Advent Lutheran Church

"Occupy Christmas"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            It seems that whenever we’ve watched a news broadcast or picked up a newspaper over the last couple of months we’ve seen developments in a phenomenon known as the Occupy Movement.  Those involved in the movement advocate peaceful resistance to what they consider unjust economic and social forces at work in the world.  It started out as Occupy Wall Street in New York, then spread to dozens of cities across America, then to a number of countries around the world.  The point of using the word “occupy” in the title was that participants would occupy the attention of people in positions of power, people of influence, in hopes of producing some positive change.  Today, we gather to celebrate Occupy Christmas, God’s action to get our attention, not by protesting against us but by joining with us, becoming one of us.

            God has been planning this moment of Christmas since the beginning of time.  “In the beginning” are the first three words of the first book of scripture, Genesis, where God created all that exists.  “In the beginning was the Word” that became Jesus, the author of John’s gospel in the New Testament tells us.  That’s really the origin of the sacred story of salvation, back at the beginning of creation.  That means that Jesus is not Plan B; God has always planned, in his own way and in his own time, to send his Word that would become flesh and live among us.

            Maybe Christmas has always been in God’s plan because God knows us human beings so well.  He knows that there is a part of us that wants a God that is close, accessible.  I speak with people frequently who say things like, “I want a God I can relate to, a God that makes sense to me.”  We want a God who knows us, and who we can know.  But God also knows that there is a strong part of us that prefers a God who is distant, mysterious, unknown and unknowable.  After all, if you don’t know what God is like, you can make up God to be whatever you want.  If you don’t know what God desires, you can decide that for yourself.  You can decide for yourself if God is a liberal, or a conservative, or an American.  You can decide if God is all about acceptance and approval and permission-giving; or you can decide if God is a disciplinarian, all about judgment, waiting to catch us doing something wrong.  And if you’re persuasive, you can talk all kinds of people in thinking about God the same way you do.  As long as God remains distant and mysterious, you can create God in your own image.

            But when God comes to us as Jesus of Nazareth, all of that goes out the window.  There’s really not much room for speculation.  If you want to know what brings joy to the heart of God, pay attention to Jesus; it’s all here.  If you want to know what pains the heart of God, listen to Jesus; it’s all here.  If you want to know how God wants you to live, look at Jesus.  If you want to know who you really are, created in the image of God; and what you are really capable of, look to Jesus, the revelation of God, the God who came to live among us.

            That phrase, “live among us,” really translates as “pitch a tent.”  God came to us as Jesus and pitched a tent among us.  Truth is, we’re all tent-dwellers in this life.  We’re all here only temporarily, on the way to our ultimate home, to join our ultimate family.

            The three Gospels that appear in the Bible before John – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – all depict Jesus as inviting people into the Kingdom of God.  He tells a number of stories that are designed to show people what that kingdom is like and how they can be a part of it.  But in John’s Gospel Jesus is inviting people into the family of God.  Wherever he goes and whomever he talks with, there is always an undercurrent of invitation into God’s family.

            So it makes sense that the early Church chose what it did as the symbol of John’s gospel.  They all have symbols: Matthew is symbolized by an angel, Mark by a lion, Luke by an ox.  But John is symbolized by an eagle, the eagle that soars high above us in the heavens, descends down to earth, then ascends again into heaven, taking us within him.

            That’s the real significance of this birth we celebrate this morning, the word made flesh, our salvation, come to us as an infant.  Let this very simple and blessed Good News occupy you this Christmas.  Amen.