A Christmas Feast
This week we had a Service of Lessons and Carols, so I didn't have a sermon. So I decided to dig out an old sermon to share with you. This one was written in 2008 for Horne Memorial UMC in Clayton, NC. I spent time thinking about how Christmas is indeed a Feast Day, not just in a liturgical/theological sense, but also in a larger, secular context. In this country, the observance of some understanding of Christmas is universal, even if it is little more than a day off or a chance for people to share a meal together.
The scale of the Christmas story (religious and secular) unfolds much like a Grand Opera. So I decided to prepare a sermon that marks Christmas in this manner.
A Christmas Feast
A Christmas sermon by
Dr. Alan P. Swartz
December 24, 2008
Horne Memorial UMC
Preludio
In the Christian tradition, this is one of the principal feast
days of the church – the Nativity of the Lord – commonly called Christmas.
What is Christmas like in your home?
Families gathering together. There is the gift giving.
For me, the highlight is the meal: when the whole family
gathers around the table filled with food. After all, it is a Feast Day – let’s
have a feast! What does the holiday meal look like in your home, or wherever
you will be enjoying it?
Will you have a turkey? Ham? A Christmas goose?
There is the green bean casserole – you know – made with
cream of mushroom soup and those onion ring things sprinkled on the top.
There is the inevitable sweet potato casserole with enough
sugar and marshmallows to qualify as a dessert, but here in the south, anyway,
we count it as a vegetable!
What will you have for dessert? Coconut Cake? Pumpkin
Pie? Pecan Pie?
Atto 1
Yet, what is it we commemorate on this holy day?
A couple, displaced from the comforts of their own home by an
oppressive occupying empire. Our Gospel lesson tonight begins by naming the
Roman overlords of these people who lived through one oppressive power after
another: Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans.
They are displaced from their own home because Augustus, more
formally known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, called for a census
which would serve two purposes: determining taxable property and who would pay
it; and identifying young men who could be pressed into military service to
further expand the reach of the empire.
Nine months pregnant, an 80-mile journey on the back of a
donkey while your betrothed walks alongside of you over the rocky and hilly
paths they call roads. Assuming the best of conditions, accounting for meals
and bathroom breaks – remember, she is nine months pregnant – they probably
broke the trip up over a week or more.
When they arrive in Bethlehem, the place is wall-to-wall
people. Needing room for privacy, they settle in the animals’ quarters.
Here is that first Christmas.
No smell of baked ham or pumpkin pie! No smell of roasted
duck or spiced cider! Only the smell of manure and urine and the sweat of
travel-worn people to greet the infant boy.
It serves to remind us that salvation is a messy business.
Atto 2
The Apostle Paul says that in the fullness of time, Jesus was
born of a woman. The “fullness of time” – an expression that means the time was
just right. This was when God wanted it to happen.
Have any of you seen the HBO series, Rome, which
describes the fall of the Roman Republic and its replacement by the Roman
Empire? From the time that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with the 13th
Legion to the time when Octavian was declared emperor – Caesar Augustus – was a
time marked with disintegration, bloodshed, and civil war with the citizenry
of Rome. Furthermore, there were the uprisings that had to be put down in the
provinces. The people of Judea had a long history of uprising and rebellion. They
had been doing it since the times of the Greeks.
Augustus was restoring order throughout the empire. Enough so
that this time is often referred to as the Pax Augusta – the Peace of
Augustus; or the Pax Romana – the Peace of Rome. With that pacification,
the Senate of Rome declared Julius Caesar to be a God and Augustus was declared
to be the Son of God and the Savior of the People.
Folks! This is that moment – this is that Fullness of Time!
This is when God begins that great work of redemption! Now!
Atto 3
There are those shepherds out in the fields watching their
flock. The stillness and quiet of the night is broken by the bright revelation
of an angel who announces glad tidings.
Then the sky is filled with a heavenly chorus of angels...
And here is the contrast:
•
In Rome – the mightiest city in the world –
there is Caesar, announced Son of God and Savior by the Roman Senate.
•
In Bethlehem – an insignificant town apart from
the births of David and Jesus – there is a child, announced Son of God and
Savior by a heavenly chorus of angels.
Years later, during an argument about paying taxes, Jesus
would ask for a coin. He would ask whose image was on it. The people would
reply, “Caesar’s”! And Jesus would say, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and
give to God what is God’s!” When he says that we should immediately remember
that we – you and me – are made in the image of God.
Intermezzo
You see! This is why Jesus came!
In the Incarnation: He wants us to remember in whose image we
were made; whose image is stamped on us.
In the Gift of Redemption: He comes to remove the tarnish of
sin that we may see that image once again.
In Calling us to Sanctification: He calls us to follow him –
to be his disciple – recognizing that as we more closely follow Jesus we become
more like him.
Atto 4
So where does that leave
us? We are left thinking about choices we have made and choices we have yet to
make. In our Epistle lesson this evening, the Apostle Paul sums it up quite
well:
Did you hear what St. Paul said? This is why Jesus came. This
is why he “gave himself for us.” He came to “redeem us from all iniquity.”
Redeem means to buy back, to repurchase. The iniquity is the sin, which like
tarnish coats us. Saint Paul says that he came to “purify for himself a people
of his own who are zealous for good deeds.”
So what are those choices we have made? Have they reflected
this new life in Jesus Christ? Are we a people redeemed and purified and
zealous for good deeds?
What about the choices we will make?
What about you?
What choice must you make this very evening?
Coda
Amidst all of the colorful wrapping paper and ribbons and
bows, there is one precious gift that you must not neglect: this gift of life
God has promised us in Jesus Christ.
It is a gift offered to you right now.
God wants you to receive this gift. God wants Christ to be
born in you. God wants to see his redemptive work brought to completion in you.
How might you receive this precious gift?
Just take a moment now and bow your head with me. Reflect for
a moment on who you are...
Reflect for a moment on who God calls you to be...
Pray this with me in your heart...
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