel account , Mary's assent to Gabriel's news probably wasn't as calm and straightforward as Luke presents it:
"How could this be?"
she asks, in who knows what tone of voice and at what volume.Gabriel's response is no answer, and even less of an explanation, and no help at all.
Would you have settled for it?
Christmas is all about upheaval.
We don't like to think about that.
So, as a culture, we have sentimentalized the Christmas story into something or another about a sweet and mild little baby in a bed of straw. Lots of animals and starlight and fantasies about warm and happy feelings for family, friends, and strangers alike:
"Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleeeeep in heavenly peace."
But that never seems to be the reality of Christmas, at least not for me.
The real story of Christmas does indeed have a baby in it.
But the whole story includes a young girl whose life takes a head-on collision. And it ends with the baby being sentenced to death in a courtroom.
So who can blame people for trying
to rewrite it into a more palatable version? It may not be
logical, but it is supremely human to pretend that disaster
and catastrophe are for others, not for us,
until things are actually crashing down around our ears.
It's a way of getting through life.
The central theme of Jewish and Christian religion is the "covenant", the promise. Over and over again the scriptures describe the way the covenant relationship between God and humankind is given, is broken, is repaired, is renegotiated.
There is a difference between covenant and contract: A contract is a quid pro quo -- you do this and that'll make me have to do that. A covenant is a mutual relationship.
The covenant, the promise, is not that things will always be serene and rewarding for God's people:
The promise made to Adam, and to
Moses,
and then to us in a new way through Jesus,
is that we won't have to go it alone
on the roller coaster ride that every life takes
from cradle to grave.
God will be in the midst of it with
us,
providing a foundation to stand on,
a standard to gauge by,
a reason to persevere.
The covenant is that no matter how
crazy things may get,
for those who look to God's presence in the middle of the
storm,
or in the middle of the good times,
the trials we weather
will at least not be empty,
at least not be totally incomprehensible.
I don't know what message for life is to be gathered from a nativity scene like the one you'll see the next time you come back to this church:
A meditative mother kneeling beside
a chubby baby surrounded by livestock.
But the bigger picture:
that places this unplanned birth
into the ongoing story
of God's determination
that we need not go it alone,
does make some sense to me
when I'm going back and forth
between the hospitals and the outlet stores
at Christmas.
Luke wants us to understand that in
this birth of Jesus to Mary,
God is establishing a new covenant:
a new way of keeping the big promise.
Maybe I'm just talking about an attitude shift:
a new way of looking at things.
But, if that's what makes people find community
and meaning in life
then that's good enough for me.
See God not as a
distant King,
but as an active member of our community:
"Our Redeemer" is the oldest name for God in Hebrew scripture.
It's not a made-up title:
The redeemer of an ancient Middle Eastern clan was the one whose role in the community was to risk his life to rescue any of the clan who were captured and sold into slavery. A redeemer's motto would be:
Get 'em all back at any cost.
This is the story of Christmas:
The story of a God who chooses to
abandon heavenly thrones
and live instead with us when we are at our best, and at our
worst.
When we are grateful for and responsive to God's
presence,
and just as much when we don't notice God
or even when we tell God to get lost.
The challenge of Christmas is real:
Though there is nothing challenging at all about your basic nativity scene or Christmas pageant.
The challenge is to learn from
Jesus,
and from Mary,
and from the community of people
who build up lives with us:
learn from them all
to live in heightened awareness,
focused not on the chaos and destruction
that will ultimately visit every single life,
but focused instead
on God's promise to be a redeeming presence
that will save every catastrophe from emptiness,
save every sorrow from despair.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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