The lessons of the gospel message are always rooted in a few basic truths. The DNA of the these truths find their expression over and over: God is creator, God is love, the peaceable Kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms of this world, God’s love plays no favorites, God has reclaimed all creation, sacrifice is the expression of true power, death does not have the last word, etc. And, of course, the stunning claim that God came to this world as a baby.
If we happen to set aside this claim when we look at any area of theology, we set aside a pillar of the temple, which of course is a fatal engineering mistake. For example, the doctrine of the return of Christ. Follow me down this little rabbit trail for a time, and I promise we will come back to Christmas on a one-horse open sleigh.
We sometimes get the impression that the first coming of the Christ was somehow lacking, that the job was left unfinished, that Christ came in weakness the first time, but the second time he will come in strength at the head of a mighty army. And there will be blood. (Whose blood is it though?)
We tend to look at the issues of power in the book of the Apocalypse as a fuller revelation than that of the four gospels. We center the “Lion of Judah” instead of the “lamb that was slain.” We think that justice involves violence and retribution without even noticing that the image of a lion in the vision has been sidelined, negated, and replaced by a wounded lamb. In Rev. 4, before the appearance of the Messiah, there is a single mention of the Lion of Judah, but when we look, we only see a Lamb. This is the message: we look for a lion, but God shows us a lamb. Furthermore, there is no further mention of this lion in the rest of the book, the image is sidelined, negated even. In contrast, the lamb remains the central figure throughout. Yet, in our songs and sermons, we refuse to sideline the image of the lion. We like it. … A lot. It provides the balance and ambiguity we need. I think we want the emotional wiggle-room that allows us to keep our own weapons instead of submitting to the way of the Lamb.
The Christmas story also includes a mighty army, and in the Christmas story, this army is restrained, perhaps even replaced. Why? Because a greater power has arrived. We sing, “Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’re the plains.” But the gospel of Luke calls them a “heavenly host;” that is military language, it describes an army. And there is no mention of sweetly singing, or any singing at all actually. This army backed up the angel who talked to the shepherds, the angel who told the shepherds not to be afraid and told them he had a message of great joy for all people. You know the story.
When we read Luke ch. 2, we notice that the armies showed up after the angel had delivered his message to these shepherds. They made a show of force, gave glory to God, and then declared peace. There are plenty of other stories in the Old Testament when these armies showed up, and carnage and death followed. This was not that.
We like movies where the battle seems lost, and then the army shows up. I think of the LOTR movies where they face the walls of the enemy and then when all hope seems lost, the elves suddenly show up, or the dwarfs, or the wizards riding giant eagles, or something like that. I don’t remember the details. Or, there are times in stories when other supernatural beings are called up. The phrase “Release the Kraken!” comes to mind.
Imagine a scene 2000 years ago where the evil enemy power rules but will not fall to a multitude of heavenly armies, even if these armies were led by an angel of death, or a Kraken. What happens then? How is evil to be defeated? If we look at the Christmas story, we see the ultimate power unleashed against evil. We hear the command: “Release the baby!”
The baby? Yeah, the newest one in that little town over there. They put him in a cattle trough. Go find him.
You see, we don’t really understand power, do we? We think power is best expressed as a lion, as a large army, or even as a mythical beast. No, the mystery of the gospel message is that real power comes in as a baby and goes out like a lamb.
The mysteries of the gospel are not puzzles. They are not partial answers that leave us hanging. The mysteries of the gospel are those truths that make so much sense that they are impossible to articulate as easy answers. These mysteries are territories so wide that we can endlessly explore them. Truths so deep that we can always dig a little bit more. Pictures so beautiful and we can always gaze a little longer. It might even be a joke so funny that it always makes you cry.
When the shepherds arrived and found this baby, they responded appropriately. They told Mary and Joseph, “My that’s a beautiful baby you’ve got there. Some angels told us where to find him because they knew that someday he would be a mighty king. I know he’s not much now, but he’s got such potential. He’s bound to achieve greatness.” No, of course not. The Bible records no talk about the infant’s potential or what he may accomplish someday; it says the shepherds glorified God because they had seen the child.
I think for the shepherds that unforgettable night was not about what the child would be someday, it was about who the child was that night. When they saw the baby they experienced that mysterious blend of loving hope, faithful love, and hopeful faith. They knew that this baby was a peace declaration, God’s announcement that He favored them and people like them.
Mary and the early apostles pondered these things. At first they didn’t understand. But they reflected on what the life and death of Jesus meant. As they saw the story from beginning to end they came to more deeply understand the mystery that God came into the world as a baby. The author of faith, hope, and love was born that night. The fullness of God once weighed 9 lbs. and 4 oz.
Incredible.
But this episode with the shepherds is not the only baby story in the gospels. There were other babies born in Bethlehem that year, other hopeful parents, other happy visitors. In Matthew we hear what happens to those babies about a year or two later. The cops killed them.
Jesus and his parents got away. The other kids didn’t. We don’t know why angels didn’t warn those parents too, but the scriptures honor the bereft young mothers with the ancient words of prophecy, “Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for they are dead.” We can imagine neighbors trying to comfort these mothers long after the murders were carried out; with the words of the weeping prophet Jeremiah, God honors these mothers’ stubborn refusal to move on with life, the refusal to submit to the inevitable evils that steal, kill, and destroy. For “They refused to be comforted.” Good for them. It is only fitting. Their grief should also be immortalized and remembered.
The View From Here 