A Healing Look

"A Healing Look"
Mark 1:40-45


Every once in a while I run across a writer who has a unique way of describing a character’s face.  In one story, the author wrote, “Her face was as white and colorless as an icicle.”  It gives you the shivers just thinking of a face like that.  Irvin Cobb once described a character with the line, “His face looked like a face that had refused to jell and was about to run down on his clothes.”  Joseph Lincoln wrote about a character whose “face fell like a cookbook cake.”  One of my favorites is from an Oliver Wendell Holmes story in which he described a man who had “a face that looked like it had worn out four bodies.”

Isn’t it amazing how quickly we evaluate a person by just glancing at their face?  In an instant we decide if we want to keep looking at their face or turn away.  No words or thoughts; it’s all on the feeling, intuitive level.  We, just like that, make a judgment as to a person’s appeal from a quick scan of their face.

That scan would have been even more instantaneous if you were looking at the face of a leper.  The disease of leprosy appears all over the victim’s body, but is most prominent on the toes, fingers, and face.  Let’s say one of our members came down with leprosy.  Who should we give leprosy to?  Let’s give it Tonie Graber.

Now it takes a few years for leprosy to fully settle in.  At first we just notice Tonie’s face and hands are getting a little blotchy.  Little pinkish, discolored patches would appear on her skin.  Those slowly turn brown.  The skin underneath begins to thicken into tiny nodules that gradually begin to enlarge.

We don’t think too much about it.  But after a couple of years her face and fingers are getting all lumpy.  The lumps are really ugly, and they are beginning to disfigure the beauty of her face.  There is no cure.  She is helpless in the progression that is transforming her beauty into repulsive ugliness.

A couple more years and Tonie is totally unrecognizable.  A smelly discharge is constantly running down her face.  She’s lost a lot of fingers.  Toes have fallen off and she’s having trouble walking.  Her nose is one big sore and it’s basically gone.  Her eyebrows have fallen off.  Her lips have disappeared into a mass of pustule sores.  She can barely get a few words out because her throat and mouth are full of nodules.

We all know and love Tonie.  We know that underneath that repugnant exterior is a wonderful, faithful person.  She is Tonie, beautiful and talented Tonie.  But we can’t see her anymore.  All we see is a disease.  She is so hard to look at, it’s not even a face a mother can love anymore.  Is she Tonie or is she a leper?  Before, you would have had no problem looking at her, talking with her face-to-face.  After...what about after?  For Tonie, how awful it would be, to know she was the same as she’s always been, but her exterior body has been taken over by horrific disease.

Lucy Grealy has written one of the most powerful memoirs I’ve read, titled, An Autobiography of a Face.  It’s her own story from the time when she was nine years old.  At the age of nine she was diagnosed with bone cancer in the jaw.  She had to have a lot of the jawbone on the right side of her face removed.  Then began a long progression of surgeries trying to reconstruct that side of her face.  With no jawbone, the right side of her face had collapsed.  (Feel the line of your own jawbone; imagine it not there, what your face would look like.)  She wrote about that time:

This singularity of meaning--I was my face, I was ugliness--though sometimes unbearable, also offered a possible point of escape.  It became the launching pad from which to lift off, the one immediately recognizable place to point to when asked what was wrong with my life.  Everything led to it, everything receded from it--my face as personal vanishing point.  The pain other children brought with their stares engulfed every other pain in my life.  (page 7)

What happened for Lucy Grealy or for a leper is that you don’t have to look in a mirror to see your reflection.  Your reflection is given back to you every time you look into the face of someone staring at you.  You see, in their look of disgust, exactly what you look like.  Lucy Grealy wrote:

I felt there was something empty about me.  I didn’t tell anyone, not my twin sister, not my closest friends, that I had stopped looking in mirrors.  I found that I could stare straight through a mirror, allowing none of the reflection to get back at me … My trick of the eye was the result of my lifelong refusal to learn how to name the person in the mirror.  (page 221)

People like Lucy Grealy, or like the leper, probably also learned how to look through people’s staring so they didn’t have to see their reflection in the looks of horror.  How is Lucy Grealy or a leper supposed to name themselves apart from their reflections?  Who are they apart from their faces?  They are persons with feelings and thoughts and dreams and hopes.  But we never see that person because we can’t bear to look at them.

Lucy wrote these biting words of truth at the end of her book:

Society is no help.  It tells us again and again that we can most be ourselves by acting and looking like someone else, only to leave our original faces behind to turn into ghosts that will inevitably resent and haunt us.  (page 222)

So, every time we are looking into another face, we are looking into a mirror by which we judge if we are acceptable or appealing.  If we don’t like what we see, by the way they are looking at us, or not looking at us, we try to change our face into something else, desperately hoping we will be noticed and accepted.

In the process, we are so afraid of what we will see in other’s faces that we are becoming a society that won’t look each other in the eye.  Email, texting, instant messaging, Facebook, all of that allows us the freedom from that fear by communicating with each other in a non face-to-face manner.  We can have a conversation and never have to worry about what we might see in someone else’s face when they look at us.

There is a whole other level to all this.  We don’t have to have leprosy or be disfigured by jaw cancer to worry about being seen as repulsive.  For example, let’s say you have a friend or spouse you can tell most anything to.  One day, you tell your friend about an incident in your life that is revolting and repulsive to you.  You know you are taking a huge risk.  You are taking a risk of “face”--of keeping face.

After getting this burden off your chest to your friend, what will that friend’s face reflect back to you?  Will it reflect disdain?  Disrespect?  Revulsion?  You may not be an ugly person, as beauty and handsomeness goes, but the ugliness of some past act, now known by another, may make you look like a leper to the other person.  Now, every time you look in your confidant’s face, you will be looking for a reflection or facial inflection of how they are “seeing” you.

Or if you feel like you’ve done something “leprous” everyone knows about, every time you walk down the halls of school, or the halls of work, or the sidewalks of town, or the halls of church, you are looking into each face that is looking at you, and you feel you know exactly what they are seeing.  Lepers know how you feel about them by the way you look at them.  Or, refuse to look at them.

This leper in Mark’s story came and fell at Jesus’ feet.  He probably didn’t even dare look up at Jesus because he thought he knew what he’d see in Jesus’ face.  He’d seen the look of horror and disgust a hundred times before.  He didn’t need one more.

The kneeling man with leprosy had to be surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder.  Another human being probably hadn’t touched him in years.  Jesus looked into the man’s leprous face and what the man saw being reflected back to him was not disgust but compassion.  Not pity but respect.  Just that look from Jesus must have been healing in and of itself.  Imagine feeling so alone, so isolated, so ridiculed and then seeing someone look at you with compassion, with deep feeling and caring emotion.

Out of Jesus’ compassion the man found healing.  But let’s not be fooled about what that healing meant.  What if it didn’t mean the man’s fingers and toes grew back?  What if it didn’t mean the man’s nose magically reappeared on his face.  Or that it didn’t mean his eyebrows instantaneously grew back fuzzy and full.  The man remained as he had become, but he was disease free.  The deadly progression of it had been permanently halted.

If that were the case, we may be forced us to ask the question, “What is the most important part of healing?”  If Jesus’ healing doesn’t restore us back to our pre-disease state, but leaves us with scars, what’s the purpose of being healed?  For Lucy Grealy, when all the operations were over and nothing more could be done, and her face was still somewhat collapsed on the right side, her sense of healing came down to one question.  She was looking at some old pictures of herself, from a time when she had just had the first surgery to remove the section of cancerous jawbone.  “When I see those photos,” she wrote, “I am now filled with questions I rarely allowed myself to ask, such as, how do we go about turning into the people we were meant to be.”

Maybe that’s the answer to what is really healed for the man with leprosy by Jesus.  And possibly for us all.  Even though some scars remain, we are given a new chance to become someone, or something, that we didn’t have the chance to be before.  The man with leprosy was healed with the chance to redefine the rest of his future.

We all have scars.  Some are physical.  Some are emotional.  But scars are places that have been healed.  They are no longer active wounds.  Christ has touched us--touched our wounded places, looked upon them--and allowed us to live--even triumph!--over our wounds and the disillusionment that came with those wounds.  Christ wants us to live even with our scars staring us in the face.  Because of Jesus’ healing look and touch, the past is behind us.  A new future is before us.

When you look yourself over in the mirror, you can still concentrate on the scars.  Or, you can rejoice that because of Christ, you are healed, and you are free to be alive in a new way.  That you have been given the opportunity to become the person you were meant to be.

"At the House of Peter"

At the House of Peter
Mark 1:29-34


I’ve been to Capernaum.

It was an overcast and drizzly day.  The first part of the day, our tour group took a boat ride on Galilee Lake.  It is a lake, not a sea.  It just so happened a squall came up, whipping up some semi-truck sized waves.  While we were out in the middle of the lake, our tour guide, Joseph, a Palestinian Christian, came over the loudspeaker system on the boat.  He said, “I’m sorry, folks, but a storm has come up.  We’ll have to get out and walk from here.”  Then after a pause, he added, “Well, you are true believers aren’t you?”

At the end of the cruise we were to dock at Capernaum on the north end of Galilee Lake.  But the storm was severe enough that it capsized the dock.  We had to put back to shore where we started out.  Busses came to transport us to Capernaum.

There was still a fairly good rain coming down when we arrived.  Most people in the group ran out, snapped a few pictures and scurried back to the warmth of the bus.  I grew up in Seattle.  I’ve never let a little rain stop me from doing anything I wanted to do.  I figured I had come half way around the world to see the Holy Land.  I wasn’t going to be held back by the rain, or just settle looking at the sights from a rain spattered bus window.

Walking into Capernaum, the first building I came to was the ruins of the synagogue.  Most of the outer walls were gone, except the front wall.  The building looked to be about the same size as our sanctuary, but was rectangular in shape.  A row of stone pillars stood a quarter of the way into the interior on both sides.  Stone benches were all around the interior wall.  There were a couple of stone benches in the front.  I think I remember Joseph the tour guide saying those were reserved for dignitaries, Pharisees, or visiting Rabbi’s.  Jesus could have sat on one of those front stone benches.  The people who came for worship would have had to stand the entire service.

I stood in front, off to one side, trying to imagine Jesus sitting there, being introduced, and standing to address the worshippers.  Then, as Mark tells it, a man with an evil spirit came running in, frothing at the mouth with madness, screaming at Jesus at the top of his voice.  In my imagination, I watched the standing worshippers part like the Red Sea as the mad man stalked toward Jesus.  I watched Jesus standing calmly, but resolutely, as the man, nose-to-nose with Jesus, screamed in his face, “I know who you are: you are God’s holy messenger!”

Imagine what it would be like, to have someone screaming in your face.  Maybe some of you don’t have to imagine.  You’ve had someone berate you at point blank range.  And it wasn’t a madman.  It was someone you loved or you thought loved you.

The rain hitting my borrowed umbrella became a tense drumbeat, heightening the tension in the scene I was imagining.  I saw Jesus smile, then command the demon out of the man, leaving him limp, but free, at Jesus’ feet.

My heart was thumping as I walked back out down the middle of the rain soaked synagogue.  The vision I had just seen washed away like a water color painting.

I walked out and down the path towards the excavated town of Capernaum.  What first caught my eye was a huge sanctuary, round and modern, looking like some ET space ship hovering above a place in town.  Because Capernaum was the hometown of the apostle Peter, the building was a church that had been built in honor of him.  The altar inside sat on a glass floor.  Looking through the windowed floor, I could see right into what was believed to be Peter’s home.

The town was a honeycomb of interconnected homes that shared outer and inner walls.  Peter’s home was about the size of our chancel area here in the front of the sanctuary.  The whole town was about the size of the land our church and parking lot sits upon.  Narrow lanes made their way in and out of the honeycombed town.

Looking down through the glass altar floor, I imagined Peter’s mother-in-law curled up in a corner of the small room.  She was shivering from fever, covered by home spun blankets.  I saw Jesus come in, with Peter and the three other new disciples.  They followed Jesus with worried looks.  I saw Jesus stoop down, put out his hand and lift her up, free from her illness.

Then I watched as she became a whirlwind of activity.  She stoked the fire.  She peeled the potatoes.  She milked the goat.  She measured the flour.  She set the table.  She had been freed to carry out her service of the everyday, mundane tasks of a Palestinian woman.

I thought to myself that that is probably what I would do, what I would want if I was in the death grips of some illness.  I would long to be able to get back to my normal, everyday life as a Pastor.  I would long for my ordinary life; but after being healed, I would know it would be different.  I would be different.  A certain holiness would have been infused into my everyday because I had been healed.  That’s what I saw in Peter’s mother-in-law as I imagined her scurry about, a bit lighter in her step, music being hummed on her lips.

I walked out of the flying saucer sanctuary and strolled through the little town.  I finally came to, and stood in front of Peter’s house.  It was late afternoon.  The rain clouds gathered again.  My imagination caught hold.  I saw people coming from all over town, gathering with me in front of that door.  “All the people of the town gathered around the door of the house,” Mark the gospel writer wrote.  It would have been at least a couple of hundred people.  I was standing right in the middle of them.

So many hands, reaching, demanding, “Me, Jesus; touch me, Jesus; heal me, Jesus.”  All trying to seize the moment--a holy carpe diem.  There, in front of Peter’s house, Jesus is the moment they are trying to seize.  He touches them all, grasping each hand, holding on to them for a moment as if they are the only one.  He is oblivious to all the obvious others, looking into each individual’s eyes, healing them, calling out their demons.

In the push-and-shove of the crowd, I suddenly realize I am the only one who was not reaching out to be touched by Jesus.  My arms were slack at my side.  I was merely a spiritual voyeur.  I had come to the Holy Land looking for answers and peace.  The whole trip had fallen into my lap, a last minute gift from a minister friend in Georgia whose wife couldn’t go.  At that time in my life everything was crumbling.  I was standing on the threshold of a devastating divorce.  My preaching voice had gone dry.  I was angry about everything and didn’t know why.  Joy was just a word that followed “jowl” in the dictionary.

There I was, in the middle of the expectantly clamoring crowd, all of them demanding healing from Jesus.  But I stood as still as a pillar that I had just seen in the ruined synagogue.  I was too proud to reach out my hand.  These people had real problems--they were really sick, they were crazy with demons.  Me, I was just full of the crap of life that happens to everyone.

Then he was standing right in front of me.  Jesus had his hands steepled in front of his chin and lips like this.  He was staring at me.  Smiling an odd smile.  I couldn’t look at him.  I knew in my heart this is why I had come.  People who had been to Israel told me there would be holy moments, unexpected experiences of the sacred.  Here it was.  Here he was, staring me in the face and I couldn’t bear to look.  I felt the warmth of my tears beginning to mingle with the coldness of the raindrops on my face.

He simply asked, “What do you want?”
I shook my head, looking at the mud at my feet, and all’s I could mutter was, “I don’t know.”
“I know,” he said.  “I know what you need.”  He clasped the sides of my shoulders, I felt his strength, and I fell into his arms sobbing.  It was like all the pent up poison I had stored for years, tears from abuse, tears from loneliness, tears of rejection, tears of foolishness and failures, tears of sin, remorse and regret--all of it flowed out of me.  Tears I had never cried.  Tears I was never allowed to cry.  Tears I wouldn’t allow myself to cry.  It was like he was absorbing it all into himself.  There, in front of Peter’s house, standing with all the hungering others, I was being given what I needed most and wouldn’t reach out for.

As I was standing there, feeling the release from all my toxic tears, wondering why I had initially held back, why anyone would hold back from reaching out to Jesus, I heard my name being called.  It was my friend, Jay, saying the bus was getting ready to leave.  I said I’d be right there.  I was soaked and I was shivering.  But I realized the numbness that had been my character up to that day was gone.  I was beginning to feel alive.  “I am alive!”  I shouted up to the falling raindrops.  “Thank you, Jesus,” I whispered, facing the door of Peter’s home.

I picked up the umbrella, and ran back to the bus.

Listening With Authority

"Listening With Authority"
Mark 1:21-28


It happened after the worship service, as everyone was filing out, and shaking hands with the preacher.  After shaking hands, a little girl handed the preacher 50 cents.
"Here," she said.  "This is for you."
"Why thank you, young lady," the preacher replied.  "And why is it that I get this gift of your 50 cents?"
"I just thought you needed the money," the girl said.  "My parents keep saying you're the poorest preacher we've had at this church."

Or there's the story about the woman whose husband was the usher on Sunday morning.  During the worship service, she was sitting frantically wondering if she had turned the burner off from under the skillet she used to cook breakfast.  So she wrote a note to her husband and passed it to him by way of one of the other ushers.  But that usher, thinking it was a note for the preacher, hurried down the aisle and laid it on the pulpit.  Stopping abruptly in the middle of his sermon, the befuddled preacher opened the note and read, "Please go home and turn off the gas."

Probably one of the most anxiety producing tasks of the ministry is preaching.  The expectations are enormous.  My seminary preaching classes in general, and the preaching professor in particular were awful.  I can't remember a thing I learned.  It wasn't that I thought I knew it all.  I knew nothing.  I knew I knew nothing.  That's why I needed that preaching class to be really good.  I was eager and expectant to learn.  I felt like I had so far to go in becoming comfortable with preaching, but that professor and his classes took me backwards instead of forward.

So, after seminary, and once in a church of my own, I started taking every seminar I could find on preaching.  I read hundreds and hundreds of pages of books and articles about the art of preaching.  I wanted to preach well.  I didn't ever want to be told to go home and turn off the gas.

It seemed like every book and every article I've read on preaching has some paragraph or section about, "speaking with authority."  Speaking with authority without being authoritarian.  Speaking with authority in terms of knowing the Bible as God's word.  Speaking with authority in a persuasive tone of voice--demonstrating in your voice that you are a person of internal conviction.  Speaking with authority as a person of integrity--that is, letting a genuine character be seen in the pulpit.

Other books and articles were about how to bridge the gap between speaker and listener.  Such as being relevant.  That the preacher is to some how make the time and words of Jesus make sense in our day and time.  Or that the preacher should learn good communication skills that really "sell."

In one such book, Marketing the Church: What They Never Taught You about Church Growth, by George Barna, this whole idea of selling Jesus was first and foremost in the preaching section.

Jesus Christ was a communications specialist.  He communicated His message in diverse ways, and with results that would be a credit to modern advertising and marketing agencies.  Notice the Lord's approach: He identified His target audience, determined their need, and delivered His message directly...He promoted His product in the most efficient way possible: by communicating with the 'hot prospects.'  He...offered his product at a price that is within the grasp of every consumer...

I began to get confused about what preaching really was.  Is that all there is to it: being in touch with, and understanding the human condition, taking advantage of that knowledge, and then marketing a product aimed at taking care of that need?  Is that what preaching was?  Is preaching only the sum total of the preacher's technique?

In another book, The Church Confident, by Leander Keck, he wrote about how the protestant church is in trouble.  And the reason it's in trouble is because of the kind of preachers and preaching in the church in our time.  It was Keck's assessment that Protestant preachers needed to be more confident in what we have to say, to assert, ever more skillfully and confidently, pretty much what's already been said.

All of that began to bother me because it put all the responsibility on the preacher to communicate God's word.  If you folks in the pew don't get it, don't understand it, or are bored with it, then it's the preacher's fault.  The deck seems to be stacked against the preacher in terms of expectations when you all come into the sanctuary on Sunday morning.

The possibility that you may leave this sanctuary saying, "I just didn't get anything out of that this morning (worship, the sermon, etc.)," is spoken more as a commentary on the preacher/worship leader than it saying anything about the worshipper/listener.  Ever since the Reformation, the sermon was put as the central item in the worship service, taking the place of the Lord's Supper.

          Since then the sermon has been treated as a speech, or a nice talk.  But that is basically one way communication.  Because of that, the weight of communicating is on the preacher.  "What is he or she going to say this morning?" is the question on more people's minds rather than, "How well am I going to listen this morning, so I connect with God and God's message?"

When I was Pastor up in Colby, I would sometimes also preach over in Hoxie.  In the Hoxie church, one of the members was Gloria Neuenchwander.  She was five feet tall, and shrinking and widening in her later years.  In that tiny powerhouse of a woman was quite a punch.  She was extremely active in the presbytery, and a kick in the pants kind of lady.  At one time, the Hoxie church was having trouble with their preacher.  She and I were talking and she said, "Every Sunday morning I drink a cup of coffee before worship so I can stay awake for the sermon.  And almost every Sunday I go home saying to myself, 'That was a waste of a good cup of coffee.'"

I know listening to sermons is hard some times.  And there are so many negative connotations associated with preaching.  "Don't preach at me!" an angry teenager may shout at her parents.  "I don't need your sermonizing!" a wife may say to her lecturing husband.

There seems to be a natural resistance to sermons and preaching.  None of us likes to be told what to do.  If someone comes at us in a preacherly manner with a fix-it plan for our lives, we naturally resist.  When you hear someone "get up on their soap box" or climb into their "bully pulpit" you start tuning out and turning off.  Other thoughts go through your mind, like:
What do I need at the grocery store?
What's the schedule this week and how am I going to take care of this or that?
What's my work load look like for the coming week, and how can I make it a better week this week than last week?
I wish I brought the Sunday ads from the paper to go through during this dog of a sermon.
I hope he doesn't go long so the roast doesn't burn.

This must have been the reaction of the people to the Scribes in Jesus' day.  The reaction to Jesus was that he taught, as The Message Bible has it, with the "ring of authority."  Evidently the Scribes didn't have that ring.  Evidently a lot of what the Scribes taught had to do with time worn messages that were handed down from generation to generation.  Not much different or new there.

One 98 year old woman was given the chance to have an operation that would restore much of her lost hearing.  She refused.  When her grandchildren asked her why, the nearly 100 year old grandma said, "I've heard enough."  Maybe that's what the people in Jesus' day thought:  they'd heard enough of the same old, same old.

So what was different with Jesus?  How does a ring of authority come across in preaching and teaching?  I think authority has most to do with connections, and being connected.  When J.B. Phillips was working on his translation of the New Testament, during WWII, he was overwhelmed by the Bible's pulse and power.  Phillips wrote, "I feel like an electrician, working with wiring while the power is still on."

That's what authority is--being connected to something of power.  Jesus had that kind of authority because he was thoroughly connected to God.  We, the church, receive that kind of authority when we are thoroughly connected to Christ.  Preachers preach with authority when they are likewise connected to Christ.  But worshippers are worshipping and listening with authority when they are similarly connected with the Holy Spirit.  The word of Christ, spoken by the connected preacher, then connects with the Holy Spirited listener, and something powerful happens.  But you need both preacher and listener for God to make that connection.

In discussing her novel, The Temple of My Familiar, Alice Walker explained that a woman in the novel falls in love with a man because she sees him as a "giant ear."  Walker went on to remark that although people may think they are falling in love because of sexual attraction or some other force, "really what we're looking for is someone to be able to hear us."  When we feel we've been heard, then the connection is made.

I think I understand my responsibility as preacher.  As I paid more attention to how Jesus preached and taught, I began to see that he didn't take all the responsibility on himself.  He gave a lot of responsibility to the listeners.  Maybe that's why the people were always a bit taken by surprise.

I think Jesus' assumption, in preaching, is understanding that there are some things you, as the listeners, have to discover on your own.  Jesus allowed his listeners to accept that responsibility.

The Scribes were into spoon feeding their listeners.  That's what a lot of people want.  Don't make me think; just give me the answers.  Instead, Jesus gave people questions without the answer.  Even when people came to him with their questions, and they expected to be spoon fed an answer, Jesus instead gave them another question--usually the question they should have asked.

Scribes were into control, not allowing people to stray from orthodox and status quo interpretations.  As I mentioned earlier, the Scribes taught traditional messages, that hadn't changed for centuries.  Jesus had something new.  As he said, "You don't put new wine into old skins."

The Scribes put laws and tradition in people's hands and said, "Obey, or else."  Jesus put truth in people's hands and then let go.  Instead of trying to tightly control what he preached, there was trust in God on Jesus' part that a person who listens can personally and on their own, discover relevance and the power of God's truth.  Jesus put that in people's hands and then said, "Now it's your move."

Instead of spoon feeding dogma and the law like the Scribes, Jesus just gave the people the spoon.  I think that's what good listening is--listening with authority, or listening with a spoon:  When you are handed the spoon, you take it.  And then learn what it is you have by using it.  The preacher is, at best, a spoon-giver.  The preacher can give you a few instructions about it, but you must ultimately be the one to use it.  You have to listen well, and then dig in.

Jesus spoke with authority, yes.  Jesus had the connection with God, yes.  But the people wouldn't have caught it if they didn't listen with authority.  Even Jesus couldn't make the people listen.  He could give them the spoon.  But digging in--listening with authority--was up to them.

Swimming in the Deep End

"Swimming in the Deep End"
Mark 1:16-20


I love to swim.  I pretty much have always loved being in the water.  I was fortunate to grow up next to a golf course our family belonged to, that also had a swimming pool.  And Lake Washington was just over the hill.  I swam on the swim team and played water polo every summer through junior high and high school.  Swimming was just great fun for me as a kid.  There is something about swimming that is sensual and makes me feel alive.  But it took a huge risk on my part to become comfortable in the water.

As a child, I liked the feel of my feet on the bottom of the pool.  I liked to keep my head above water.  The deep end especially scared me.  No amount of prodding or teasing by my friends could make me venture out past where my feet wouldn’t touch the bottom with my head still above water.  If I went into the deep end, I’d cling to the wall and pull myself along until I got to the ladder and then I’d quickly climb out.

I remember the time I first really swam in the deep end.  Our family was on vacation.  We were swimming in a motel pool.  For some reason, my father had brought along a couple of bright orange life preservers on the trip.  I don’t know why.  He came out to the pool while the five of us kids were swimming.  He was carrying a life preserver.  He asked me to get out of the pool, so he could strap the thing on me.  Nothing says “LOSER” like wearing a huge, bright orange life vest in a tiny motel pool.  Then he informed me that he wanted me to jump into the deep end.  Off the diving board.

Now the diving board was another one of my fears.  I had never jumped off a diving board either.  I’m afraid of heights, and even that little height above the water looked like jumping off a cliff to me.  I had gotten on a diving board before, but when I got out to the end and looked down, I would get down on all fours and crawl back and get off.  I would watch my friends go flying off the end of the diving board.  They would squeal like stuck pigs, but I just couldn’t muster up the courage to do it.

But that day, at the motel, on our family vacation, my father was forcing me, with life preserver tightly strapped on, to jump off the diving board into the deep end.  I stood at the end of the diving board looking down, way down, at the gyrating surface of the aqua water of the pool.  I think I stood there at least a couple of hours.  My father was down in the water waiting to catch me if and when I jumped.

I found out later he could barely swim himself.  I was probably lucky we didn’t both drown that day.  I stood there.  Then I’d get down on all fours, and plead with him not to make me do this.  Then I’d stand back up, turn around and look back longingly at the ladder to the diving board.  All the while I was hearing my father, while treading water, encouraging me to jump.  Then his encouragement turned into demands and irritation.  All the other guests around the pool were chanting, “Jump, Stephen, jump; jump Stephen, jump!”

Finally, I squeezed my eyes shut hard and jumped.  I hit the water to the cheers of everyone who was glad the ordeal was finally over.  My father held on to me for a moment, then to my horror, let me go, and pushed me away.  I floated there in the deep end, dangling, reaching with my too short legs, frantically extending for something solid to stand on.

And then it happened.  A feeling of enjoyment started creeping into my five or six year old psyche.  I felt weightless.  I felt free.  The deep end was actually not a horror, like I had so long imagined.  It was fun.  Really fun!

That was the summer the deep end and I became friends.  It wasn’t long before the life jacket came off, and I was dog-paddling with delight all over the deep end.  It took a while longer to become friends with the diving board.  But with my fear of the deep end vanquished, the diving board didn’t seem quite so ominous anymore.

The fall of one fear lead to the conquering of other fears.  That summer, I became like an otter in the water.  I went on to become a fairly fast swimmer and a fairly good water polo player--a sport where you aren’t allowed to touch bottom at any time, even in the shallow end.


I have a feeling that’s how most of us take risks when we are faced with going out of our depth.  Most of us are gradual risk takers.  We stick our toes in.  We sit by the side with our feet swishing the surface.  We crawl over the side.  We go down one or two steps of the ladder.  We push off from the wall but quickly return.  We take our time, until we feel we’re comfortable taking the full risk of pushing off for the middle where there is no safety.

By definition, that’s what it means to take a risk.  It means to put ourselves in a place or position of being unsafe.  It means taking a chance in the face of danger.  It means exposing yourself to the possibility of some kind of harm, either physical or emotional.  It means going out on thin ice, that may hold you up.  But it may not.  Taking a risk means putting yourself in harms way.

And, by definition, taking a risk also means the promise of some reward.  That’s the double headed dragon of risk taking.  It’s the dual possibility of real danger, and the promise of gaining something really valuable.  Someone once said, “Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb--that’s where the fruit is.”  That’s the yin and yang of risk:  the branch you’re on may break, but the only way to get the most luscious fruit is to take the chance.

That’s why the stories of the disciples of Jesus are so amazing to me.  Jesus simply said, “Follow me,” and they left the only life they knew, their father, their fishing buddies that they had grown up with--left it all to follow a guy they didn’t know.  Nor could they ever know where it would all lead.  What a risk!

That’s what true risk is all about, isn’t it?  It’s taking a chance that gets you way out of your comfort zone.  At some point you have to get further in than the shallow end.

Some people take risks simply for the thrill, the rush.  All those extreme sports people are, in my mind, bordering on the edge of insanity.  Like the guys in the show, Jackass, who put themselves in positions of danger or extreme embarrassment.  These are the kinds of people who take stupid risks.

But you can also take a risk in the hopes of achieving some higher goal.  You put what is comfortable and sure, what you know for certain, at risk for the chance of achieving some great goal.  Like the disciples.

I read about a minister who had some friends who were high trapeze acrobats at a circus.  He came to watch them rehearse for their show.  Then the trapeze artists called down to the minister and beckoned him to climb up and try it.  Just like the people around the pool the day I jumped into the deep end, onlookers began chanting, “Do it, do it, do it…”

Finally the minister gave in and began to climb the tall pole to the platform above.  When he got up there and looked down, he said he felt like he was on the top of a mountain looking out over the world.  Everyone below looked miniature.

They gave him instructions on what he had to do to swing out, jump from his swing, and be caught by the partner swinging over from the other side.  (I need to add there was a safety net below.  Still, I would have never even climbed a couple of rungs on that pole.)

The moment of truth came.  The other trapeze artist began his swinging back and forth from the other side.  The ones coaching the minister told him when he should jump from the platform in order to meet the other swinging man.  “Go, go, go…” the onlookers were chanting from below.

The minister jumped and swung out.  He let go of his swing, was caught by the other trapeze artist and swung back to safety to the other platform.  Everyone below let out a tremendous cheer.

Once down on the ground, the minister caught his breath and then said to those gathered around, “I’ve learned some valuable lessons today.  First, you can’t experience what I just experienced if you don’t first jump.  That first step off the platform of my comfort was so scary.  But nothing that happened after that would have happened if I didn’t take the chance and jump.

“Secondly, you can’t grab on to the other who is waiting to catch you if you don’t first let go of your own swing.  The only thing holding you up, your only security in the world is that swing.  But in order to do what you have to do, you have to be willing to let it go and grasp for the one waiting.  You have to let go entirely of your swing, because that’s the only way to span the chasm between you both.  The swing isn’t long enough to reach, so you have to totally let go, if you are going to reach the other by flying out into insecure air.

“And lastly, you have to totally trust the strength and skill of the one who is reaching out to catch you.  If you have no confidence in the other, you would never be willing to take the risk in the first place to let go of your swing.”

The lessons of the minister on the high trapeze are good ones.  You have to jump to reach what God has for you, as scary as that is.  You have to let go of old forms of security to reach the future God has for you.  You will certainly, at some point, be in a state of being totally unattached--where you are between the security you just let go of and the new security you are reaching out for.  That is risky and scary.

The most important lesson is trusting the one who is reaching out for you.  For the disciples it was Jesus.  Do you trust Christ to catch you, to hold on to you, and bring you safely to your new future?  Your whole jump depends on the answer to that question.  Are you willing to take a risk with Christ?  Or will you, like I did so many times on the diving board, shrink back and climb down in order to hold on to the old and familiar?  God has something new for you in your life as a disciple and as a church.  Will you take the risk?

Our Glorious Bodies

"Our Glorious Bodies"
1 Corinthians 6:13, 15, 19, 20


Why are we so often at war with our bodies?  “I hate my body!” I have heard more and more people say.  We get to choose a lot of things in life, but we don’t get to choose, for the most part, our bodies.  They are givens at birth.  Our body’s potential in terms of beauty, strength, agility, resistance to disease, and so on, is pretty much decided by heredity.  Many people would like to trade their body in on a new model, if that were possible.

I recently read a survey in a women’s magazine that found almost eighty percent of women dislike their bodies.  If not their whole body, at least parts of it.  And that five minutes into looking at a fashion magazine or catalogue, women start getting depressed, because of body image issues.

How often we may look in the mirror and think, “I wish I had a different face,” or, “I wish my eyes were a different shape or color,” or, “I hate the shape of my legs,” or, “I’m too big...too thin..too fat..too short.”  I for one, would like to be able to look in a mirror and just see my face.  All I get to see is a decapitated body.

Some people exercise their bodies to the point of punishment and others not at all.  Some take diet pills, or go on every sort of fad diet to “get rid of those unwanted pounds.”  When our bodies get ill or tired we blame them for letting us down.  When our bodies are healthy, we take them for granted.

Many of us carry around unhealed inner hurts about our bodies.  Perhaps our families and school friends teased or rejected us because we were hyperactive, slow in sports, clumsy with our hands, too tall, too short, too plump, or too skinny.  In this way, our bodies became a source of emotional and spiritual anxiety and insecurity.

Anthony Ewar penned a clever limerick about bodies.  He wrote:

As a beauty I’m not a great star
Others are handsomer by far;
But my face I don’t mind it
Because I’m behind it;
It’s the folks out front that I jar.

We spend a lifetime centered around the necessities of feeding, clothing, cleaning, and sheltering our bodies.  Almost every advertising dollar spent is aimed at our bodies in some way.  We spend more resource on pampering, tanning, protecting, sun screening, lotioning, feeding, primping, exercising, dressing, and adorning our bodies than on most other things.  And yet in spite of all that, our bodies remain a source of great anxiety, guilt, and frustration.  At times of bodily transitions, or when faced with life threatening or life altering illnesses, our bodies are seen as puzzling, even scary, out of control machines.

As Christians, we have a double sense of guilt because we don’t talk about bodies in church very often.  Even just hearing the word “bodies” in church makes us flinch or squirm a bit, doesn’t it?  And when we do, we usually hear the terms “sin” and “flesh” together, making the erroneous assumption that our bodies are somehow evil.  All that talk about sin and flesh causes us to think that our bodies are hinderances to our spiritual lives.  It is still too often implied, if not actually taught, that the body is, by its very nature, lower and inferior to the interior soul and spirit of a person.  That somehow, just having a body separates us from God.  We might think that if we didn’t have these bodies to lug around, we would be very spiritual beings.

But that is about as far from the truth as one can get.  The truth, if we are to know it, can be found first in a baby in a manger in Bethlehem.  Then later in the growing body of that baby named Jesus.  What we believe about that particular happening is called the Incarnation:  the awesome mystery of God in the flesh--God in a body.

A little girl came home with an “F” on her report card in the subject of spelling.  When her mother demanded an explanation, the little girl said, “Mommy, words fail me.”  And that’s where we might be in trying to understand or explain the Incarnation.  Mere words fail us as we try to grasp God in a body.  Nonetheless, the understanding of God in the flesh is pivotal to understanding the place and importance of our own bodies.

The belief about the Incarnation is what stands behind Paul’s words to the troublesome Corinthian Christians:  “...glorify God in your body.”  What the Corinthians had done was what we are guilty of doing today.  They split the person into two halves: body and soul, or body and spirit.  They over-spiritualized the one side and down-played their bodily side.

They got caught up in a form of Christianity called gnosticism.  The gnostics were part Christianity and part Greek philosophy.  They believed the spirit of a person is the most important, over against the body.  So they did everything they could to develop their spirituality at the expense or dismissal of their bodies.

They reasoned that if their bodies weren’t important to spiritual life then they could do anything they wanted with those bodies.  Gluttony and sexual immorality were all justified in the Corinthian church because all that had to do with bodies.  As long as their spirits were not tainted, it was party time.  You could go to church on Sunday with a clear conscience.  All this developed out of the misguided idea that God doesn’t quite care as much about our bodies as He does about our souls.  After all, which goes to heaven and which gets buried and left behind?

“Glorify God in your body.”  It would have been a radical statement for the Christians at Corinth to hear.  It’s a radical statement for our society as well, especially as we get more and more over-spiritual about people’s souls and disregard their bodies.

The Christian teaching of Paul is that the two--body and soul--are inseparable.  The body and spirit of a person work in tandem, rather than in opposition to each other.  Both are integral to displaying the presence, work, and glory of God.

The main reason we can say that is because of the Incarnation.  Through the Incarnation, God chose to work his plan of salvation.  It is vital that we recognize that God did his reconciling, transforming, saving work in a body--the body of Jesus.  And that God continues that work through our bodies.

We might think, “Why didn’t God just send the angelic visitation; or in some loud, booming voice heard round the world, tell everyone they are now loved and saved.”  (“Hey; Yo; People; This is God.  I’m OK, You’re OK.  All’s good.  I love you.  That’s all you need to know.  Ta Ta.”)  Just think of it:  No Jesus.  Just Good News without a person.  That certainly would have been a more “heavenly” or “spiritual” way of making salvation known to the world.

Instead, God chose to come in a body.  There are many reasons why, but I think one of the most important, was to show that there is something inherently good--even spiritual-- and useful to God about our bodies.  If our bodies were so unspiritual, then God wouldn’t have chosen to come in one.  He would have found another way.

The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, Christmas, is important for us and our bodies because that’s how God decided to do his work amongst us.  As Paul said, “...your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God…”  That’s what Jesus’ body was.  A sanctuary of God’s Holy Spirit.  Paul went on to say that, “...your bodies are members of Christ...Yet the body is..for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body.”  The Lord thinks our bodies are important.  Our bodies have to think the Lord is important.  Thus we have to realize that our bodies are important to God, because that is how God has decided to come at us--through a body.  “Therefore glorify God in your body.”

Think of this.  It is our bodies, even more than this sanctuary, or any other church building anywhere in the world, which is the place where God is best worshipped, where ministry starts and moves out from.  This is a theme that Paul develops throughout his letters.  To the Christians in Rome, he wrote, “I beg you my brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1)  Notice Paul didn’t write that we are to give God our souls as an act of worship, but our bodies.  Not some sanctuary, but our bodies.

To the Philippian Christians Paul wrote:

...it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my BODY, whether by life or by death.  (Philippians 1:20)

Paul is echoing the story in Genesis where it says about Adam and Eve, “...they were naked and unashamed.”  Paul wants that same sense about his faith.  He wants to be able to stand before God, in his body, and “...not be at all ashamed.”  Paul wants to feel like he’s given his total self, body and soul, over to God so that “...Christ will be honored…”.

If it is our mission to reach out to God and others from our bodies, then maybe the first act from God towards us is to help us be reconciled to our own bodies.  Has that ever occurred to you--to be reconciled to your own body.  That is, we may need to be healed of our dislike and disgust of our bodies.  Is it possible that God finds his beginning place of reconciliation and transformation in the world is first within our own attitudes about our bodily selves?

This doesn’t mean that we are to begin idolizing our bodies or obey every physical impulse, or abandon attempts to improve the health of our bodies.  Nor does it mean that we may never have to compel--or even sacrifice--our bodies out of our love for others.  What it does mean is letting go of unloving, and therefore, un-Godly attitudes about our bodies.  God can’t work through self-hate.  And if the surveys I mentioned at the start are correct, there is a lot of self-hate out there related to our bodies.

But Paul will allow none of that.  He says an emphatic “NO!” to this sort of religious dualism of bodily self-hate and over-spiritualized soulism.  God’s coming in a body, Jesus, is a confirmation of our bodies, of our very humanity.  It is as if God were saying, through the Incarnation, “The way for you to become a whole person is not to reject or hate the body I have created and identified with, but to plunge deeper into it, and serve me with your whole body and soul.”  It means that God can and is working in and through every area of your bodily humanity.

The way we relate to our bodies profoundly influences the way we relate to God, to each other, to prayer, and to all of life.  That is why our bodies are important to God, and all of Biblical, Christian teaching.  That is why Paul said, “Glorify God in your bodies.”

The Crimson Thread

"The Crimson Thread"
Luke 2:21-35


Probably the quickest way to raise the hair on the back of a parent’s neck is to speak ill of their child.  If you hear someone disparaging your child, the mother bear syndrome is aroused, the teeth and claws come out and the maiming begins.

Or, to have your child mistreated, to see another person attempt to break your child’s spirit and rob them of their smile.  That would make all the blood boil up to the neck and face of a parent.  The hot blood of revenge floods to the surface of the skin.  You can come at me.  But you better not come at my children.

Enter Mary and Joseph.  They came to Jerusalem, to the temple, to dedicate their child Jesus to God.  This was to be done with all first-born children.  Mary held their week old baby son, Jesus.  There were other people at the temple taking care of their religious duties and rites.  One of those people was Simeon, some old guy who had been loitering around the temple forever, waiting.  He was waiting for God’s salvation to show its face.  So, into the temple walked Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus and old Simeon’s face lit up like the Rose Parade.

Before Mary knew what was happening, this Simeon took Jesus out of her arms and began dancing around the temple courtyard.  He sang a song to God, a song of disbelief and praise.  Simeon couldn’t believe it, but yet was so happy to believe that what he had waited for, for so long, was right there in his arms.

Simeon called the baby, Jesus, which means “God’s Salvation.”  He called Jesus a light who would reveal God’s will to all people, not just the Jews.  What a thing for a parent to hear.  How amazed Mary and Joseph must have been to see their child being worshipped, again.  First it was by the shepherds.  Now it was by old Simeon.  Parents like to have their child cooed over.  This must have been overwhelming for Joseph and Mary.

But Simeon wasn’t finished yet.  He blessed Mary and Joseph.  Then he turned to Mary and said some things she probably wished she didn’t have to listen to.  Simeon told her that God would use her baby for the destruction and salvation of many.  Her child would become someone who would speak out against, and be at odds with.  Her child will be rejected.  Her child will be attacked.  The pain her child will one day endure would make Mary feel like she had been stabbed through by a dagger.

I know what I would have been thinking if I was Joseph or Mary.  I would have been thinking, “This is just a baby!  How can you say such things about our little darling?  Just pinch his cheek; tell us he’s such a cute baby; and get out of our faces.  How dare this old coot say that our child is going to be rejected, made fun of, or a source of pain to anyone?  He’s just a baby, for crying out loud!”  I would guess the hair was beginning to rise a bit on their necks.  Their backbones were beginning to bristle.  Their blood pressure was elevating, and making their neck’s turn red.

Would they write Simeon off as some weird old codger, not paying any attention to what he said?  I know I would have, if I were Joseph or Mary.  (Except for the first part, when he said Jesus was going to be the salvation, the presence, and the revelation of God.  I would have paid attention to that.)  But, I would have gotten very defensive and protective of my child having heard the second part.  I would have grabbed Jesus back from this man as quickly and firmly as I could.  Who knows if he was thinking of harming the child himself?

What is sad is that Simeon’s prediction came true.  Because we are sitting on this side of the events Simeon foretold to Mary and Joseph, we know that it all happened as he said.  It’s like watching a play and the audience is in on a secret that the main characters on stage don’t realize.  We wish we could warn Joseph and Mary.  But we realize they have to live through it.  As they live through it, we will have to sit by and watch, a frozen audience, feeling just as helpless as they to do anything about the chain of events that will begin to link together towards their inevitable end.

I thought about the fairy tale, “Sleeping Beauty.”  In the story, the King and Queen have a child--a daughter.  They had a big celebration on the day they first show off their infant daughter.  The whole kingdom is invited.  Everyone brings the King and Queen gifts for their daughter.  Three good fairies came to bless the baby girl.  Two gave their blessings of beauty and happiness for the child.

Just before the third fairy was to give her blessing an evil sorceress appeared.  She made fun of the King and Queen.  She chided them for not inviting her to their party.  She said, “I too have a blessing for the child.”  Everyone went quiet.  The sorceress waved her magic wand and said, “On the day of her 16th birthday she will prick her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel and die!”  With a cackling laugh, the evil sorceress disappeared in a puff of foul smelling smoke.

Everyone at the celebration stood in stunned silence.  What was to be done?  A child with so much promise would be cut down in the early stages of life.  The situation seemed hopeless.  Each second ticked away on the clock was a second closer to the fulfillment of that dark spell.  The King and Queen asked the good fairies if there was anything they could do.  Could they undo the evil that the sorceress had spun?  Sadly, they shook their heads with a no.

But the third fairy still had her blessing to give.  She thought for a long, few minutes.  She then raised her wand.  “On her 16th birthday,” said the good fairy, “when she pricks her finger, the princess shall not die, but instead fall into a deep sleep, from which she can be awakened only the the kiss of true love.”  Everyone breathed a half-sigh of relief.  At least there was some hope.  But a dark thread would be woven in and out of her first 15 years of life.  She would never know why everyone, including her parents, the King and Queen, looked at with such sadness and fear.

I imagine that’s the way Mary and Joseph must have looked at their son, Jesus, after hearing Simeon’s predictions.  What a mixed blessing.  Jesus would become a great man.  More than a great man; he would become the Savior of the world.  But by becoming the Savior, he would suffer cruelties at the hands of a rejecting people.  Having to witness those cruelties, Mary’s heart would be broken with immense grief.  The Catholic symbol for Mary is a heart with seven swords coming out of it.

Through his prophecy and prediction, Simeon had woven a bloody thread into the life of Jesus.  Certainly there are other threads being woven through his life--threads of hope, salvation, and greatness, not only for himself but also the whole world.  Woven in with those golden fibers is also that one thread, that crimson thread of pain and rejection.

After each amazing visitation of angels and shepherds and magi, we are told that Mary “treasured” or “pondered” all these things in her heart.  But after Simeon’s visit, there was no mention of pondering.  I wonder if that omission is intentional.  When Mary and Joseph looked at infant Jesus, there was no mystery, no wondering about what his future held.



Parents are filled with trembling excitement about what their child will become.  None of us as parents know what the future holds for our children.  We can only deal with it when it happens.  But what if we knew, ahead of time, what your child would one day have to endure?  What if you were shown how the crimson thread of pain was started and how it would grow thicker and stronger and become the main thread of your child’s life.

Maybe some of you saw the story this past 10 days coming out of Indiana.   A babysitter and trusted neighbor confessed that he bludgeoned a 9-year-old neighbor girl to death with a brick then dismembered her, hiding her head, hands and feet at his home and dumping the rest of her remains nearby.  These kinds of stories just rip me apart.  I hate hearing about them.  I hate hearing about innocent children having their lives ended like this.  I don’t understand.  I wonder, even, if God understands why heinous stuff like that happens.  Why was that girl born, only to live 9 short years and then have her life insanely taken from her?

As a parent, I don’t think I’d want to know, ahead of time, that that was my child’s future.  But then, I might want to know, so that just maybe I could do something about it.  Because I would do every and any thing possible to minimize or eliminate that crimson thread from my child’s life.  Or I would find a way to take that pain into myself and save my child from it.

But the problem with a prophecy is that it becomes an inevitability.  Being a prophecy, it means God is behind it.  What became so hard for Mary and Joseph was knowing there were some things their child would endure that they could do nothing about.  There’s no good fairy there to soften the harsh realities of the future.  And yet, do Mary and Joseph fully realize, do you think, that the pain and rejection their child will one day endure will also bring about the salvation of all people?  At this point, I don’t think so.  And as a parent, I’m not sure even that would help.  Would it help those parents in Indiana who just found out their 9 year old daughter had been beaten to death and cut in pieces?  How could any parent see clearly after hearing such a thing?

It’s like hearing 10 great things about yourself, but then someone says one negative thing.  What do you concentrate on?  If you were Mary and Joseph, having just heard that Jesus would be the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation; that through Jesus the light of God would be revealed to all people; and, also hearing that that would happen through an experience of intense pain and rejection, including death, what part would you concentrate on?

The crimson thread of the cross is sewn into Jesus’ life within the first weeks of his life.  Simeon happens to be the needle by which that thread finds it’s first prick.  We must follow along, watching Jesus, expressions of fear and sadness on our faces.

Welcome Back To The Real World

"Welcome Back To The Real World"
Luke 2:21-24


One of my intentions, in my Christmas preaching, has been to look at the hallowed Christmas story with different eyes. I have tried to examine the more human side of what has happened--to Mary in particular. By doing so, by trying to develop the human interest angle, I have hoped to discover the real depth of wonder and awe and meaning within the whole birth event.

To me, the real fun is in the storytelling, imagining what it was all like, trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes and do a little daydreaming. We can toss around all the theological words and ideas that surround the birth of the Savior. Words like Incarnation, Emmanuel, Revelation and Virgin Birth. I just think we quickly get lost trying to sound scholarly. There is more meaning found in the way real people handled life situations, after they happened.

Let us daydream together.

Imagine all that has happened to Mary and Joseph up to this point, especially the birth. It has been like fantasyland. We can easily get caught up in the idea that much of the detail of what was unfolding was not that much out of the ordinary. But the truth is, nothing they had experienced was ordinary. Angels just didn’t pop in and out of the sky on a daily basis. Never had anyone seen a star that rode the sky like a chariot, and then stopped it’s movement. Magi bringing gifts were only read about in books of fairy tales. Giving birth to a baby was a family affair, mostly just the women in the family. Seldom, if ever did a throng of people unknown to the family, pack themselves into the place of birth, let alone bow down and worship the newborn.

When you add it all up, it’s more spectacular than any Steven Spielberg movie could ever be. And it really happened! No special effects. No computer enhancements. No matte painted backgrounds. No miniature sets. It all really happened, to a real couple, in a real town, over a period of months, all culminating in that singular evening. It is just so awesome, it’s hard to take it all in.

But what happened after that? Matthew’s gospel tells us that after presenting their gifts, and maybe a day or two later, the Magi “...went back to their country…” Luke’s gospel tells us that, “...the shepherds returned…” to the hillside, hopefully to find that their flock had not been scattered, shepherd-less. Who was watching the sheep, after all? Just as it had so quickly swelled, so the population of Bethlehem diminished as the people completed their task of registering for the census.

The census! We almost forgot, didn’t we? Isn’t that the reason Joseph took his pregnant wife across the countryside in the first place? Imagine, the next day after the birth, or maybe a couple of days after, Joseph standing in a bureaucratic line of people waiting to register himself and his family with the census workers.

Was it back then as it is today? Joseph stood in a line, telling everyone he is the proud father of the Savior of the world. All other parents nod at him, remembering the claims they made when their sons were born, and how those dreams became tempered in reality. They all looked at Joseph with what they through would be wizened looks, trying to communicate to him that he should enjoy his dreams now, because there will come a day when those dreams will be amended by time and experience.

After an hour in that line, Joseph finally got his turn at the registration desk. “Do you have your papers?” the officer asked, as if he’d asked that question a thousand times--which he had.
“What papers?” Joseph replied.
“Registration papers. Documents to prove who you are. Do you have a chariot license, or a birth certificate, or anything like that?”

Having none, Joseph was directed to the records office, where he was to get copies of such papers. Another hour or so in that line. Finally, he got what he needed, but it costs for the scribe to copy his records, by hand of course.

Again, after getting his copy, Joseph waited in the cash register line to pay for the copy, then back to the original registration line in which he had begun his ordeal. I mean, could it have been any different? Let’s face it--such bureaucracies have never changed. While waiting, after spending a good part of his day in lines, a young wife and new baby probably wondering where he was; and Joseph was muttering to himself that surely the father of the Savior could get some kind of preferential treatment.

And what about Mary back in the stable with her new baby? Do most of you remember what it was like with your first baby? I remember taking Ryan home. Because he was born cesarian, we had a longer stay in the hospital, and Ryan got a lot of attention since he was so huge. All kinds of help from the nurses. Taking care of a baby was easy. Then we had to come to that time where we had to put him in the car and take him home. All by ourselves. We were so green as parents that it wasn’t until we had nearly gotten through that whole first day on our own that we suddenly realized we hadn’t changed his diaper yet. We forgot we were in charge of that now.

I don’t know how Mary handled diaper changes--certainly the baby Savior of the world pooped and peed. But now that all the shepherds and wise men had gone, she was on her own--for it all. Feedings. Spit ups. Crying. More feeding. More diaper changes. Some in the middle of the night. All of it by just the normal starlight. The only serenade comes not from the angels, but from Joseph snoring by her side.

Welcome back to the real world. Life goes on. Even after such magnificent displays from nature, from the heavenly host, from royalty, and even from the poor, life must go on for Joseph and Mary and their new baby. Even though the world seemed to have stopped for one magical night, and turned its whole attention to one lowly cattle stall, the next day the rotations start again, and on with life.

A few days later they were back on the donkey and bouncing their way back to Jerusalem, so that the newborn Jesus could be circumcised according to the law of Moses. Then back home to Nazareth. Then, 33 days later, back to Jerusalem so that Mary and the baby could be proclaimed ritually clean by the priests, again so the law of Moses would be upheld.

Back to normal schedules. Back to work for Joseph in his carpenter shop. It all came and went so soon it must have been like a dream. It could have even been a bit of a let-down. Likewise, for Moses, it was the coming down off the mountaintop experience with God, receiving the Ten Commandments, only to find the people dancing around a golden bull. Roll up your sleeves; it’s back to work. Likewise for Elijah, it was the dramatic calling down of fire from heaven upon his sacrifice, in front of a host of false prophets, only to find that Queen Jezebel wasn’t impressed and wanted him dead. Off to a cave, he ran to hide.

Oh, how we might wish that our mountaintop experiences might go on forever. But God quickly directs those who have been to the highest points of spiritual ecstasy to come down and live in the real world. Again. That’s the real test.

Lord Joseph Duveen was the American head of the great art firm that bore his name. Early in 1915, Duveen was planning to send one of his experts in this country over to England to examine some ancient pottery. Passage had been booked on the Lusitania.

Off this young man sailed. The Lusitania was torpedoed. The young man was picked up after nearly five hours in the chilly Atlantic. Amazingly he was still in excellent condition. Asked how that could be, the young man replied that he had been reading about what was happening in the Atlantic in the war, and knew that the possibility of attack was real. So, before the trip, he hardened himself by sitting in a tub of ice water for up to two hours at a time.

Not many of us are prepared for the fall into the icy waters of reality, after some kind of heady experience. Surely Joseph and Mary’s life returned to some kind of normalcy which was nothing like their night in Bethlehem. But, unprepared as they must have been for that night, were they similarly unprepared for normalcy? Would life, and reality, ever really be the same for them after that night?

The great and life changing experiences we have had in life are few and far between. We could probably count them on one hand. We talk about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. We talk about, “The day that changed my life.” We remember something that “rocked our world.” But also, when we think about it, a lot of days have come and gone since the first Christmas, since those world changing days. And maybe since the big experiences you have had.

For me, some of those big experiences were getting married. Then, 10 years later having two children. Since having children, my life hasn’t been the same. Or moving. I’ve moved 10 times, all to different places, large cities, tiny towns. Each of those moves has impacted my life and changed me. The death of someone close. My mom’s death on December 8th has changed me. I know I’m going to be different. I just don’t know what that difference is going to be yet.

How can you tell how important an experience has been for you is by seeing the impact it has had on your normal, everyday life. Yes, we must go on with the real world after such an event. If the event has any weight, we will never be quite the same. Our real world will not carry the same kinds of meanings as before.

Probably the most significant experience is our encounter with Jesus Christ. This is the mountain top of Christmas. All those involved with the first Christmas encountered the child, then went back to their real lives different people.

At some point in our lives, we must put ourselves face-to-face with Jesus Christ. At Christmas, we must go into the stable and see for ourselves. During our modern day Christmastime we must cut through all the sham and huckstering and economic reports of how much money is being spent, and decide for ourselves, “Is this the Savior or not?” Is this MY Savior or not? What does all this mean for me and my life?

Such an encounter, like it was for those at Bethlehem, can be an awesome experience. Christ can take hold of your life in a wonderful way. The beginning of that relationship, between ourselves and Jesus Christ, can be thrilling and tremendously fulfilling.

And yet, there is the time when the high spiritual encounter and our real world must meet. That is where and when we discover if the real meanings of Christmas have found a home in us.

Clark Gable was reminiscing about his relationship with his glamorous and witty wife, Carole Lombard. “One day on the ranch,” he said, “we were just being lazy, strolling around and gabbing. It was one of those beautiful California days. I said, ‘Ma, we’re awfully lucky, you and I--all this and each other too. Anything you want that we haven’t got?’ You know what she said, standing there looking as lovely as a dream? She said, ‘Well, I could use another load of manure for the south forty.’”

The real miracle of Christmas, the real task of Christmas may not be all the beauty of the day, or the unbelievable happenings that flow into and out of it with all their mystery. Instead the real miracle is integrating back into the real world of manure on the back forty, of carrying on with life with your first baby, of doing all that is expected of you in all sorts of ways, yet holding in your heart the awareness that because of Christmas, all that stuff, and you along with it, will never be quite the same.

Mary and Joseph came down from their mountaintop, because the fact that the world keeps turning made them do so. But even in the unstoppable flow of their ongoing lives, each time they looked at their child, they remembered. How could they forget a night like that.

And that’s the key. After whatever kind of hallowed experience we have with Christ, life doesn’t automatically become easy street. We find ourselves slipping back into a similar kind of existence. But there’s a difference. No matter what kind of real world we find ourselves back in, we have the wonderful and joyful realization that life will never be quite the same again because of Jesus Christ.