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, 2009

“We wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13)

              There are several ways to ruin a perfectly good Christmas sermon.  And since, owing to the high caliber of preaching for which this pulpit is known, you will never encounter them here, let me acquaint you with some of them.

              The first is the castigatory approach, also known as the “shame on you” approach.  This is when the preacher upbraids those worshippers who only seem to find their way to church on Christmas and Easter.  I think that’s kinda tacky, and a lousy way to do evangelism, besides!  I think it makes far better sense to compliment such folk (to whom some disparagingly refer as the “lily and poinsettia crowd”) for recognizing the theological preeminence of the feasts of our Lord’s Nativity and Resurrection.

              Some preachers go the route of “the real meaning of Christmas” whose major theme is the condemnation of the commercialization of Christmas in no uncertain terms.  While not without merit, this approach is so trite and hackneyed, it is bound to fall on deaf ears.

              Then there is the romantic, sentimental approach, also known as the Nativity according to Hallmark, in which the preacher’s view of Christmas has been unduly influenced by Flemish paintings, in which the Holy Family is clad in yards of silk and velvet, all the shepherds are wearing Birkenstock sandals, the Infant Jesus is so plump he has already outgrown the Manger, and the Manger itself looks like a mediaeval throne room --- all of which manages to remove Christmas from the realm of reality.

              Those of us present last Sunday were treated to a living and I daresay authentic sermon about Christmas, the 2009 edition of the annual, award-winning Christmas pageant.  The uncooperative donkey notwithstanding, we witnessed the unfolding of the Christmas story.  A host of cherubic, haloed angels descended upon the Crèche.  Shepherds abiding in the field proclaimed the Birth of the Messiah.  Sarcastic, indifferent innkeepers sent Joseph and Mary back into the cold.  And a very hip, tattooed Gabriel responded to the incredulous Joseph with the monosyllabic, theologically appropriate utterance, “Word!”

              When all is said and done, what is essential to the Christmas story? Angels, shepherds and even Wise Men lend a nice touch, but are they indispensable to Christmas?  What the Christmas story cannot do without is the angel’s announcement to Joseph that the Baby that Mary was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit, in fulfillment of the prophecy of  Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear and son, and shall call his name ‘Emmanuel,’ God with us.”  That is what Christmas is all about --- the Incarnation, God coming to earth, living among us, living as one of us, or in the immortal words of Charles Wesley, “Pleased as man with us to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.”

              But I would suggest to you that when all is said and done, we didn’t come to church tonight merely to recognize a theological truth, however central it may be to our faith.  Our attendance here tonight, I think, is the function of two far more personal, even visceral emotions.  Our presence is motivated by hope and fear.  How do I know?  The Hymnal tells me so!  In 1816, the English hymnwriter James Montgomery wrote the festive hymn “Angels from the realms of glory,” which contain these words:

              Saints before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear,

              Suddenly the Lord, descending, in his temple shall appear.

Five decades later, on the other side of the Atlantic, the great preacher Phillips Brooks, distinguished rector of Trinity, Copley Square and later bishop of Massachusetts, wrote these words, immortalized in the first verse of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”:

              Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;

              The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

              First of all, the story of Christmas is a story of hopes and fears.  The place where Jesus was born was rife with fear.  He was born in a land occupied by the soldiers of a foreign ruler --- and the people paid exorbitant taxes to a government other than their own.  Their society was a volatile one, a virtual tinderbox, anything but stable.

              Yet the people among whom Jesus was born were hopeful.  They clung to the belief that they were people of promise --- God’s promise, despite the misery and deprivation that they endured.  Much of their hopefulness was caught up in a deep longing for a Messiah, a savior, the long-promised one who was coming “with healing in his wings” to inaugurate a new world order.  They were fearful and hopeful all at once.  Mary and Joseph, although told by the Angel not to be afraid, were overcome with dread even as they hoped that in some small way, they would be instruments of God’s plan.

              We, too, face the twin challenges of hope and fear.  Both are forward-looking words.  Hope looks forward expectantly, while fear looks forward with trepidation.  We make every valiant effort to be hopeful, but if we are honest, we sometimes feel the stomach-churning, throat-tightening, palm-sweating presence of fear. We are hopeful that the stock market will continue on its upward though admittedly slow climb; yet recent experiences cause us to fear that disaster is just around the corner.  We hope for longevity, but fear that death can come unexpectedly; we hope for health, but fear that an unexpected illness can change the course of our lives.

              The President, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in a comment reminiscent of a theme in his inaugural address, addressed this inevitable convergence of hope and fear.  Although, he remarked, “we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families. . . yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalization, the cultural leveling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities.” 

              The Church, as she seeks to be faithful to the ongoing revelation of Jesus Christ, is perennially challenged by the hope-and-fear fork in the road.  I remember sitting in the visitors’ gallery of the House of Bishops in 2003, when that body met to vote on the ratification of the election of Gene Robinson.  Ted Eastman, the retired bishop of Maryland, rose and addressed his colleagues, saying, “All the reasons for not proceeding with the consecration are based on fear, but the reasons for going forward are based on hope.”

               My sisters and brothers in Christ, I said a few minutes ago that our presence here tonight was motivated by hope and fear.  Let me refine that statement.  Our presence here tonight is a testimony to our belief that in Christ, hope will overcome fear.  Unlike Herod, motivated by fear, especially the fear of losing his power, we choose to identify with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the Wise Men, who despite having grounds for fear, chose instead to be led and motivated by hope. We are here because we choose to identify with the residents of ancient Palestine, clinging to hope even in the face of adversity.  For even though most of us will never know the depths of their oppression, we are painfully aware that there are still many in our communities who live, as the Christmas carol reminds us, “beneath life’s crushing load” [Hymnal 1940, 19, v. 4]--- the crushing load of poverty, the crushing load of want, the crushing load of tyranny.

              We are here, too, because we know intuitively that without hope the human spirit spirals down to destruction. Hope is the force that works on the human heart, the drive that causes us to press on. We are here because we can proclaim, in the words of a great hymn, “Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear” [Hymnal 1982, 541, v. 3]. We are here because we are, as the Prophet Ezekiel describes us, “prisoners of hope."  [37:11].

              Christmas, poised as it is, at the end of one year and at the beginning of another, is a time of hope, a crossroads of the past and the future.  A previous year, with its blessings and its trials, is gone.  A new year, with its opportunities, awaits. My prayer tonight is that, keeping ever before us Jesus Christ, that Light of the world that shone in the dark streets of Bethlehem, we might, as the writer to the Hebrews admonishes us “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,” [10:23] knowing that faith is indeed “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” [Heb. 11:1].

                Let us pray:

                            Then may we hope, the angelic thrones among,

                            To sing, redeemed, a glad triumphal song;

                            He that was born upon this joyful day

                            Around us all his glory shall display;

                            Saved by his love, incessant we shall sing

                            Eternal praise to heaven’s almighty King.

                                                        Hymnal 1982, 106