Sermon preached by The Rev. Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA ON THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST 2006

"And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." (Lk. 2:12)

Let me begin tonight, especially for the benefit of those of you who are attending Christmas Eve services here for the first time, by offering my annual disclaimers. First, you may breathe a sigh of relief. I will not chastise from this pulpit those C and E (Christmas and Easter, as opposed to C of E, Church of England) Christians who believe that the only flowers we allow in church are poinsettias and lilies. Rather, I congratulate such worshippers for their insightfulness in recognizing the theological significance of our Lord's Nativity and his Resurrection. Next, we will not get carried away with a depiction of Christmas that is so romantic and sentimental (I call this the Gospel according to Hallmark) that we lose sight of the fact that we celebrate tonight the great Mystery of the Incarnation, God taking on human flesh.

Please meditate with me for a moment on the words spoken to the shepherds by the angel: "And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Signs, by definition, point beyond themselves. Sometimes they do it quite literally, like the arrows that tell us to turn right or left. Sometimes signs are more figurative, and even seductive --- like the stewardess (she was not yet a flight attendant) in the airline ad a generation ago who said "Fly me." Sometimes signs are landmarks --- of course, in Pittsburgh, they continue to be landmarks long after their disappearance ("Turn where Sears used to be") or after they have been re-named ("Park in the Gimbels garage.") The angels apparently wanted the shepherds to find the right baby. The swaddling clothes were a given, perhaps, but the manger, a crude feeding-trough, would narrow it down considerably.

But notice when the sign was given. It was given at night. The shepherds were watching their flocks at night. The Wise Men traveled in search of Bethlehem guided by a star that led them to the Manger at night. In an era in which we can flip a switch and illuminate our homes at night, or even supply enough wattage in a stadium to enable the Steelers to see the ball at night, the idea of nighttime being a terrifying experience is perhaps lost on us. It wasn't lost on the hymnwriter who said of Bethlehem, "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." This is why on Christmas Eve we come to church at night, to welcome Jesus as Light of the world who pierces the darkness, not just the darkness that envelops us after sundown, but the darkness of our very souls.

Take note, too, of who the angel said would come. It would be a savior ---- maybe not the savior the people expected, one who would release them from Caesar's yoke and wipe out oppressive taxes. No, he would be instead the Christ, the Anointed One of God, who would deliver them from the bondage of sin and death. We come out to worship tonight, singing "Joy to the world!" because we seek to experience the freedom, the victory, the joy and the wonder that is Christmas.

But how and where did the Savior come? If we were writing the script, we would have cast the Incarnate Lord as a high government official in the court of Caesar Augustus, or at the very least as a high priest in the Temple at Jerusalem. Either of these, in our human opinion, would have given the Savior more respectability, more credibility. But no, God had other plans. The Savior of the world would make his appearance as a tiny, helpless baby, in whose face we see not only God's presence and compassion, but faith, hope, innocence and love. And, God, in God's infinite wisdom, decreed that the delivery room should be a barn, and that he who would one day call himself the Bread of Life should lie in a place where animals come to feed.

Now I have a confession to make. I usually follow a self-imposed rule that I don't go to see a movie if I have read the book on which it was based. A ninety-minute cinematic synopsis often does not do justice to 300 pages of well-crafted prose. In films, subtleties are missing, characters often seem stripped of their complexity, and we viewers are deprived of the freedom of using our imaginations that we readily exercised as readers. I want to tell you that I broke my rule last week, and went to see "The Nativity Story." I didn't have much company in the theatre --- perhaps thirty or forty other souls. Most people were flocking to the three other theatres in the Waterfront complex where they could see Will Smith in a different kind of Christmas story, a Horatio Alger-esque movie called "Pursuit of Happyness."

What came across in the screen version of the Nativity perhaps more poignantly than in the pages of the Bible was something that we can all too easily lose sight of when we read about the cast of characters in St. Luke's Gospel or see pictures of them on Christmas cards. And that is the contrasts --- between power and powerlessness, wealth and poverty, privilege and lack of privilege. In one scene, the Emperor's henchmen descend on Nazareth on horseback, their armor gleaming in the sun, their banners held high. They line up the peasant farmers, demanding the lion's share of their profits, and have no problem confiscating their lands or even their daughters if they fail to pay up. In contrast, Mary is seen going from house to house selling little chunks of cheese, in an effort to keep her family from starving. In another scene, Herod is strolling around the site of a future palace, in conversation with his architect. No, one pool is not enough; he would like two, thank you very much, with water from the upper pool cascading into the lower pool, with the walls of both of solid gold, to reflect the sun. The exorbitant cost of Herod's proposed residence prompts him to impose more taxes on the people, causing Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem, where their first home is little more than a shelter under a rock, exposed to the elements on two sides.

The privileged people in the movie strut around in silks and jewels, retinues in tow, but it is readily apparent that they are absolutely obsessed with holding on to their status. Herod makes it very clear to his son that he has already done away with his two other sons, and that he would have no compunction about killing a third, should he get in the way of his father's quest for power. The underprivileged, on the other hand, like the shepherds, have no status to lose, and everything to gain, and so it makes sense when we understand that God's angels summoned them, and not the important folk, to the Manger.

We come to church on Christmas because the Nativity Story is our story. Even Newsweek, in its annual foray into theological commentary, remarked: "Christianity begins . . . with the story of a mother, father, and their baby. There are dark touches --- the slaughter of the innocents and the Holy Family's flight to Egypt --- but the sweeter scenes of crèches and angels and adoring parents hold a firm place in the popular imagination." But the other side of the story is that we know that the struggles between rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless, the in-groups and the out-groups are still playing themselves out in virtually every arena of our lives. We recognize this every Christmas as we sing a favorite carol: Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long; Beneath the heavenly strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not the tidings which they bring; O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing. Edmund Sears, "It came upon the midnight clear"

It is not enough for us, therefore, to "bend our joyful footsteps" as we visit the Crèche. It is not enough for us to sing with the angels "Gloria in Excelsis Deo." It is not enough to come to the Manger with the shepherds and embrace the Christ Child "with love and awe." The joy that we experience tonight must be translated into action. We must do all that we can to ensure that the angels' song drowns out the cacophony which we human beings are especially capable of making. Thomas Merton, monk and mystic, put it this way: "Christ is born to us today, in order that He may appear to the whole world through us. This one day is the day of his birth, but every day of our mortal lives must be His manifestation."

We must make Christ manifest on the blood-stained battlefields around the world, where as Prince of Peace he can remind combatants of the Prophet's prayer that nations not learn war anymore. We must make Christ manifest on the battlefields of our church, where He who bought the church with his blood and made her his Bride can remind combatants of his high priestly prayer that its members be one, even as he and the Father are one. We must make Christ manifest on the battlefields of our lives, even in the bosom of our families, where as the One who came to reconcile the world to himself he can remind combatants to love one another even as he loved us. In this way we make our way past the ersatz signs of Christmas that our world has provided --- past the tawdry tinsel, the sedentary Santas, and the monotonous Muzak, and look instead for the sign to which the Angel pointed the shepherds, "a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a Manger."

Let us pray: When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone When the Kings and Princes are home When the shepherds are back with their flocks, The work of Christmas begins. To find the lost, To heal the broken, To release the prisoner, To teach the nations, To bring Christ to all, To make music in the heart. [Howard Thurman] AMEN.