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I'm
old enough to remember when searchlights were a common sight in the
night sky. The intense beam made a silver shaft of light that swung
back and forth on the horizon like a giant metronome. It could be
seen for miles, and was a sign that something special was going on.
If you followed the light to its source, however, it was then a big
disappointment…if you were a kid. More often than not, the light
came from the grand opening of a new grocery store or a car sale at
Bennett's Chevrolet. Whoopee!
We called them
searchlights, but they weren't searching for anything. They
were beacons beckoning us. "Drop whatever you are doing.
Get in the car. Come and see. You won't want to miss it."
Long ago, on
a serene, silent night, God turned on a beacon. There was a conjunction
of the planets Jupiter and Saturn that caught the attention of three
learned men in Persia and it set them on a journey to Bethlehem.
Shepherds on their watch saw the night sky morph into a choir loft,
and the hills echoed with the music of angel voices and beating
wings.
The shepherdess
just told you about that night. She stayed behind, keeping watch
over the dogs (and flocks) by night while the rest of the shepherds
ran to Bethlehem to see a remarkable thing that had taken place.
She thought she would explode before they returned to tell her everything
- that is everything they could manage to make sense of.
A second-hand
report, however, is not a first-hand experience, so she ran to see
for herself if there was something to her friend's wild-eyed, tongue-tied
tale. The only thing faster than her feet was the pounding of her
heart and the whirl in her head as she tried to imagine the sign.
"For unto you this day… is born a savior… Christ
the Lord… the Messiah… the One in whom all hopes and dreams
are destined to find their fulfillment."
Given the Steven
Spielberg spiritual special effects heralding the Messiah's arrival,
she was prepared for something spectacular. And when she saw him,
it blew her mind, but not as she imagined. There was the Messiah
-- in a feed trough, whimpering and wrapped up in rags with his
exhausted mother beside him in the hay. He wore no baby crown. No
red-velvet bunting. There were no royal guards. No trumpet fanfare.
No shining aura around his face -- just a little fleck of cow manure
on his cheek.
The angel of
the Lord said, "This shall be a sign for you…" That's
what we want -- signs, pointers, a voice saying, "Hey! Over
here!" If a spiritual encounter is legitimate, there has to
be evidence. The burden of proof is upon God "If you are real,
show me a sign." We assume that signs must shimmer or shake
us or speak with a voice like James Earl Jones. A nine hundred foot
Jesus appeared to Oral Roberts. We will settle for less than that.
Just show us something, Lord.
What we fail
to realize is that God has surrounded with signs -- not royal and
regal ones, not high definition, Surround-Sound signs, but signs
that strike us as small and far too simple.
King Ahaz of
Judah was beside himself. Judah's neighbors, Aram and Remaliah were
rattling their sabers. When Ahaz heard that Aram formed an alliance
with Ephraim, Isaiah 7: 2 says, "…the heart of Ahaz and
his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind."
God sent Isaiah to encourage Ahaz. "Take heed, be quiet, do
not fear…" But Ahaz wasn't someone who could be easily
assured.
Realizing that
God's words didn't assure him, Isaiah knew something more was necessary.
God would give a sign, and the remarkable thing was that Ahaz could
choose the sign! "Pick a sign…any sign!" It could
be as deep as Hell and as high as heaven. Talk about a deal that
couldn't be refused-- but Ahaz refused it. It sounds as if he did
it four pious reasons. "I will not ask, and I will not put
the Lord to the test." Instead it was a refusal to trust in
a spiritual means of support. Ahaz turned away from his spiritual
heritage. He abandoned integrity. He entered corrupt alliances and
tried to secure power through back room politics and the sword.
He could not trust God because he trusted more in self-will. He
was faithless.
What happens
next attests to the incomprehensible desire of God to be in relationship
with humanity. Isaiah said, "Okay, Ahaz. If you don't choose
a sign, God will give you one. "A young woman is with child
and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." If Ahaz
wouldn't come to God, then God was going to come to Ahaz. "I'm
coming to you as a child with all the risks and dangers associated
with human birth. I will be vulnerable and subject to all the possibilities
of pain and harm. I'll be with you now, and I'll be with you in
the future. I'll be with you always."
Fast-forward
several hundred years to a world where people's hearts were still
shaking like trees in the wind. People were under the thumb of imperial
Rome. A prophet hadn't spoken in centuries. Yet to lowly shepherds
who had no status or influence, an angel appeared and said, "Don't
be afraid. I've got good news of great joy for all people…
to you this day is born the Messiah. And this will be a sign for
you-you shall find a baby…"
Isn't God strange?
We're nervous wrecks because the world is coming apart at the seams,
and God tells us what God told Ahaz, "Take heed. Be quiet.
Do not fear. There's a sign that everything is going to work out,
as it should. In the city of David is a baby who is your Savior."
Today, most people continue to think security is linked to bigger
military budgets, or the strength of the dollar. And at Christmas,
God points to the sign of our salvation.
The parents
among us will testify to the fact that everything changes when a
baby arrives. The world is turned upside down, and as the baby changes,
so do you.
There is a South
African film, which won an Academy Award in 2005. It is called "Tsotsi,"
which means "thug." The central character is a teenager
named David, a notorious thug who stabbed a man to death and belonged
to a gang that made money through robbery and other crime. One day
David stole a car, only to discover after he had gotten away that
there was a baby in the back seat. But instead of dropping the baby
off, David decides to keep the baby. He takes it to his hideout
where he intends to take care of it, even though he knows nothing
about how to do it.
After failed
attempts and feeding and changing, David realized he needed help,
and he got it the only way he knew-he kidnapped a young mother at
gunpoint and ordered her to breastfeed the baby. Naturally, she
is unnerved, but it becomes immediately apparent that she knows
more about caring for a baby than he does. He had the gun, but she
was in control.
David tries
to understand why he is so attracted to the baby. Then in dawns
on him that he identifies with the baby. There are flashbacks of
David's mother who had gotten sick and died when he was young. His
father was abusive, so David ran away from home and became a tough
guy that people feared. But what he longed for more than anything
was to be parented himself. He so identified with the baby that
he names him David, after himself.
Unlike other
stories where a relationship with a baby turns a bad person into
a saint, transformation doesn't happen this way to David. He returned
the baby to his parents, and is then arrested and thrown into prison.
Even so, he is a better person than he was. A new life had an impact
on his life. David knew there was an alternative for his life.
What does it
mean? Instead of living according to self-will, we will do well
to know what to do with the signs God gives us. The sign doesn't
come from the Iowa caucuses, in the trail of a Cruise missile, or
the next bill from Congress that is signed into law. The sign is
the baby ball of flesh and blood God made of himself and laid in
a manger-in a baby who is Immanuel, God-with-us who will save us
from our sins and ourselves.
It should be
enough to make you think twice whenever you see a baby. When a child
is born we play an exercise in the obvious. What's her name? How
much did she weigh? How long was she? What color is her hair? Does
she take after her mother or father? The next time you spot a baby,
see in it the most profound, abiding sign God has given the world.
Birth is a sign that happens day after day after day. It is the
reminder that God is with us and will never forsake us, regardless
of the circumstances. In the words of Isaiah, it is a reminder that
God's love is deeper than Sheol and higher than heaven.
I want you to
listen to what Henri Nouwen had to say about the hope that is ours
at Christmas:
Christmas
is saying 'yes' to a hope based on God's initiative, which has
nothing to do with what I think or feel. Christmas is believing
that the salvation of the world is God's work and not mine. Things
will never look just right or feel just right. If they did, someone
would be lying… but it is into this broken world that a child
is born who is called the Son of the Most High, Prince of Peace,
Savior.
At Advent I
read a book of poems by the Presbyterian pastor, J. Barrie Shepherd
called, Faces At the Manger. Before I leave you, I want you to think
about the sign God has given us as you listen to "The Shepherd's
Question:"
What kind
of sign was that, then?
Not the new star, strange as that may seem;
not even the angels, or those weird travelers from the east;
but a rag-wrapped baby in a feed box.
I ask you, was that a sign to shake the gates of Hell or
even Rome?
Yes, there
was blood around,
the signs of agony still stained the wooden beams,
although the worst had already been cleared away.
Birth it was; another birth. No more-no less.
The baby
nursed like a whole world athirst-
power in those little jaws seeking mother's milk like love from
heaven.
And that hand, as firm upon the breast
as if he grasped the globe of life itself and held it strong
and tender.
The sign
grew up, or so I heard.
Came to a no-good end, they say.
Maybe that's all we can look for from our signs-
a gleam of light, a night of peace, before they fade away.
Who knows?
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