Christmas Eve - Seeing and Being Seen

Lester Holt shared a story on the NBC Nightly News a few weeks ago that had me thinking about Christmas and what I knew we’d be up to tonight: celebrating that Jesus was born, in the flesh, so that the world could see and feel and experience the power of God in a way they hadn’t before. Check it out…

For my money, this artist – Tomás Bustos – does for people who can’t see the beauty of visual artwork, something like what God did at Christmas – and what God does, still – for anyone looking for the Divine in the world and in their lives. They bend the rules – God and Tomás. They do the unexpected. They go out of their way to let their work be seen by those who have a hard time doing that. They bring beauty and love to life – to be “seen” in new ways that matter for whoever’s looking, and sometimes for those who thought they’d never see it.

The gift of Christmas … what theologians call the Incarnation … the revelation of God in the person of Jesus from Nazareth … is about God re-imagining everything we think we know – or ever thought to look for – in our quest for understanding what makes God, God; and why that changes everything for us and for the world.

What I mean is, until Jesus showed up, God was off-limits, relatively speaking. God was around, and present, and active in the world – and always had been – don’t get me wrong. But in Jesus, God came close in a new way.

As Scripture tells it, before Jesus, in the story of creation, God was like a spirit of some sort that moved over the face of the waters. In Scripture, before Jesus, in the Garden of Eden, God was like the sound of the evening breeze. Before Jesus, God was a burning bush. Before Jesus, God was a pillar of clouds or a pillar of fire. Before Jesus, God was like the untouchable ark of the covenant. (The ark itself was, literally, not to be touched by the average bear.) Before Jesus, God was like the sound of sheer silence – whatever the heaven that means.

In Jesus, though … at Christmas? … God got even more creative than all of that – pillars of clouds, burning bushes, and evening breezes, I mean. Like Tomás Bustos, the artist in that news story, God opened up a whole new world for the world as we know it. What once seemed unknowable and off-limits and untouchable had shown up precisely to be touched, to be felt, to be embraced, and understood differently altogether – in Jesus.

(Think of the sick woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak – as though she were running her fingers along the embroidery of Mona Lisa’s dress – and was healed because of it. Or the other who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair – like maybe she was seeing the Mona Lisa smile with her fingertips for the first time ever. Or that disciple whom Jesus loved so much he reclined against him at the Last Supper, like maybe he was resting under Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” sky in a way he never could have appreciated before.)

In Jesus, the beauty and peace and hope and presence of God was no longer out of reach. God wasn’t to be kept in a frame on the wall, or behind a curtain in the holy of holies, or safe and secure from the trials and troubles of life as we know it.

And, while that’s good news – great news, really – it’s nothing many of you haven’t heard me say in one way or another before, especially on Christmas Eve, over the years. So, I thought I’d kick it up a notch and dig a little deeper and take all of this a bit further this time around.

Because way back in the Hebrew scriptures, in the book of Genesis, there’s a story about Hagar, a poor young girl, who was enslaved and forced to carry and to bear the child of her enslavers – Abram and Sarai – when they couldn’t conceive a child of their own because, as the story goes, Sarai was believed to be barren. When Hagar became pregnant she fled, out of fear and contempt for her master and mistress. And she had a run-in with God somewhere in the middle of the desert. And God told her, “You have conceived and shall bear a son and you shall call him…” (Sound familiar?) “…and you shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord has given heed to your affliction.”

And the cool thing about this story – and why it came to mind for me tonight – is that Hagar, this poor, lowly, enslaved young girl with about as much status, credibility, and value in her day as the desert sand beneath her feet, is known for being the first person in all of Scripture to have had the nerve to give God a name – something you just didn’t do way back when. (You didn’t come near... You didn’t touch… And you didn’t speak the name of the almighty.) And the name Hagar gave to God – the God who met her in her darkest hour of deepest need – was “el Roi.” And “el Roi,” according to smarter people than me, means “the God who sees me.”

“The God who sees me.”

So, just as I always imagine and celebrate and give thanks that Christmas is about God coming to live and move and breathe among us so that we might see God differently… in the flesh… for a change. Hagar – and Jesus – remind me that God always sees us differently, too. That God shows up even and especially in our darkest, most desperate hours some of the time, and sees in us something the rest of the world – and maybe even we, ourselves – don’t see or refuse to look at.

Like, where the world sees a worthless slave girl, God sees a bold, brave, beautiful force for and source of life.

Where the world sees a Republican or a Democrat; or an “L” a “G” a “B” a “T” or a “Q”; where the world sees an Israeli or a Palestinian; a Russian or a Ukrainian; a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian – Jesus sees a child of God.

Where the world sees a sinner, God sees forgiveness.

Where the world sees war, God sees the possibility for peace.

Where the world sees despair, God sees hope.

Where the world sees death, God sees new life.

Where the world sees a grudge, God sees grace.

And where we – and the world – look at ourselves and each other and see, too often, the worst thing(s) we’ve ever done, Jesus sees, instead, the beloved children we were created to be – and always are – in the eyes of our maker.

And in seeing all of it, God, in Jesus, gives up his life so that we would know what love looks like, and so that we might live differently – on this side of heaven and the next – in response to that deep, abiding, everlasting gift.

So Merry Christmas in the name of the God who came so that we might see LOVE in all of its fullness and in new ways, every day. And so that we might know that we are seen, each of us – in our joy and our sorrow, in our grief and our gladness – by the fullness of that LOVE, just the same… and just in time, perhaps… and just because we’re worth it, always, in the eyes of our creator.

Amen

A Very Google Christmas

I don’t know how I’ve missed it, but apparently Google has been making these commercials and recapping “the year in searches” since at least 2010, from what I noticed on YouTube, anyway. It’s a clever advertising campaign, of course, because it accomplishes a lot in just two minutes.

They review the events of the year, they remind us of just how prolific Google is in our lives (does Google – the company that has become a verb for crying out loud – even need to advertise at this point?), they tug on our heartstrings, these commercials, and they remind us of the common ground we share with each other – and with people around the globe, apparently – when it comes, not just to what practical curiosities we share, but to what deeper longings unite us as a people, too.

And what’s as comforting as it is unsettling, for me, is that nothing much has changed. I mean, I’m comforted, somehow, by the common ground of our shared longings as people on the planet. There’s something hopeful to me that we’re curious about similar things, in our collective heart of hearts, even though we appear to be at odds, so often, on the outside. And of course it’s unsettling that – even with the help of almighty Google – we can’t seem to find what we’re searching for. U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” would make a terrible soundtrack for that commercial, am I right?

But, in the scope of human history, it seems fitting. Because we’re still searching. We’re still looking. We’re still longing for answers, we’re still hungry for solutions, we’re still searching for more of something. And if our Google searches have anything to say about us, we’re searching – among other things – for how to heal, how to stay strong, how to be resilient, how to find purpose, how to have hope, how to be ourselves.

And that’s always been the case.

Adam and Eve went searching that one particular tree in the center of the garden for what they thought they were missing.

The Israelites – wandering around in the wilderness – tried to find it once in the form of a Golden Calf, remember; that false god, that idol, that graven image they believed would bring them joy or purpose or power or redemption, somehow.

And later, up until the days of Jesus, people tried to find their salvation, their comfort, their hope, their answers in The Law – the black and white, the “yes” and “no”, the right and wrong of the rules – as if it could be that easy, that cut and dried. They sifted and searched through some 613 of those laws for generations and it was never enough. No one could ever measure up or win that game.

And on it went … God’s children searching for power and purpose in people, places and things; in kings and queens and conquests; in wealth and wisdom and war and whatever they could find – but to no avail. And on it goes. And on we Google.

Because you and I are no better or worse as we gather here tonight. I don’t know what you’re searching for exactly, if anything. But I suspect we’ve all gone looking for whatever “it” is in some strange, inadequate, if not scary and sinful, ways and places, too – in bottles and relationships; in diets and money; in things and work; in disappointing distractions and lost causes of all shapes and sizes.

So, I wondered more about that commercial. What actually happens when you Google it? The commercial never shows the search results, after all, does it? So, pull out your phone, if you have one, and give it a go. (Kids, you heard me. It’s a Christmas miracle. Your Pastor is inviting you to pull out your phones in worship.) Google it…

What actually happens when you search, “How do I heal?” or “How do I stay strong?” “How to I find hope?” “What’s my purpose?” or “How do I be more like myself?”

Google gives a million answers and makes a million different suggestions, right? There are numbered lists (“9 Ways to Build Your Inner Strength” for instance) and reviews from Psychology Today about finding hope. There are hosts of life-hacks for anything and everything. There is celebrity advice out the wazoo and countless tips and quick little quizzes, too. And some of that might be worth a try – who knows?

But tonight I want to say that none of that matters so much – all the ways and places we’ve gone to searching for what we want, or need, or long for most, I mean.

Because tonight’s good news is the reminder that God has been… God is… and God always will come… searching for us, in Jesus.

God wanted so badly to be found that God left heaven for earth. God wanted so badly to be discovered by the likes of you and me that God put on flesh and bones and came out of the shadows. God wanted so badly to be known in a way we could understand that God became human – weak and needy and vulnerable, even – just like the rest of us. God wanted so badly to be revealed to us and for the sake of the world that God served and suffered and died, so that we could see what love in action can do in our midst.

So I think it’s too simple – and way too cheesy – to say the answer to our searching is just “Jesus.” Because I think there’s more. I think the answer is “Jesus” … “in the flesh.” And not just the flesh that cried in that manger in Bethlehem, or that walked the dirt road to Jericho, or that climbed the hills around Galilee, or that made his way to Jerusalem, either.

I think the answer to our many, many questions and to our searching, our longing, and our hunger is “Jesus” … “in the flesh” … and more specifically “in your flesh and mine” … “right here and now.”

Because if we’re searching for hope, I think we find it in the doctors and nurses who risk their lives caring for people who are sick with this deadly virus.

If we’re searching for strength, I think we look to those who survived the tornadoes that destroyed so much a couple of weeks ago in Kentucky and beyond – and to those rescue and recovery workers who are still doing God’s work in those places.

If we’re searching for courage, I think we find it in a kid like Tate Myer, the high school football player in Oxford, Michigan, who took a bullet for his classmates a couple of weeks ago. I think we find courage in the queer kid who’s stepped out of the closet; the widow or widower who made it back to life, somehow; the divorcee who made it back to church; the cancer survivor who made it out of bed.

If we’re searching for purpose and meaning in this life, we find it in anyone who is living like Jesus did – visiting with prisoners, caring for outcasts, feeding the hungry, defending the oppressed, loving the outsider, welcoming strangers, protecting children.

If we’re searching for riches, I think we find it by giving away what we have – or by paying attention to the most generous people we know – until we recognize how wealthy we already are.

And if you’re searching for companionship or common ground with someone who’s searching, too, put your phones away, stop searching elsewhere, and look around you. The people in this room – most of the ones I know, anyway – are kind and gracious and searching right along with you. (And I hope that’s true for those of you watching from home, too.)

And if you’re searching for forgiveness or acceptance for something that’s just between you and God at the moment, you’ll find it right here in this bowl and around this table, too – in the bread and wine and water of the grace that finds us here, first. (And if you ever need to be reminded of that forgiveness, that acceptance, or both, call me after Christmas. We’ll talk.)

Because that’s what God does for us. God searches for, God finds and God loves us wherever we are, through flesh and blood people just like you and me – so that we might receive it – this love, revel in it – this grace, and return the favor of this gift for a world that’s still searching, too…

…searching for love without limits, searching for forgiveness with no strings attached, searching for hope with no boundaries.

…searching for grace, for mercy, for peace.

…searching for a place to belong… to find rest… and to know joy, because that’s the answer and that’s the example God has given, in Jesus.

Amen. Merry Christmas.