Christmas Dialogue Sermon, first preached by Lesley Barclay and Graham Cotter at Trinity Church Colborne, Ontario.
the song, Don’t Wait For An Angel, was written with music by Caryl Micklem and published in New Christian. The song was reprinted with author’s permission in The Cup of Blessing, by G Cotter and A Lawson, Cotter, Warkworth, 1998
Don’t wait for an angel, don’t look for a star,
To tell you the message or guide you from far.
These are part of the background for art-lovers’ eyes,
To help them to measure the portrait for size.
He’s only a baby to grow to a man;
To call you to finish
The work he began.
It isn’t to Bethlehem shepherds must go,
But to look for the missing lamb under the snow.
It isn’t on camels that real kings ride,
But on asses and crosses with robbers beside.
He’s only a baby to grow to a man;
To call you to finish
The work he began.
Now all you good people from bench and from sink,
Come turn up the volume and hear yourselves think;
Who else on his birthday’s put back in a cot?
Do you reckon Act One is as good as the lot?
He’s only a baby to grow to a man;
To call you to finish
The work he began.
G. In the Name of God, our Source, our Saviour, our Sanctifier. Amen.
We have heard how Mary and Joseph her husband went to Bethlehem, when she was ready to be delivered of her baby. But she had to lay her child in a manger when he was born, because there was no room for them at the inn.
L. That’s terrible! Why didn’t they have a reservation?
G. Well, in those days there was no mail service or telephone to make a reservation.
L. Well, if you want to tell us about a baby, it better be a baby we can relate to, a modern baby.
G. There are many modern babies whose parents can’t find accommodation; sometimes it seems even more than those whose parents can.
L. So this child had improvident parents, Mary and Joseph. Not much of an example to the rest of us. Not much of a family to found a whole religion on.
G. This baby does have modern appeal. First, because everyone loves a baby.
L. I can think of exceptions.
G. There are always exceptions; some people don’t like nice food and drink, and don’t care for their neighbours, but this baby was to show us what is right and what is normal.
L. This…baby…was to show us what is right and what is normal?
G. Yes. This baby came from God. You have heard how the Angel appeared to Mary when she conceived and you have heard tonight about the angels announcing his birth to the shepherds.
L. Why would…God come as a baby, for heaven’s sake?
G. For earth’s sake as much as for heaven’s, you know. And the angels all sang together, “Glory to God in heaven, and on earth, peace to all of good will.”
L. Well, we can do with some of that peace and that good will, that’s for sure.
G. So this baby came to bring God’s love among us, and came to be seen as God’s own son.
L. What kind of sources have you got for a story like that?
G. We have stories in tonight’s Gospel, written by Luke, who also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, and we have another story in St Matthew’s Gospel. That one could only have been witnessed by Joseph, and this one must come to us from the recollections of Mary, the baby’s mother.
L. So Mum and Dad were good storytellers, especially about their wonderkid! And Luke was a kind of Robert Munch who put it in a book.
G. It’s easy to be sceptical, but there is another kind of source which shows the importance of these stories.
L. What do you mean?
G. The fact that we are here tonight, and that all over the world, as we come on the midnight hour, people are celebrating the birth of this child.
thy Church unsleeping
while earth rolls onward into light
through all the world her watch is keeping…
As o’er each continent and island
the dawn leads on another day,
the voice of prayer is never silent,
nor dies the strain of praise away.
People are celebrating and they see in the birth of this child the light of God coming into the world, and the darkness of fear dissipated by love and hope.
L. Now you’re talking. This is the winter solstice. All kinds of religions are glad that the sun now begins to come back - even if it takes months and months to have any effect!
G. Well, those religions are right as far as they go, and whether they know it or not, the return of the sun, signalled by this time of year, is a spiritual as well as an agricultural sign.
L. So Mary and Joseph’s fairy tale is a better fairy tale. How come their kid is better than anyone else’s?
G. He is not better. He is just as weak, just as dependent, and needs as much human love as any other baby.
L. And belongs to the weaker sex!
G. Right, and Christians believe that God comes into the world in that baby because God leaves off all the power and glory the angels are singing about to be just as we are. The weakness of that child, like the weakness of any other newborn child, is a sign for us of what God will do with all our weakness.
L. What’ll God do?
G. Love us. God will take all that weakness into the person of this child, when he grows up, and allow that man, Jesus, to find a way of turning weakness into strength, shame into glory, fear into hope, death into life.
L. So this baby’s story is just a beginning?
G. Yes, it is the story of the beginning of light coming into the world, but it is so much like so many other stories which contain human hopes - the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight - that it is not itself the big Christian story. It is a reflection back to the birth of Jesus of what Jesus was to achieve at the end of his time on earth.
L. So what’s this other big story, and who told it?
G. It is the story of Easter and we are telling it now. Later tonight we will remember what Jesus said and did on the night before he died.
L. Hey! You’re not telling me that the big story is all that horrible thing about Jesus dying on the cross? Who needs that with people dying in Bosnia and Somalia and children starving? It’s horrible. Let’s just think of that baby, all sweet and innocent, the way the pictures have him.
G. You can’t have the cuddly baby without the sorrow around him. He comes to bring hope and joy where there is despair and pain. He’s not just ornamental: he’s of some earthly use! Even the stories of his infancy with the mean Herod in the background, show how the birth of this child was a threat to earthly power, and how his family had to hide in Egypt, while innocent children were slaughtered by the jealous king.
L. That’s a terrible story! How does this little snippet in the crib bring light into that kind of darkness? G. By growing up. Listen:
Don’t wait for an angel
don’t look for a star
to tell you the message
or guide you from far.
These are part of the background
for art-lovers’ eyes,
to help them to measure
the portrait for size.
He’s only a baby
to grow to a man:
to call you to finish
the work he began.
L. So you think the story came through his mother?
G. Yes. We are told that she “treasured all these things in her heart.”
L. What things?
G. Well, the story of the angel who came to her, the report of angels given by the shepherds. You know how mothers and fathers remember what happens with their babies.
L. Why all this fuss about Jesus’ mother Mary, anyway?
G. If these stories came from her, she must have told them, Luke tells us she was a member of the group of his followers who were left to tell about him.
L. But she is treated like a goddess in some Christian churches.
G. She is very important for all of us because she responded to the extraordinary message of the angel by saying she would do what God wanted. Just as Jesus later submitted to God’s will, so did Mary. If we need a female role model in unselfishess, there it is.
L. Is that all there is?
G. No. Her story gives us insight into the motherly nature of God. The church was so dominated by masculine points of view about God that the personality of Mary was a means of our getting a balance in our understanding of God’s own being, for God is both Father and Mother.
L. Now you’re talking. I never really liked putting that woman up on a pedestal, and making it look like the only way to get to Jesus or God was through her manipulation of her son.
G. The real historic Mary was not on a pedestal: she was threatened by social hatred of out of wedlock pregnancies and illegitimate births. There would have been the usual pains and risks of childbirth, and probably stress from a wilful son who at his bar-mitzvah stayed behind to argue with the temple leaders, not to mention her horrified witness to his crucifixion and death. It is not good to think of God on a pedestal either: the Christian message is that God comes among us as one of us to share our life and lift us up from the worst aspects of our life.
L. What are we lifted up to?
G. To being fully human, which is in a sense to be divine. We associate being divine with being in light, and being less than human with being in darkness.
L. So the story of Easter is a story of coming out of spiritual darkness into light.
G. Yes.
L. So the light and darkness of Christmas is like a rehearsal for the big Christian story at Easter… Hey! It’s like Christmas is the birthday of the Universe, and Easter is the wedding feast!
G. You got it!
L. Except…there’s all the sad stuff of Jesus on the cross. That’s no wedding.
G. You don’t enter the rose garden without the risk of being torn by thorns.
L. Is that something to do with what you call “maturity”?
G. Yes. Even if the fairy tales are true, we have to leave them
behind and get out and do something about the harvest of thorns. Listen:
It isn’t to Bethlehem
shepherds must go,
but to look for the missing lamb
under the snow.
It isn’t on camels
that real kings ride,
but on asses and crosses
with robbers beside.
He’s only a baby
to grow to a man:
to call you to finish
the work he began.
L. I like that. Give me some more.
G. Don’t put Jesus back in his crib, because of the pretty sentimental picture; the story of his birthday - of the universe’s birthday, as you say - is only Act One. Just wait till you see Act Two and Act Three.
Now all you good people
from bench and from sink,
come turn up the volume
and hear yourselves think;
who else on his birthday’s
put back in a cot?
Do your reckon Act One
is as good as the lot?
He’s only a baby, etc.
to grow to a man:
to call you to finish
the work he began.
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