The Vulnerability of God

Sermon given by the Rev. Christine Gowdy-Jaehnig on 24 December 2021

Texts for All Years : Christmas

Isaiah 9 : 2-4, 6-7 * Psalm 96 * Titus 2 : 11-14 * Luke 2 : 1-20

There were exciting displays of the Aurora Borealis this fall, which are rarely visible this far south. I find them mesmerizing and marvel at their other-worldly appearance, and can imagine they veil an entrance to heaven. Luke describes a different atmospheric phenomenon, which impressed its pastoral witnesses all the way to the ground. It seems the angels could not contain their joy at the birth of the Son of God. Perhaps they marveled that all remained dark and quiet when he was born, while earthly emperors had poets and orators competing to celebrate their births. So the angels left heaven to sing and rejoice, and announce the good news to any with the eyes to see and ears to hear. A group of shepherds a-field with their flocks are the only recorded witnesses.

What newly captured my attention in this well-known story, is that the angels said their heavenly music and aerial display were not the significant sign of the truth of the message! No: great displays of angels? The music of heaven shared with earth? Apparently, those were to be expected when some important human is born. In contrast, the true sign which signaled the birth of this special child was something simple and ordinary: the baby was to be found --wrapped up and lying in a feed trough in the tiny town of Bethlehem while his mother rested and refueled; just another new life that had come into the world —which is a miracle in its own right. Christians have tried to gussy up the story, believing commonplace human experiences were not worthy of our Lord and his mother. The Rev. Alice Haugen, another priest in this Diocese, said it beautifully in her poem Bethlehem:

Fond souls, too tender to presume But they were wrong.
That one so fair would throb with pain We may be sure
By God’s design, proclaimed That dark night saw
That Jesus passed through Mary’s side, Blood flow, heard cries of pain:
Both son and mother undefiled. The beginning like the end.

Every December 24th, coupled with Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ birth, we read six verses from Isaiah. Taken together these readings remind us of the paradox of the incarnation; the surprising way in which God works. Isaiah, rejoicing in the birth of a child, wrote: “For to us a child is born; to us a son is given.” Perhaps in imitation of the titles given to Egyptian pharaohs, Isaiah heaped upon this child names of great weight and expectation. No one knows whether that child grew to fulfill the hope which greeted his arrival, but more than 700 years later and ever since, these titles have been applied to Jesus, and deemed appropriate. Yet, putting Luke and Isaiah together we see:

The Wondrous Counselor enters the world as (to quote Shakespeare) a “mewling and puking infant”;

The Prince of Peace breaks the silence of the night and his parent’s sleep with cries of fear and hunger;

The Divine Warrior submits to being immobilized with swaddling bands --and finds them comforting;

And the Everlasting Father of all becomes totally dependent upon those he calls His children.

I had always thought that Jesus began his ministry at around the age of thirty. But Jesus actually began his work of revelation at the tender age of … five minutes!? As Alice wrote, “The beginning like the end.” At the end, when Jesus hangs immobile and impotent on the cross, Jesus is making his greatest revelation about the who, what and how of God. And at his incarnational beginning, he is also immobile in his swaddling clothes; quite powerless to feed, warm or care for himself in any way, let alone save others. The Creator of the universe enters the world as a helpless infant. God has joined us in our moment of greatest vulnerability and in that moment he has placed himself in our hands. The hands of humanity that will reach out to him in plea and praise are now soothing and burping him. Christmas is the first time that Christ says, “This is my body, given for you.” This is the definitive revelation about God. The heart of God is revealed in the tiny baby, not the angry, bearded omnipotent Deity. He works from weakness and, lying in our arms, he is doing some of his best work. It is to be hoped that our response will be to give up our defenses and questions, abandon our pride and accomplishments, cast aside our concerns about worthiness. And knee and adore, for Jesus is the disarming love of God.

Let us pray:

God of new birth:

We thank you for once becoming flesh in a humble family;

Teach your church to be as tender, and true as our infant Savior.

Give us such peace and joy in your company that our hearts join the angels’ unending song.

This we pray through Jesus, the Child of Promise. Amen.