Luke 1:39-45
December 24, 2006
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Recalling the birth of our son 31 years ago in 1975 is as vivid as it was yesterday. I was here at church leading worship on June 1st when someone interrupted the service with the message that the baby was coming. Right after worship (I was told there was still time), I packed my things and hurried home to time the contractions. Later that night around 9:30 at French Hospital, our first child, Greg was born.
We’ve been anticipating our first baby’s arrival by attending childbirth classes, preparing the baby room with a Noah’s Ark theme and even with a secondary status like that of Joseph’s, I was anticipating that I would be forever responsible for molding another human life and protecting the life of his mother.
Women have a very different role as they anticipate the birth of babies. Women who have already been mothers and yet-to-be mothers often cluster together discussing their particular experiences. They buy baby gifts and imagine what baby clothes would look like on their infants even before they are born. They are beaming with joy as mothers-to-be similar to Mary’s joy while the fathers-to-be anticipate the necessity of being utterly reliable.
Bearing a child and giving birth is an all-consuming reality that forever alters life. It is profoundly physical. It is extremely emotional and gladly so. It is supremely spiritual and necessarily so. And in every way, a baby is intrusive! A little child so small, so tiny and fragile is capable of disrupting and turning our lives upside down! You ask any of the new mothers in this church and they will tell you this is so. You ask the growing number of Nursery helpers required upstairs and they will tell you this is true. Every baby is an intrusion. And even after you think you have done all the good planning of anticipating the coming of a baby, the baby will still turn your life upside down!
Baby Jesus
Although every baby is an intrusion, this baby, this child born among us, this Jesus is especially intrusive.
We gather here today on the basis of nothing more than this baby. This baby has interrupted your last night’s sleep so that you can be here. This baby has stopped you from doing more shopping this morning so that you can be here. We are here to receive a baby, the baby Jesus who is especially intrusive. As you know from the Christmas story, this baby was not received by everyone.
The angels, who disrupted the heavens with joyous songs, sung of his birth as good news. But not everybody thought the birth to be good news. The shepherds were filled with fear. King Herod, despite all of his soldiers guarding him up at the palace, was also afraid, and immediately saw this baby’s birth as a threat to his empire. Even Joseph, the man engaged to Mary, didn’t readily receive the baby. While God’s people anticipated the coming of a Messiah, they were still afraid when it was happening.
Jesus was conceived by a woman who wasn’t married to anyone. We have names for such babies. I don’t hear this term too often anymore, thankfully, though we use to call such babies illegitimate. That is a sad term for anybody, illegitimate, much less the very Son of God.
But we can say that we are not like the people who disregarded this baby. Hundreds of us gather here at this church today, more will gather here tonight, millions of us around the world are doing the same. We are all here to receive the baby, to welcome and embrace the Word made flesh and dwelt among us. We have been anticipating this arrival and know that he will transform our lives upside down! We welcome this baby to intrude in our lives!
And there is another miracle occurring here. We are receiving the baby, but the baby is also receiving us. Because we would not come to God, God came to us. This is the reason for the birth of this baby.
“In many and diverse ways, God spoke to us,” say the scripture, “And now God has spoken to us with a Son.” The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we held his glory. God came to us so that we might come to God. Before we congratulate ourselves on our willing and eager reception of this baby, let us wonder at this baby’s gracious reception of us.
God reaches down to us before we reach up to God. God takes our humanity so that we might assume some of God’s divinity. We may be anticipating just a baby but this baby, the Son of God transforms us to new life.
So much so that we Christians come to speak, almost casually, of a miracle when we say, “I am a child of God.” We have been made children of God by the great grace of our loving God who reaches down to us in the incarnation. When we come to the message of Christmas, it’s a message of anticipation of transformation.
Receiving the Baby
I want to tell you a story that took place in the little town of Northhaven, Minnesota. The story is by Michael Lindval, a Presbyterian minister who wrote a book entitled, The Good News From Northhaven.
On Thanksgiving Weekend, they had a baptism. One of the elders of the church, Angus McDonald proudly stood with his new grandson, Angus III, otherwise known as Skip, as the baby was baptized. By the way, Presbyterians baptize babies like the way we dedicate babies to God.
As is the custom in many churches, whenever a baptism occurred at the Presbyterian Church in Northhaven, the preacher ritually asks the congregation, “Who stands with this child?”
Then the grandparents, perhaps an assortment of relatives, join the parents holding the baby, presenting the baby for baptism. After the service was over, after the congregation had exited the church for Thanksgiving Sunday dinner, as the pastor was putting the sanctuary back in order, he noticed one person had remained. He recognized her as someone who always sat in the back pew, closest to the back door. She seemed at a loss for words. After an awkward silence, she commented on how lovely the baptism was and then fumbling for words, she said to the pastor, “Tina has had a baby and well, the baby ought to be baptized, shouldn’t it?”
The pastor suggested that Tina should come to see him, along with her husband, and they could discuss the possibility of baptism.
The woman looked up at the pastor and said, “Tina has no husband. She was confirmed in this congregation, came to the youth group. But then she got involved with this older boy. And then she got pregnant. She is only eighteen.”
The pastor awkwardly mumbled that he would bring the request before the church elders.
When the pastor presented the request to baptize Tina’s baby before the elders, there was some mumbling. Who was the father? The pastor said that he didn’t know. How could they be sure that Tina would be faithful to the promises that she was making in baptism? How could they be sure about anybody’s promise? After some shuffling about, the baptism was approved for the Fourth Sunday of Advent.
When the Fourth Sunday of Advent came, the church was filled, as it always is just before Christmas. The rumored snow had not come and the crowd was full.
They went through the service, singing the usual Advent hymns and so forth. Then they got to the time of baptism. The pastor announced, “And now would those to be presented for baptism come forward.”
An elder of the church stood and read off the three-by-five card, “Tina Corey presents her son, James, for baptism.” He awkwardly stared at the card. Tina got up from where she was seated and came down to the front, holding two-month old James in her arms. A blue pacifier was stuck in his mouth. The scene was just as awkward as the pastor and the elders knew it would be. Tina seemed so young, so alone. As she stood there, they could not help but think of another mother and another baby, young, alone, long ago in somewhat similarly difficult circumstances. In another place and time Tina and Mary seemed like close sisters.
And then the pastor came to that appointed part of the service when he asked, “And who stands with this child?” He looked out at the mother of Tina dressed in her meager way, and nodded toward her. She, hesitantly, awkwardly stood and moved toward her daughter and her grandson. The pastor’s eyes went back to his service book to proceed with the questions to be asked of the parents when he became aware of movement within the congregation. A couple of elders of the church stood up. And many stood beside them. Then the sixth-grade Sunday school teacher stood up. Then a new young couple in the church stood up. And then, before the pastor’s astonished eyes, the whole church was standing, moving forward, clustered around the baby and the mother.
Tina was crying. Her mother was gripping the altar rail as if she were clutching on the railing of a tossing ship, “which in a way she was”—a ship in a great wind—moving forward this day so much closer to their ultimate destination. And little Jimmy, as the water touched his forehead, grew peaceful and calm as if he could feel the warm embrace. And the whole congregation gathered as if this were their child, as if they were all family.
The eager anticipation of the good news of Christmas for this congregation enabled them to become transformed as the children of God. They could have maintained their church regulations and treated this Christmas like all the other Christmases in years past.
But when we become open to the news that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, we realized that at first we did not receive him. But rather it is God who came to us so that we might come to God. God reaches down to us before we reach up to God.
Our Choice
While the birth of a baby is a cause of great joy, it is also a cause of huge consternation. For Mary and Elizabeth, these two kinswomen are having their world intruded by God. They have a choice. They can refuse to receive the God who comes to them in this odd way. They can turn their backs upon the vocation of God and refuse to participate in God’s plan.
Or they can say, “Yes,” they can sing, as Mary in her song, “I do not know exactly what you are doing in all this, but I am willing to be part of what you are doing.” Mary and Elizabeth were willing to trust God’s plans and anticipated good news to come. And in so doing, they became transformed and they played a significant part in transforming the whole world.
That’s the choice before us too. Shall we, like Mary, receive this child’s untimely birth and in a rather embarrassing situation? Shall we be willing to receive God, not as we might have conceived God—as omnipotent, omniscient, and all powerful but as a baby in Bethlehem?
This night, a baby, a wonderful baby, has been born into your family.
By that baby, that wonderful baby, you have been made family. Maybe you are here today by yourself. Maybe you don’t have much family, maybe you have lost the family you had, or perhaps your family is far away.
But do you hear today that rustling in the pews as your family, the whole human family, gathers around the manger? Do you feel these strangers becoming brothers and sisters taking their places around the table with you?
The Word has taken flesh and dwelled among us. What is that word? The Word is Jesus Christ, the love of God given to us today so that we may be transformed as the children of God.
Let us pray.
God of our Savior, as we gather here on this final Advent morning, we are filled with great anticipation. But for many of us, we confess that our minds are not set on heavenly things. There are times when we lose sight of the true purpose of this season. In your mercy, forgive us, and help us never to forget what you did for us when Jesus was born and what you will do for us when Jesus returns on that final day. Lead us to anticipate our transformation as the children of God. In his glorious name we pray. Amen.