| Christmas Writing 2008 |
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| Tuesday, 27 January 2009 00:00 |
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This is out of context with the Bible Commentaries I have been writing, but several congregation members suggested I post my Christmas sermon on the blog. I appreciate the suggestion, and hope you will enjoy this. I wrote this on Christmas Eve-eve. I used a different sermon on Christmas Eve but used this the Sunday after Christmas when we did the Candlelight service all over again for those who hadn't made it on Christmas Eve because of the snow. Matthew Eagan Christmas Writing, 2008 Driving from McMinnville to Hillsboro this morning, I had to be careful because life is precious though painful sometimes so I couldn’t do more than glance at the snow dusted hazel nut trees and the gnarled oaks painted over with snow and the vine maples and the splayed out confusions of twigs jutting up from snow covered ground. The snow packed road with its curb of soft snow lulled me into looking out over the fields and hills that opened up suddenly past the trees on both sides, wide white oceans extending to uncertain horizons where snow meets sky, fast fields of white, the stillness of death, and the vastness of memory (though T.S. Eliot called it “forgetful snow”). There was something cemetery about the snow but something warm and grace and quilted covering a multitude of sins, of scarred earth of plowed earth of frozen earth and still air, silent night, holy night, stilege nacht, heilege nacht, the stillness, the silence of eternity in a field of snow. And I only caught a glimpse of course because my sister-in-law’s Chevy Trailblazer with four wheel drive and chains on the back tires still slid on the slick ice enough for me to have to watch the road and watch my speed, but not so much to worry. I wanted to see and to describe, though, the snow on barns, the new blue metal barn, a pastel blue with white icing on top, and the old wood barns weathered wood, silver and earth, roofs caved in over-burdened with snow and graveyards of old John Deeres and old Alice Chalmers, and old Internationals, rusted parts piled with snow. The old barns and sheds, grey with the winter winds, silver with spring thaw and pungent earth brown from summer sun and fall rain, and I thought of the old pioneers, the old immigrant farmers from the Netherlands, Germany, the Ukraine, and England, the Irish, the Russian, Croats, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Africans, and newer immigrants the Vietnamese, Korean, Iranian, Iraqi, Israelis. At home the deer come out from the trees by the creek seeking food in our yard where there used to be an apple orchard. Yesterday, I took a bag of apples Venita V. had given me in the fall, half a bag leftover, now, and dumped them out behind the brush pile up from the creek for the deer, and remembered Thompson’s poem, “Winter” that shows how nature looks to “man” for sustenance. But humans and animals, all of nature looks to Providence. I love that old fashioned word for God. Providence. The Lord will provide. I think of prayers over porridge, well, actually cream-of-wheat, at my Grandparents’ farm in North Bellingham, Washington where my parents live, now. But back in the days when my Grandpa got up at five o’clock to milk the cows, and we’d go with him, my twin brother and I, and at seven or eight we’d go to the house where Grandma had cooked a farm breakfast of hotcakes, and hard boiled eggs, link sausage, apple sauce and “mush”. She called Cream-of-wheat “mush” and expected us to eat it all, and after a morning, milking the cows, often we did. And there were prayers for the food, even if only the standard table prayer we all recited like the pledge of allegiance, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed, Amen,” only at my Grandparents’ house over hotcakes and eggs we meant it. And on a farm you are aware that all this food comes from the land and ultimately from God who brings the sun and the rain and makes the grass grow. And cows eat grass and give milk, and chickens eat grain and give eggs and fields grow wheat and potatoes and peas and all good things. When the farmers fed their cows hay and silage and grain they called it Provender. The Lord will provide. And out in the barn, a lowly stable in Bethlehem, a long time ago, a baby was born and Mary wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, the feed trough for the animals filled with hay, Provender, that which the Lord provides. We don’t know if it was snowing, or whether it was winter or spring or summer or fall, but this week the snow that has come to us from Providence reminds me of the stillness, the quiet in which we can know God. “Be still and know that I am God,” Psalm 37 says, and in the absolute stillness of new snow covering the land early in the morning we do know God. It is difficult for us, I think, with our work and our worries, whether we are employed in this economy or not, whether we enjoy the chaos and stress of families or live alone, it is difficult to spend a few minutes sitting still and knowing God in the silence of our hearts, but lately the whole world has been muffled in snow and a hush has fallen on the cities, on the towns, on the forests and on the farms. “Silent night, holy night, all is calm all is bright ‘round yon virgin mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.” The Lord will provide. And God has provided. Providence has provided for us a savior born in a stable and laid in a manger, a little baby, a savior who is Christ, the Lord. Providence in the provender box. God—Providence—who not only provides for us food and drink, clothes and shelter, family and community, and all we need for this life, all these things by which we can know the goodness of God—Providence also provided for us a Savior to save us from our sins, to show us the depths of God’s love by entering fully into this world into creation into our hearts and lives. Providence in the provender box. Providence, that creative source from whom all things come, can seem so far away like the stars after the snow fall in a cold winter sky, but God has come close, God has come near, the Son of God become one of us, cast his lot with humanity, and that cold empty impersonal sky, those distant stars, those heavenly spheres, opened up and the glory of the Lord appeared to lowly shepherds. “The angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid,’ for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is the Messiah, the Lord” Poor simple folk tending their sheep on the hills of Bethlehem on a quiet, still night, and suddenly an angel, but this is the sign—a baby, wrapped in bands of cloth, the ordinary clothes to wrap a baby, to swaddle a baby—and lying in a manger, the feed trough, the provender box. And suddenly the whole empty sky opens up and is filled with angels praising God and singing the Alleluia Chorus. Of course the shepherds go to see this thing, this wonder, this news too good to be true but it is true. Did they trudge through the fields in the snow? We don’t know. But they went just like you did tonight. You trudged through the snow, put chains on your tires, and braved treacherous streets to come here, to see what? A barn. An old shed. An animal shelter. A stable, and in the stable there is Mary and Joseph, and in the cold night, the steaming and earthy warmth of the animals, and in the feed box, the provender box, the manger lined with hay, the God of all Creation has provided for you this day a Savior, the Lord, the Christ, Providence in the provender box --or as Paul described him to Titus—“the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are controlled and upright, and godly while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and savior…” Yes, Paul, all of that, but what we have come to see on this snowy night as we enter the stable and peer into the manger is the baby, Jesus who is Christ the Lord. We are so happy he has come. We need him so much. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in you tonight.” And we are so grateful that you have come into our world, and into our lives, Immanuel, God with us, Providence in the provender box, baby Jesus in our hearts and lives at last. And so we give thanks as we kneel before this baby in a manger, the Savior of the world. We praise God. The shepherds go out praising and telling the good news. All the earth praises God as Psalm 96 says. “O sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations His marvelous works among all the peoples For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised… Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all that fills it. Let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy Before the Lord; for he is coming. For he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness And the peoples with his truth.” |