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"Salem.....Where a Warm Welcome Awaits You"
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CHRISTMAS DAY 2005
(The following sermon was preached by Pastor Barbara Melosh on December 25th, 2005.)
Last night at the 7 p.m. service, our children told the Christmas story. Their script came from the gospel according to Luke and Matthew, the two gospels that include the birth of Christ. They gathered around a manger decked with an artificial evergreen garland and little white lights, with a baby doll Jesus inside. I remember these from my own childhood. The taller boys were the wise men, in robes of shiny satin and brocade and towels tied around their heads. The littler boys were shepherds, with bathrobes dragging along the floor. The pastor’s daughter always got the coveted role of Mary, cradling a baby doll in her arms. But the best costumes, I thought, were the angels, with their glittering halos fashioned of coat hangers wound with gold tinsel. It’s a familiar story, one that is told over and over again. It’s on some of the Christmas cards I got this season, in the live nativities on some church lawns, in the manger scenes in some front yards, in the crèches under Christmas trees. With this story we celebrate the miracle of the God who comes down to us—God who came into the world just as each one of us did, drifting in amniotic fluid as fingers and toes took shape; born in a rush of water and blood. This morning, we hear a different Christmas story. In the Prologue to the gospel of John, there is no angel Gabriel coming with surprising news. No Joseph and Mary, traveling to Bethlehem and seeking shelter in a barn. No shepherds keeping watch in the fields. We hear no cry from the manger, but instead the cry of a witness in the wilderness, John the Baptizer. Instead, John places the Christmas story in cosmic perspective. The Prologue starts at the beginning of time, proclaiming Christ’s eternal presence. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word—Christ speaking the whole creation into existence. “All things came into being with him, and without him not one thing came into being.” John helps us to see the manger scene in new perspective, too. Not the Holy Family, radiant under the starry night sky, but a manger already standing in the shadow of the cross. “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” The story, in cosmic perspective. We know the first part of it—that God came down to us in the manger. That God’s own people did not know him. That he was misunderstood, rejected, betrayed, and executed. Darkness and light. Our world stands in darkness this day. War, violence, hunger, poverty, addiction—a wilderness world. And yet, we are not alone in the darkness, and our darkness is not the last word. Christ died and rose, and will come again. He is with us still—comforting the broken-hearted, suffering with those who are misunderstood and rejected and betrayed, working to renew and restore the whole world. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The gospel of Jesus Christ, this Christmas day. Thanks be to God.
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