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It’s a kid’s book, really, but it’s
fascinating. The title is “501 Incredible But
True Facts to Amaze You”. For example, did you
hear about the guy in Virginia who was struck by lightening
seven times…and lived! I can’t figure out if that is good
luck or bad luck. Or the fact that a python can swallow a
pig whole, and then not eat again for a year. Did you know
that Beethoven used to dump ice water on his head to
stimulate his brain?
But even more fascinating, here are some
facts about our world:
·
The oldest elements found on earth
are zircon crystals from Australia that are 4,276-million
years old.
·
There are rocks found on the top
of Mt. Everest that were formed in the bottom of the sea 6
million years ago.
·
That the earth’s crust, which is
20 miles deep, if you compare it to the full size of the
earth, would be the equivalent of the thickness of an
eggshell….so we really are “walking on eggs” after
all!
Here are a couple more about outer
space:
·
Did you know it takes 8.5 minutes
for light to travel the 93 million miles from the sun to the
earth?
·
Another…if it were possible for
all the adults on the planet to stand on each other’s
shoulders in a human chain, it would reach all the way to
the moon.
(“501 Incredible but True Facts to
Amaze You”, selected pages)
(Similarly, someone estimated that if all
the folks who sleep during sermons were laid end-to-end…
they would be more comfortable!)
And then just this week, NPR shared the
first reports of the NASA Stardust mission. Stardust has
been collecting dust from comets, some of which are 4 ½
billion years old and still traveling through space. (www.stardust.jpl.nasa.gov)
I suppose it has always been a part of
the human imagination, deep in the human soul, the desire to
try to connect with the stars, to reach for the sun, to
build a ladder to the heavens, looking for the point where
earth and heaven meet.
Next year will mark the 30th
anniversary of the launching of the Voyager 2 spacecraft on
August 20, 1977. It was only supposed to last for five
years, but like the Energizer Bunny, it just keeps going.
Traveling at 40,000 miles per hour, it passed Uranus in 1986
and Neptune in 1989. As of August 2006, it has traveled a
total of 10 billion 578 million miles, but even at a rate of
one million miles a day, it will take it another 6,500 years
to reach Barnard’s star, and it won’t pass the brightest
star, Sirius, until the year 296,036. (I don’t think I will
be around to see it!) In reflecting on Voyager’s long and
lonely journey, columnist Joan Beck wrote:
“So humans seem to be alone, marooned
perhaps forever on this small planet in an obscure solar
system in the backwaters of the Milky Way, with only the
most limited instruments to study our surroundings and only
finite brains to ponder the infinity around us.”
(Joan Beck, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 17, 1989)
But across the vastness of the
cosmos, and beyond the grasp of our finite brains, the star
of Christmas sends another message,
A different word to this
small, backwater planet;
A cosmic word for our world.
The Christmas star says, “We are not
alone, we are not forgotten.” The same God who fashioned the
universe and flung the planets into their unerring orbits;
the same God who fills the vastness of the endless and
ageless universe with his presence; the very God who is the
source and author of life itself, this God has spoken. This
God has sent us a word:
And in this Word, earth and heaven
meet.
John’s intent in the opening paragraphs
of his Gospel is not to give historic details of the
Nativity. He doesn’t try to assemble, like Luke, an “orderly
account.” He is not, like Matthew, arguing for Jesus’
genealogy and his rightful claim to Messiahship. Rather,
John begins with the far-flung vastness of all creation, all
wisdom, all knowledge, all life, then out of the wonder of
the universe and across the millions of years of created
life, an eternal Word is heard, the endless logos:
In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God; all things were made through him, and
without him was not anything made that was made. In him was
life, and the life was the light of humankind. And the Word
became flesh, and dwelt among us.
Not quite as poetic, the Eugene Peterson
translation of the verse does give it a “down-to-earth”
flair:
The Word became flesh and blood and
moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own
eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory; like Father, like Son;
generous inside and out; true, from start to finish.
Here and now, we are bold to believe and
proclaim that in this baby, on this night of nights, this
night of stars, from the mystery and majesty of the heavens,
across the ages of human history, the Word breaks forth—the
Word has become flesh and dwelt among us—here
and now, earth and heaven meet.
1.
Christmas Eve is first of all a
theological statement, a statement of belief.
My predecessor at Ann Arbor, Don Strobe,
is one of the great preachers of Michigan Methodism, still
going strong in his retirement. Years ago he preached a
Christmas sermon called “The Autobiography of God.”
He tells the story of a woman who called her minister a few
weeks before Christmas. She was in charge of the community
Christmas tree lighting in the town square, and was
struggling with the selection of carols to be sung. She was
looking for something appropriate for the occasion, and I
suppose was somewhat sanitized of the too-overtly Christian
messages and images. She complained, “Well, most of the
songs are just too theological.” Don then quotes Halford
Luccock who said:
“Christmas is not something out of
Charles Dickens, nor the aroma of steaming plum pudding, nor
the twinkle of bells, nor even Tiny Tim. It is not just a
festoon to be jammed into a child’s stocking. It is
something about the universe. It is the answer to the
question “What is God like?”
Don concludes:
“Christianity has the audacity to
claim that this Ultimate Reality which we call God has
manifested his nature at a specific time and in a specific
place and in a specific Person: Jesus of Nazareth.”
(Don Strobe, “Autobiography
of God”, Dec. 4, 1983)
Christianity has the audacity to proclaim
that God is like an innocent child born of refugee parents
under an oppressive regime, like common shepherds hearing
choirs of angels, like mysterious Magi contemplating the
skies.
This God who comes to us to bridge
the great divide between God and man, and in this child, on
this night, earth and heaven meet.
Track the human genome as far as it will
go, study the bones of dinosaurs dating back millions of
years, follow the path of evolution to the very origins of
life, and through it all, if you look closely with the eyes
of faith, you will discover the amazing presence of a
creative God, the source of all creation; then listen for
the Word which this God has sent:
He was in the beginning
with God and was God; all things are made
through Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made…
And now, this Word becomes flesh, living
among us. Is that too theological for a Christmas Eve?
Well, in fact, Christmas Eve stands at the very center of
our theology. This is a night about the autobiography of
God, how God comes to us. It is the point where earth and
heaven meet.
2. Christmas Eve is a theological
event, but it is also a very personal event.
Quite frankly, all this talk of the
Eternal Word and incarnation—it makes very little difference
if Christ was born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago if he has not
been born in me today. Christmas Eve is not just about
expanding universes, expansive heavens, or unimaginable
messages coming from the vastness of outer space. It is
about the coming of God’s love in the depth of my own inner
space, the personal Word coming to you and me. This
is the place where earth and heaven meet.
And all the while I thought it was
Lubbock Texas!
I preached there once for an Annual
Conference Ordination Service at First United Methodist
Church of Lubbock. I have never been anyplace that was so
flat. Late on a Sunday afternoon, before the service began,
I walked outside the church, right into a downtown
intersection in the heart of Lubbuck’s business district.
Traffic had pretty well thinned out, and as I started to
cross the street, I stopped right in the middle of the
intersection and realized I could see all the way to the
horizon. And as I turned and looked in all four directions,
I thought I could see where earth and heaven actually met.
Of course, the great news of tonight is
that Jesus comes, not just to Bethlehem, but to Lubbock as
well. He comes, not only to Mary and Joseph, but to every
young couple holding their first-born son on his first
Christmas—and maybe to first-time grandparents as well. He
comes, not only to wandering shepherds in the fields
watching their flocks by night, but to tired engineers
watching their computer screens by day. He comes, not only
to Wise Men of the east who can read the signs and the
stars, but to common folks like you and me who hardly have a
clue. He comes, not just to Bethlehem, but to Birmingham, to
you and me. Right here…right now. This can be the place
where earth and heaven meet.
Atlanta Pastor Rev. Margaret Gatter Payne
tells a pastoral story which has happened to many of us. She
says she was rushing through Advent, trying to make it to
Christmas, busy with shopping, worship planning and all the
rest. Then a request came from a church member to visit a
friend of a friend in the hospital. Frankly, not a welcome
request. She had plenty to do, and it was just one more
interruption in a busy week. Of course, she went anyway. But
she says…
“…as I stepped into that gloomy
hospital room, I stepped into Advent as well, unwanted,
unexpected, but more precious than any gift I received that
Christmas.”
The man was dying. She came to discover
he had served as a pastor many years before, and in their
sharing she discovered she was the one who was receiving
comfort and joy. Then she writes:
“When I left the hospital, I stepped
out into a night that vibrated with the promise that God is
more powerful than darkness, than even death itself. When I
looked up, the stars were demonstrating the truth: just
enough light and glory to prick the human experience to let
us know that God is there behind the darkness—more love,
more glory that we can bear to look at now, but ready to
receive us.”
(Margaret Gatter Payne,
Christian Century, Nov. 20, 1991, page 1085)
She says that night she experienced the
new birth of Christ once again.
Across the millennia of creation and from
the far reaches of the cosmos, throughout time and space,
the eternal Word comes to speak to each of us tonight.
O, holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to
us, we pray;
cast out our sin, and enter in, be
born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels,
the great glad tidings tell;
O come to
us, abide with us, our Lord, Immanuel!
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