“To us this child is born” The divine liberty lies upon his shoulders.
Texts Exodus 1:8-22, Matthew 2:13-23, Isaiah 9:2-6. 29 December 2019. (Not exactly what I said, but the words in my hand).
(https://www.facebook.com/thriveucawa)
Each year Christians observe that society’s idea of when Christmas begins and ends is somewhat different to ours. For the Christian the Christmas season comes after the long wait of Advent, starts on December 25 and runs for twelve days until Epiphany.
Epiphany literally means “I have seen the light!”
For society in general, Christmas seems to start around the beginning of December. Although we might see Christmas advertising and decorations start to pop up in shopping malls some time in October. In Australia, Father’s Day seems to be the seasonal marker.
As we faithfully journey through Advent most churches steer away from the temptation to sing Christmas carols - if they celebrate Advent at all. For those that do - Advent is a season of waiting. In that light, we can also wait to sing the Christmas songs. They will be all the more joyous when our wait is finally over. For the real traditionalists, some may also wait until Christmas Eve to put up the tree or complete the Nativity arrangement.
Dissenters might highlight the rich theology of traditional Christmas hymns and the need for people in the pews, especially the children, to experience those powerful musical expressions of faith in response to the constant replays of Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas.” The Christmas season is short. Let’s sing out the message now – while we have everyone’s interest and attention - before all the decorations disappear in the flurry of boxing day sales and everyone heads to the coast for holidays.
It is not just in secular society that within a couple of days of Christmas the holiday season starts. In our southern hemisphere holiday period, Church services are thinner and less frequent, and ministers traditionally sneak in a family holiday ahead of Easter.
Perhaps both sides of the argument are right. Although they might not see the connection, perhaps the non church-goers (sorry I just can't say non-Christian in my theology) are right to be festive during the season of Advent. After after all Christ has come. Christ is with us. We wait for his return. It was great to remember for a little while how he arrived, but the essential issue is that he has come and will come again.
The season of Advent expresses more than a countdown to Christmas but a reality that reaches far back in time, well before the events in a stable in Bethlehem. It goes back through the entire history of Israel’s religious, political, and geographical oppression. “How long, O Lord?” they cry out in Psalms. How will they answer the enemies who scoff, “Where is this God of yours?” (Ps 42)
We wait for God to come to us. Perhaps waiting is easier. When we acknowledge that he has arrived, we need to respond.
Our readings from Ex 1:8-22 and Mt 2:13-23 highlight parallel stories of struggle for the ancient Israelites in Egypt and those of Jesus’ day. There is also an invitation in our Gospel text to consider displaced peoples and how Jesus might regard our response to refugees today.
However, at the dawn of our Christmas season, what led me to align those two texts today was the striking responses of two powerful rulers - the Egyptian Pharaoh and King Herod – both threatened by weak and helpless children. This invites comparison to the treatment of refugee children, particularly thinking of that one family locked up on ‘Christmas’ Island for their second Christmas. I wonder whether the name of their prison provides a glimmer of hope or a deeper lament.
In light of these ancient comparisons, we might reflect on whether the rulers of developed nations have any much different motivations to the ancients when they set the policies in motion that cannot avoid harming displaced children. Throughout history, the struggle of rulers at the top to maintain society ‘as it is’ inevitably means that some fare better than others.
Does maintaining the 'status quo' of current society better suit the people or the rulers?
Do we lament? When one puts forward a border protection policy which inherently involves imprisoning children – and (surprisingly) one actually gets elected – with a grand majority – wouldn’t it be political suicide to suddenly head down an alternate path (e.g. release the children). Another King Herod had the same problem, when seeking to impress a young woman she asks for a man's head on a plate. In his heart he was troubled, but he had to be the leader people expected - or he wouldn't be their leader much longer.
The Bible offers us weak Kings and powerful babies.
No wonder then, that God would come to lead us into a new way, arriving in a form that no-one expected.
The rest of the sermon uses the words of Jürgen Moltmann[i] (italicised)
Emperors have always like to be called emperors of peace, from Augustus down to the present day. Their opponents and the heroes of the people have always liked to be called “liberators.”
Promising to make things “great again” for the common man.
But they have come and gone. Neither their rule nor their liberation endured. God was not with them …They did not disarm this divided world. They could not forgive the guilt, because they themselves were not innocent. Their hope did not bring new life.
“To us this child is born” The divine liberty lies upon his shoulders.
What does this new rule look like? … He will establish “peace on earth” … He will “uphold peace with justice and with righteousness.” But how can peace go together with justice?
What we are familiar with is generally peace based on injustice, and justice based on conflict. Among us peace and justice are divided by the struggle for power. The so-called “law of the strongest” destroys justice and right.
Leaves refugees behind.
The weakness of the peacemakers makes the peace fragile.
It is only in the zeal of love that what power has separated can be put together again: in a just peace and in the right to peace.
This love does not mean accepting breaches of justice “for the sake of peace.
It does not mean breaking someone else’s peace for the sake of our own rights.
Peace and righteousness will only be one when the new person is born, and God the Lord, who has created all things, arrives at his just rights in his creation.
When God is God in the world, then no one will want to be anyone else’s Lord and God anymore …
The good news for us, is that unlike the ever-hopeful ancient Israelites, we have witnessed the birth of the King of all Kings, God with us, in the person of Jesus Christ.
The child in the manger, the preacher on the mount, the tormented man on the cross, the risen liberator.
In the New Testament, the dream of a liberator, the dream of peace, is not merely a dream.
The liberator is present, and his power is already among us. And that is a reason to sing Christmas songs of fulfillment.
In following Christ today, we each have the opportunity to make visible something of the proper peace, liberty and righteousness of His kingdom. A kingdom that we look forward to being complete when Christ returns in the second Advent.
This is possible in the fellowship with the God who had walked among us.
Let us share in his new creation of the world and – born again to a living hope – live as new men and women.
Joy to the World! The Lord had Come. The zeal of the Lord be with us all and bear much fruit to his glory. AMEN
[i] Moltmann, Jürgen. “The Disarming Child.” Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, Plough, 2001, pp. 308–320.