courtesy of the American atheists. And when they finally made it through the tunnel into New York, they were greeted with this billboard:
courtesy of the Catholic league. Imagine sitting or driving through that empty tunnel space pondering the “myth” of Christmas, only to be greeted by “You know it’s real!” In this day in age, sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe when you have groups from all sides telling you their opinions, people fighting over religion and faith, and science explaining to us in detail what we’ve once considered to be miraculous. Not only that, but Christmas has become increasingly secular and materialistic every year to the point that Christ gets lost among our shopping and holiday parties. Those of you with children see the wonder and anticipation in your child’s eyes as they eagerly await Santa Claus and gifts on Christmas morning. And some of you with older children might be asking you this question: Why believe? And you might even be asking yourself this Christmas: Why believe?
Why do we gather here on December 24 every year to sing familiar carols and to hear the same Christmas story that we all know so well? Is it because of tradition? Is it because we are in love with the wonder of the season? Or is it because we believe in the story of Christmas? Why believe? This Advent season, I’ve had the pleasure of gathering with a group of women every Monday to talk about the birth of Jesus found in the Gospel of Luke. Together we have wrestled with the story: who was Mary? How did she react to the news that she would carry Jesus? Did she truly have faith that God would carry her through this? Together, we have decided that Mary was one of the most courageous women in history, risking her reputation, her pending marriage to Joseph, and even her life to bear the Son of God. We found ourselves rediscovering the Christmas story all over again as we talked about the extreme differences between the two birth stories in Matthew and Luke- that our perception of the Christmas story today has evolved into something not completely accurate. We kept comparing the two, realizing that Matthew’s version with the wise men, the star, and the danger of King Herod was a far cry from Luke’s version with the shepherds, the angels, and the baby wrapped in bands of cloth. We decided that Luke’s version is the more warm fuzzy one we find on Christmas cards, while Matthew’s is not for the faint of heart with the killing of all the boys in Bethlehem under two years of age and the holy family fleeing for their lives, bound for Egypt. Nevertheless, the question was asked, “How or why believe if our scripture gives us two completely different versions of Jesus’ birth?” For me, the answer is simply faith. We don’t know why our scriptures seem to contradict about the details of Jesus’ life or other matters. We don’t know what to think when we read one thing and it’s contradicted somewhere else. Sometimes we can hold onto the fact that our differing scriptures challenge us to see Christ in new and various ways, and by these we understand the diverse meaning of our Savior. Sometimes all we can hold onto is our faith in the God of mystery and to live into that wondrous mystery that is our God, and that at the end of the day, details aside, we are given the gift of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. We have the knowledge that our God has done mighty and wondrous things and even looks upon the lowly in order to carry out God’s will for the world and for our individual lives. Some things just cannot be explained in our human terms and we have to throw our hands up in the air and make the choice to say, “God, you are God- I believe, so help my unbelief.”
And so as we sit here in this beautiful sanctuary on Christmas Eve, I want you to ask yourself this question: Why believe in the Christmas story? Luke’s gospel gives us a virgin birth, a baby in a manger, lowly shepherds proclaiming the good news, angels proclaiming the birth. Maybe you have even asked yourself as the billboard suggests- what if it’s all a myth? Yet here we sit because we have a faith in a God of miracles. A God who so loved the world that God chose to become one of us, flesh and blood, human, so that we might know love at its fullest extent. And it all started with a teenage girl thousands of years ago who was a willing and faithful servant, a child of God. It all started with a divine message, a dirty manger, angelic hosts, and no room at the inn. It all started with lowly shepherds who were sent to proclaim the miraculous, those who chose to take the risk to proclaim perhaps an unbelievable story to an uncertain multitude. It all started with faith. So tonight, no matter where you are on your faith journey, I stand here asking you to believe in miracles. I stand here asking you to have faith, to take that risk that Mary took, to take the challenge of the shepherds to proclaim the miraculous, and above all, I’m asking you to believe- not just to celebrate Christmas because it’s tradition or because we give and receive gifts, not just to be here out of obligation or routine, but to actually live into what the Christmas story tells us.
The Christmas story in Luke reminds us of the risks of Mary and Joseph, of the shepherds. It reminds us that faith can do miraculous things in our lives. Above all, the Christmas story is one of hope and love coming into the world, and that this hope and love comes into our world all the time, even in the midst of suffering and heartache. We only need to open our eyes to see it. We know the story, we hear it every year, but it is our choice to believe, our choice to share the hope and love that it brings, our choice to live it out in our everyday lives of faith. In the film, Henry Poole is Here, Henry, an atheist who is going through a rough patch, moves into a new home only to discover that a water stain on the side of his house resembles the face of Christ and soon is being swarmed by curious neighbors who claim that this is a miraculous sign from God. Despite Henry’s efforts to keep the neighbors off his property, they keep visiting the face and praying for miracles, and strange things begin to occur. A mute little girl begins to speak after an encounter with the face, and a young woman with horrible eyesight is given the gift of sight after she touches the water stain. Watch what happens when Henry encounters her at the grocery store:
Some things just cannot be explained, and that’s when we have the choice to believe or not. When we choose to believe, we open ourselves to the endless possibilities of God. We open ourselves to believing in things we never thought possible. We open ourselves to have a relationship with a God who is not an abstract or out of reach deity, but a God who came to us on this earth, who chose to experience the fullness, the emptiness, the dirtiness, the messiness, the pleasure, the pain, the gift that is human life that we all endure. The Christmas story that we hear tonight reminds us that God came to us in order that we might know love firsthand, and that this love isn’t abstract- when a group of online bloggers were recently asked, “Why does the incarnation matter?” One of them had this response: “This kind of love is as concrete as a baby in a manger, as a young man studying scripture in the temple, as a rabbi on a cross.”
The true miracle of Christmas is that God chose to show love to us in this real and concrete way and that God used our everyday typical means to come to us: a young woman, a birth, a humble place, with everyday working people charged to share the news. Our words of reflection tonight said it perfectly: “Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.” This is good news for us to hear as humble, everyday people gathered here tonight. We are part of the Christmas story. We are surrounded by the heavenly multitude who are challenging us to live into the love that God shows to us through Christ, to share that good news, and to make miracles happen out of the love we show to others. Here we sit, thousands of years later, and the story is just the same- only we are to make the choice to believe it, to have faith, and to discover how God continues to be born into our hearts and lives everyday that we are given. "We don’t tell the story of Jesus over and over again just because he is an interesting person. We tell it because it’s supposed to effect a change in us. This story isn’t just about what God did through the life of the man Jesus, it’s meant to show us what can happen when we choose to let God into our lives. In other words, Christmas is not just something that happens to us, but also something that we make happen." (from textweek lectionary commentary) The Christmas story is not just a one time historical event, but something that is continually happening in our lives and in our world. The challenge is that we are to continually discover that for ourselves, to choose to believe, and to live our lives in such a way that we are like those shepherds, proclaiming the good news with how we live and love.
So we come back to this question: Why Believe? When we are confronted with this question, whether you’re sitting in the Lincoln Tunnel pondering, whether someone asks you why you chose to come to church tonight, whether it’s your children asking you about the Christmas story, I hope that you will not be afraid to live up to the challenge to answer this question by taking that risk to believe in miracles, especially the miracle of love that Christmas brings to us. I hope that you will take with you tonight that the Christmas story is not just a myth, but a story of hope, love, joy, and peace coming into the world. It’s a story of how our God works in mysterious ways, uses the most ordinary of people in the most ordinary of places in which to reveal Himself to us. And above all, that the Christmas story is one that reminds us that miracles can and do happen. Our challenge is to choose to believe and to be open to the ways in which God comes into our lives each and every day. Above all, the Christmas story is one that proclaims the miracle of God’s love. And that, my friends, is all the reason and more, to believe. I wish you all a wondrous Christmas. Amen.
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