Gabriel's Song

This was my message for Christmas Eve. The text was Luke 2:1-20:

Within the nativity story, angels play a critical role and a familiar part of the story, if nothing else than the angels appearing to the shepherds in the fields as we just heard, and as Linus reminds us every year as being part of the story of the meaning of Christmas. But the angels in the fields are even more than just this moment. Jesus’ birth story actually begins with angelic announcements, and that’s actually the angel Gabriel. He first appears to Zechariah in the temple telling him that his wife Elizabeth will give birth in her old age, although we’re never told that age, but Zechariah doesn’t believe him. and Gabriel begins that message by telling Zechariah, not to be afraid. Gabriel then appears to Mary to tell her that she too will become pregnant, and again begins with the injunction do not to be afraid. An angel also appears to Joseph, although this time in a dream, and we’re not told whom this angel is, but again the message begins “do not be afraid.” And of course, as we’re talking about angels in the Christmas story we cannot forget angel second class, Clarence Odbody, in Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life.  I think my favorite portrayal of an angel is not in a Christmas story, but instead was done by John Travolta who portrayed that archangel Michael, in the movie of the same name.  A smoking, hard drinking, hard living, slob, with a rather colorful vocabulary.  Someone no one would ever believe was an angel if it weren’t for the two wings growing out of his back.  And you know that John Travolta is a really good actor when he, a scientologist, can play the leading messenger for God.

We actually don’t know very much about angels from the Bible.  Most of what people think about them, or think they know about them, comes from extra-biblical sources, some of them quite modern, and we could talk about them but then we’d have to end up talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  But that is not to say that angels aren’t found in scripture because they are.  The first time we hear of an angel is after Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden, the entrance is guarded by cherubim who has a flaming sword, think of it as the world’s first light saber.  The cherubim are winged creatures who act sort of as guardians, and if you remember Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark correctly, they are the images formed onto the top of the ark of the covenant.  Later we will also hear about seraphim, who are winged creatures said to be found guarding God’s seat inside the Temple in the Holy of Holies.  If I remember correctly, it’s the cherubim that hang from the ceiling and the seraphim that come up from the floor, or maybe it’s reversed, I can never remember which is which.  But while they are angelic like creatures, outside of the wings, these are not really angels as we typically understand them or think of them, or as they are found in the rest of scripture.

In the Fullness of Time

Here is my message for Blue Christmas. The text was Galatians 4:4-7:

When I lived in Santa Fe, this is pre-ministry years, one of the houses I lived in was on the southside of the city, with windows that covered the entire southside of the house, which meant it had fantastic views, but it was hard to heat in the winter and the birds hated it because they kept running into the windows. One time a bird hit the window so hard, I thought for sure he had broken his neck, but when I went out later to collect him, he wasn’t there. Turns out he wasn’t dead, just stunned. But, if you’ve ever seen a bird recover from hitting a window, there is a certain ritual that they all go through. First is they sort of fluff out their feathers and sit for a while a little drooped over. Then they’ll start to walk around, and shake out a foot, and then a wing, and then another foot, and then the other wing, and fluff up their feathers, and they keep doing that for a while. It sort of reconnects their mind with their bodies, and reminds them that they are a bird, and how to work everything, and how to be normal again. They don’t just get right up and fly again, it takes a while. They have to return to a new sense a normal. In fact, birding groups recommend that if you find a bird that’s been stunned and is not in a safe area to recover, to place it in a container where it can do this process, in a dark, warm space, which will help calm it down, and then leave it alone for two hours before checking on them again.

Gifts of Christmas: Emmanuel

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Isaiah 7:10-16:

There are lots of things for which religion is used, and one of them is to explain suffering, with the corresponding side of that of giving hope. And different religions give different answers, but there is one thing that separates Christianity from everyone else is the fact that we believe the answers are found not in ideas, but in a person, and that person is of course Jesus. Whom we also refer to, especially in this time of the year as Emmanuel, which means God with us. And so that is the final gift that we celebrate receiving from God through Christ. Just a quick recap, the first gift was reconciliation, that through Christ we are invited into right relationship with God and with each other. And the second gift was the freedom we receive through the Christ, of being freed from the slavery to sin and death, and into forgiveness and eternal life, but also the freedom to stop thinking about ourselves and instead to become servants to the world, just as Christ did. And that leaves us with the greatest gift which is that Christ himself is the Word made flesh, as the gospel of John says, also known as the incarnation. God come to dwell amongst us, our Emmanuel. And we first here of this from that passage we heard today from the prophet Isaiah.

Now it is from Isaiah that we get most, but not all, of the things that we take as telling of the coming of Christ, but let me just say that these are particularly Christian understandings. Within Judaism they were not necessarily viewed as messianic predictions. Especially for Isaiah, he was not prophesying about some time in the distant future, but about the here and now, and that is true for this passage. As Isaiah is talking about this young woman, it’s a woman that is actually there. There is lots of speculation about who she is, with guesses that she is Isaiah’s wife, or perhaps Ahaz’s wife, or another member of the royal court, but she could just be a pregnant woman walking by that Isaiah is using as an example. Because the whole point of this interchange is about trust. Ahaz, the king, doesn’t trust God, or at least he’s not showing that trust. God tells him to ask for a sign about what’s happening, to see a sign of reassurance, but Ahaz refuses, and also tries to wrap that refusal in religious language, sort of ironic.

Gifts of Christmas: Freedom

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Isaiah 11:1-10: