Christmas Eve Sermon
Transcribed from a
sermon given
December 24, 2009
At St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church
By Rev. Valerie Ann
Hart
I have found myself pondering why Jesus was laid in a
manger. Now, I know you immediately
think he was laid in a manger because he was born in a stable and that it was
what was handy, but he could have been laid in a basket, or he could have been
laid in a bucket, or he could have been held on Mary’s lap. But it says very
specifically several times that he was laid in a manger. The angels say, “You
will find the child laid in a manger.”
Usually the Bible has more to it than just the practically finding a
place to put your kid. I felt there might be something more there so I was
pondering that. I began by asking what is a manger? A manger is a feeding trough. It’s a place where they put the hay for the
animals to eat. It’s where the animals
go to get nourishment.
Now, let’s think about hay. Could you get nourishment out of
this hay? Sometimes, if it’s good hay, it has some seeds on it. You might get a little bit of nourishment
chewing the seeds, but if you tried to survive on hay, you’d probably not do
very well. Now, you might be able to
stay alive. But then again, you wouldn’t thrive, would you? In fact, if you lived in a very, very poor
country, that might be all there was, the grasslands, and you’d chew it, and it
might fill up your stomach, and it might make you think that you’ve eaten
something, but you wouldn’t be satisfied.
You wouldn’t be healthy. You
wouldn’t thrive. There would still be a
sense of hunger for something more.
Do you ever feel in your life that you’re hungry for
something more? That all the things
around you are just straw? They don’t
really satisfy? When you’ve got your
iPhone and your iPod, and you’ve got your new car that still smells like a new
car, and you have your new clothes, and you have everything you’ve ever wanted
and you still aren’t satisfied. We read
about these Wall Street executives who can’t live with only a million dollars a
year. They have to get a bonus, have
another $500,000.00, in order to survive.
They have everything, but they’re still hungry for more.
If you lived in a culture that told you the correct food to
eat was straw and everybody ate straw, nobody would be particularly healthy,
but the rich would have great big piles of straw, and the poor would have very
little straw, but nobody would be healthy.
Nobody would be satisfied. Nobody
would be filled. No matter how much they
chewed and consumed and tried, there would always be somewhere inside of them a
longing for something more. Is there a
longing in you for something more in your life?
You do everything you are supposed to do. You are busy and active. You collect and you consume. It’s wonderful we call buying
“consuming”. We eat it up. We chew on it. We try to take it into ourselves. We try to satisfy ourselves by consuming
things, and yet is there a part of you that isn’t satisfied, that’s still
hungry, that’s still missing something?
I think sometimes we try to satisfy ourselves with hay, with
straw, because that’s what animals are satisfied with. This straw would be great for a cow or a
donkey, but for a human being, it’s not enough.
Having shelter and food and comfort is fine for the animal part of us,
but we’re more than that. We’re more
than just an animal, and so we’re still hungry.
We still are hungry, so God chose to come to earth and be placed in a
manger. That within the straw of the
manger, the straw of our lives that we’re trying to feed ourselves, is placed
Emanuel. God with us.
We heard some other names for this child that was placed in
the manger - The Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, God of Gods. One name he gave himself when he said, “I am
the bread of life.” “I am the bread of
life. Those who eat me will know everlasting life.” Those who consume me will be filled, will be
satisfied. He even used in Greek the
word to chew, to consume, to swallow, to take in. He is the bread of life. He is what God offers us instead of
straw. If we consume him, then and only
then can we be really satisfied. Then
and only then will we have all the nurturants, all the nurture, everything that
we need to be whole and healthy. God
offers us food. God wants to feed us. And what is this food? This food is God’s love.
One of the carols we didn’t sing is “Love Came Down from
Heaven.” God loves us so much. God loves us so much, so much that for each
and every one of us, for you, God took the form of a human being. And for you. And for you. If it had just been you and there had been no
other human beings, God still would have been born because God loves each one
of us that much. Chew on that. Chew on that for awhile. Chew on the idea that you are loved that
much.
And then he taught us some other things. He said that what we are to do is to love God
and love our neighbor. He taught that it
is through that kind of love that we will find meaning and purpose and
satisfaction. Chew on that for
awhile.
And chew on this. You
know, God loves you that much, but God loves that person over there also. And you know what? God loves you that much, but God also loves
the people who haven’t come to church on Christmas - the ones who chose not
to. The ones who didn’t want to. The ones who’ve been hurt by the Christian
religion, or the ones who are apathetic.
But God loves each one of them just as much as God loves each one of
us. And you know what else? Those who are Jewish or Muslim or Sikh or
Hindu and therefore don’t want to celebrate Christmas, you know what? God loves each one of them too. Chew on that.
God came down in the form of a little baby to show us of
God’s love, and some people noticed. The
angels came and sang to the shepherds.
Now, the angels must have been pretty loud. To have a huge chorus of angels, you’d think
some other people might have heard, but they didn’t. And there was a star in the sky that was a
new star. Anyone could see it, but it
was just some wise people in another country that knew what it meant and took the
time to follow. And they came up to Herod,
and Herod was told about what happened and he chose not to hear. In fact, he chose to be afraid and tried to
destroy it.
We all react to the news of Christ’s birth differently, and
each year, each Christmas, it’s a little different as well because we’re at a
different phase in our lives. Sometimes
it is so easy to believe and be caught up in the joy and the wonder of God on
Earth. Other times, we’re not so sure
about that. We question. We doubt.
And that’s normal. We’re very
fortunate that in the gospels, one of Jesus’ disciples happens to be named
Thomas and is called Doubting Thomas because after the resurrection, he would
not believe that Jesus was resurrected just because other people told him
so. He had to have his own experience. It’s okay if you don’t believe just because
other people tell you. If you believe
that Christ was born and laid in a manger because I tell you, great. But you’ll really believe it when you
experience something. When something
happens in your heart. When something
happens where you no longer can question that there is a presence - that there
is a love that there is something more than the straw of our lives. Something deeper and something more
satisfying.
What will you see in the manger today? Will you see straw? Will you see a pleasant myth? Will you see a child? Will you see God incarnate? Will you see the bread of life?
I invite you to ask God to touch you, to show you, to let
you have an experience where it no longer will be someone else telling you, but
you will know. You will know that you
are loved by God and that God came to Earth to love you and to feed you. Amen.
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