Luke 2:1-20
So how are you feeling right now? Are you full of hope, joy, peace, and all the other positive emotions that you know you are supposed to feel at Christmas? Maybe. I hope so. But life is hardly ever that clear cut. Likely there are other feelings as well. My guess is that some of us are holding sorrow in our hearts right now. Or maybe frustration or disappointment or pain. Others may be feeling frazzled by all the rush and responsibility of the past few weeks. While probably all of us are experiencing some degree of anxiety and exhausted from living close to two years now in the world of pandemic.
The emotions we experience at Christmas can be quite complicated. But part of the good news is that the Christmas story makes room for that. As much as I love singing carols, like Silent Night, I am well aware that “all” is not really “calm and bright.” In fact, the reason the Christmas story holds so much hope and joy and peace for us is because it doesn’t start there. Instead it starts with another complicated emotion that may not even feel like it belongs at Christmas - and that emotion is fear. It started with fear for Mary and Joseph when they each received a vision from an angel, announcing what was about to happen. And in our Christmas reading it starts with fear for the shepherds.
Now the shepherds were no scaredy cats. They were tough guys who slept in the wilderness and fought-off wild animals to protect their flocks. They were definitely not the type to be easily intimidated. But when an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, they were terrified.
I’d like to think of this as proof that the first people to whom God announced the birth of God’s son didn’t have it any more together than we do. When they were confronted with clear evidence that God was taking an interest in their lives they were filled with fear. And in response to that, the angel offered the rather impossible advice that angels always seem to give, that is, “Do not be afraid.” Now you may know that of all the commands we have in the Bible, “Do not be afraid,” is the one that comes up the most. In some translations it appears 365 times, one for every day of the year. Obviously, God thinks we need to hear it - and often. That’s probably because it’s such a hard command to follow.
Because those shepherds were not unique. The realities of life give us all reasons to fear. And I imagine that there are some heavy fears in this place. Some, perhaps, on a national, international, or even global scale like climate change, the refugee crisis, and, of course, the pandemic. While others are more personal like addiction, financial stress, health concerns, broken relationships, depression or loneliness. Honestly, there are almost an unlimited amount of circumstances that can cause us to fear. And in the face of that, the angel’s command to “not be afraid” seems almost laughable. Impossible to obey - at least on our own.
But maybe it could be possible with the help of the Savior that the angel promises. Maybe we could let go of our fears if God sent a superhero who could take control and overpower all the chaos, conflict, and instability that gives us such good reason to be afraid. But that’s not exactly what the angel promises. The Savior isn’t going to be a superhero. The Savior is going to be a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. Talk about irony. The angel declares, “Do not to be afraid,” and then follows that up with an image of profound vulnerability. A picture, not of one who can soothe away our fears, but of one who needs to be soothed. Because that’s what bands of cloth do. They are used to swaddle, to wrap an infant tightly in cloth. For newborns are used to being tightly held inside the womb. They’re used to warmth and closeness which makes the emptiness of open air quite frightening. So babies are wrapped in swaddling clothes so that the pressure provides a comforting sense that the world isn't really so big and scary after all.
A rather odd sign for the shepherds - and for us - that we don’t need to be afraid. But could it be that this vulnerability, this incarnation of God who becomes so human that he actually knows what it’s like to feel insecure and even afraid, that this is precisely the power of God’s response to the reality of our fears? Because we don’t have a God who stands from afar, unmoved, and says, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Just the opposite, in the story of Christmas, the story of the child wrapped in bands of cloth, God literally embodies the message, “I won’t leave you alone in your fear or in any other part of your life. I will join you. I am with you.”
Because Jesus knows what it feels like to be afraid, he also knows one other thing. He knows what it feels like to feel the comfort of being held in love - which is exactly what God offers to us this Christmas. We are enfolded in love right now. And my prayer this day, and every day, is that we might know how securely the love of God holds each and every one of us. For when we feel that love in our lives amongst all the complicated emotions we experience, God’s perfect love for you, for me and for all people has the power to cast out all fear so that we might truly have lasting hope and joy and peace. It is this love in which Jesus was held in the arms of his mother - who also knew the challenge of fear, but faced it in order to know what it was to give birth to Love. A love that changes the world. A love that changes us. A love which was and is and always will be good news of great joy for all the people.
Merry Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment