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What Have We Found?

Luke 2:1-14

December 19, 2004

¹In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels

⁸In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,^£ the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,^£ praising God and saying,

¹⁴  “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

       and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace

Peace, how can we talk of peace? 

For those families that have been separated by war, for those soldiers who have spent many months in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan, or the sailor who has been pretty much confined to a warship on the waters of the Persian Gulf for the last year, the words “on earth peace” might sound like a bad joke.

For any person who has been touched and disturbed by the recent news story of the poor 23 year old pregnant woman who was killed and her yet unborn child stolen from her body by a crazed woman desperate for her own child, “on earth peace” must seem like a foreign, unimaginable phrase.

Even for those folks who have braved the long lines, congestion and frenzy of the nearest mall during the last few days before Christmas, “on earth peace” must seem like an unlikely, silly promise.

Sometimes it feels like there is a deep chasm between us and the peace that is promised at Christmas.

An old pioneer traveled westward across the great plains until he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He gawked at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile down, eighteen miles across, and more than a hundred miles long! He gasped, "Something musta happened here!"

A visitor to our world at Christmas time, seeing the lights, the decorations, the trees, the parades, the festivities, and the religious services, would also probably say, "Something must have happened here!" Indeed, something did happen. [1] The angels came and announced peace, a man sent by God, who was God himself God came to our world to show us peace, and then sacrificed himself on the cross to make peace available to all the universe.  And all this is should somehow be at the core and center of all the extraordinary activity of Christmas.  Yet if a stranger was dropped into the center of most of that Christmas activity, they may exclaim, like that poor dude, met with the grand canyon,  "Something musta happened here!" but because the peace is missing they probably would have no idea what it was!

A television interviewer was walking the streets of Tokyo at Christmas time. Much as in America, Christmas shopping is a big commercial success in Japan. The interviewer stopped one young women on the sidewalk, and asked, "What is the meaning of Christmas?"

Laughing, she responded, "I don't know. Is that the day that Jesus died?" There was some truth in her answer.[2]

There is no peace, there is only evidence, a hollowed out shell, a huge gaping hole in the ground, a commemoration of a forgotten event, a hint and fragile shadow of the awe and surprise and shock and hope the shepherds felt when the Angels came and said, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace”

Instead of being a source for joy, a time for celebrating the gladness of grace and peace that the angels announced to all the world, Christmas itself turns into a stressful situation, a source for anxiety, a reason to call our for help and search for answers. 

One psychologist and philosopher once said, "When people run up against life and find it too much for them, one swears, one gets a headache, one gets drunk and one prays" [3]  How do you find peace in this stressful, challenging, restless time?  In this time and place that seems so hopelessly and undeniably separated by a Grand Canyon, from the peace and hope and eternity of the Christmas promises.

They are calling it the Grand Viaduc de Millau, and the stylish language is matched by the soaring, sensuous beauty of the bridge itself.

Though its delicate lines can appear almost fragile against the mountains of southern France, it is the tallest bridge in the world.

Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of it on television or in the newspapers during the last week or so. 

The bridge has been celebrated as a work of art combining the strength of cement and steel with the “delicacy of a butterfly.”

Its designer, British architect Lord Norman Foster, said of his creation that it seems to float.

He’s right. Because the cables are white, they disappear against the sky, so you have this vision of a very, very slim ribbon of road going almost through what appear to be eyes of a needle.

Supported by seven slender pillars, the roadway stretches for a mile and a half, more than 1,500 feet longer than the span of the Golden Gate Bridge.  The tallest pillar stands at 1,122 feet, making it higher than the Eiffel Tower and a tad shorter than the top floor of the Empire State Building.[4]

This is a work of art that touches all of us," said Thomas Ercker, a foreman who worked on the project for more than two years. "There is only one time in your life you can do something like this. I am convinced that we've created a jewel. I have goose bumps all over."

Patrice Ficheux, the head of a road security company from Lyon, drove four hours with his wife in their 1959 vintage Jaguar to be among the first to cross.

"I wanted to give my car an adventure in the mountains," he said after making the brief crossing. "I had this wonderful feeing of security, as if someone were holding an arm around my shoulder."

Slender, graceful, even fragile-looking, the gently-curving bridge was built in only three years, the product of computer design technology, global satellite positioning and lighter, high-tech materials that shortened the timetable and cut costs.

The deck for the four-lane road is made from a new high grade of steel instead of concrete. Transparent aerodynamic windscreens protect vehicles from high winds and let travelers savor the rugged landscape.

"It had to be very light, very delicate, but immensely strong," said Lord Foster by telephone from London. "The driving experience is close to flying. The trip across the valley is like that of a bird."

Jacques Godfrain, the mayor of Millau, the French city where the bridge is located, has designed a New Year's greeting card with an outline of the bridge and the message, "God gives us hands, but he doesn't build bridges."[5]

Mr. Godfrain is both right and wrong. Wrong about this in particular: that God not only builds bridges, he IS a bridge between this life and eternity, between the warring, unrest of this world and the peace of the eternal kingdom.  The child born in a manger, God made human, is our portal to that peace, to eternity, to the kingdom of God.

But Mr. Godfrain is right about one thing.  God gives hands for us to build bridges ourselves.  He sends us a child who becomes a man to teach us how to build these bridges in addition to becoming the bridge to eternity himself.

In Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation, a story is told of Mary Wilson, presently of Dallas, Texas. You would never know by looking at this modest woman that she was the recipient of the Silver Star and she bore the nickname “The Angel of Anzio.” You will recall that when the Allies got bogged down in the boot of Italy during World War II, they attempted a daring breakout by launching an amphibious landing on the Anzio Beach. Unfortunately, the Allies got pinned down at the landing site and came dangerously close to being driven back into the ocean. It looked like another Dunkirk was in the making.

Mary Wilson was the head of the fifty-one army nurses who went ashore at Anzio. Things got so bad that bullets zipped through her tent as she assisted the surgeon in surgery. When the situation continued to deteriorate arrangements were made to get all of the nurses out. But Mary Wilson would have none of it. She refused to leave at the gravest hour. As she related her story years later, she said: “How could I possibly leave them. I was a part of them.”[6]

Christ becomes part of us, part of humanity and we of him.  We build peace and he builds peace using us as his bridge material, his steel, his concrete, his cranes and construction workers building the new creation that Child came to inaugurate, the angels came to announce and the hopeful awe of the shepherds welcomes.

When life gets hard, what do you do? Do you give up? Do you swear? Do you lash out in hostility? Do you try to find someone to blame? Do you give in to bitterness? Do you run away? Do you hide behind some illness? Do you drug yourself? Or, do you pray? Do you consider the problem prayerfully and then listen for God?  Do you join some construction crew, building a bridge to eternity, to peace, to reach the Kingdom of Heaven?  Do you believe the words of the Christmas angels:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace

Peace, how can we talk of peace? 

 and look hopefully for an opportunity to become one of them yourself?

We have many examples in scripture and in history of folks who were met with unrest, with a heartless, hopeless void of peace an yet responded with their own peace making and hopeful helping:

-There is Job, facing pain and disaster, saying, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him!" (Job 13:15 KJV).

-There is Moses, confronting the awesome power of the Pharaoh and saying, "Let my people go!" (Exodus 5:1).

-There is George Frederick Handel who wrote the "Hallelujah Chorus" as a part of his work “the Messiah.” Handel was beset with great troubles. His health and his fortune had reached the lowest ebb. His right side had become paralyzed, and all his money was gone. His creditors seized him and threatened him with imprisonment. For a brief time, he was tempted to quit, to give up the fight; but then, his obedience to God welled up within him, and he rebounded to compose his greatest work, the epic Messiah, the second part of which ends majestically with the powerful "Hallelujah Chorus."

The best example of faith and connection, despite temptation and a strong pull in another direction is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the shadow of a dark, looming, painful cross, he prayed, "Not my will, Father, but your will be done!" (paraphrase of Matthew 26:42).[7]

When met with the loss of peace in the world, do we nonetheless have faith in our connection with God and resound with the experience of being one with our God, or do we give in to the hollowed out, shadow of life to the horror and pain of this world?  To the warring, the unrest, the sadness, the pain and hopelessness.  Or do we start to do the math and the engineering, begin using our hands and our minds and all the gifts God has given to us in particular to build our own simple bridge from this world to the eternal kingdom of heaven the Christ child came to give?  Each of us is challenged by the darkness and despair in the world.  Yet each of us has our own particular gifts, our own unique way to participate in the creation of a bridge to something beyond, something that transcends the gloom and shadow, that climbs far above it all, on a beautiful, miraculous roadway, build by the hands God has given us and the hope we have in the truth of what the angels Herald to all the world on Christmas Eve.

To close today, I want to read you some song lyrics, not of a Christmas Carol, but of a song celebrating Christ and what he came to that manger to challenge us to do and to become:

“And when Your Spirit washes over me.

Lord, search my soul
It’s so hard letting go
Lord, break this chain
Just let mercy remain.

Make me an instrument of your peace.
Make me a vessel of your love,
Make me a minister of reconciliation in this world
Make me a picture of your grace
Make me a portrait of your face
Make me a minister of reconciliation in this world

Lord, hear my prayer
And in faith, I declare
I take this step
to forgive and forget.

And when your Spirit washes over me
Here in your kingdom without end,
I will forgive my friends and enemies
Again and again and again.
I will forgive.”[8]

I pray that this Christmas and always to come, we too might have the courage and hope to know how we each can be instruments of the Peace of God and bridges to the eternal peace that the angels announce on Christmas Eve.

Amen

Childrens’ Message

Giving away all the peace and keeping it

Matthew 16:21-28

Hold a handful of Christmas candy out to the children. Invite them each to take a candy until all are gone. Then ask them, Have I kept any candy by giving it away? They'll answer no. Ask them if there is anything in life that you DO keep by giving it away. Suggest that love and peace and happiness are all things that we hold on to when we give them to others. Jesus says in Matthew 16:25, For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. Explain that those who hold tight to their life as if it is a fistful of pennies will lose it, while those who lose their life by giving away love and peace and happiness will find it. When we follow Jesus, we discover that the best things in life are gained by giving them away.