Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
December 25, 2005

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Well, here we are. On Christmas Day. We don’t often get to worship together on Christmas itself, so being here today with my church family is a special joy for me; and I hope it is for you too. Christmas is of course a day of great joy for all Christians. Christ is born! Praise the Lord! Christmas is indeed "good news of great joy for all the people," as Luke’s angel tells the shepherds. Luke 2:10 On Christmas the Word of God indeed became flesh and loved among us. John 1:14 The Psalmist of Psalm 98, which we heard this morning, of course didn’t know about Jesus. He, or she, lived centuries before Jesus. Still, Psalm 98 is an appropriate Christmas text for us, especially verses 1 and 4:

O sing to the Lord a new song,
     for he has done marvelous things.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth,
     break forth into joyous song and
          sing praises.

Yet I’m struck this morning by a different line in Psalm 98 than the imperative to make a joyful noise to the Lord. Psalm 98 begins: "Sing to the Lord a new song," and that seems a bit strange for a Christmas text. Christmas is so much about tradition for us. It isn’t Christmas without our Christmas traditions. We all have them. They probably include a Christmas tree in the living room at home and presents to and from the family. Those are common to most of us. Many of us have our own rituals and customs that may be unique to our family as well, or at least less common than the ubiquitous Christmas tree and the presents. In my mother’s family there was a tradition of having oyster stew for supper on Christmas Eve. I don’t know what oyster stew has to do with Christmas Eve, but my parents observe that tradition to this day. My late wife Francie and I only very rarely missed having oyster stew on Christmas Eve. Even for Christmas Eve 1975, when we were in Moscow-Russia not Idaho-we found a can of oysters at the commissary of the American Embassy and had oyster stew for Christmas Eve.

Christmas is indeed about tradition. If you doubt that just notice the old red hymnals in your pew, replacing the much more up to date black hymnals that we have been using. As committed as I am to inclusive language and the other changes that that black hymnal, the New Century Hymnal, has made to our traditional hymns, even I draw the line at messing with my traditional Christmas carols. It wouldn’t be Christmas without them, never mind that if I tried to get you to sing Christmas carols out the New Century Hymnal it would probably cost me my job. We just can’t do without our traditions at Christmastime.

And in powerful ways, Christmas is indeed about the past. It commemorates an event that occurred over 2,000 years ago. That is certainly looking to the past. All of those traditions are about the past too. They come down to us from the past. They ground us in our personal histories and remind us of days gone by, especially of our childhoods and the good times we had; or at least they do that for me, and I hope they do that for you.

And yet Psalm 98, one of the lectionary readings for Christmas Day, begins by telling us to sing to the Lord not a song of the past but a new song. New looks toward the future not the past. It grows out of the past and is inexorably tied to it and conditioned by it, but it looks for the future to be in some way different from the past. New points to change, to the past changed and transformed. New can and should respect tradition, but it is not bound to it or by it. New calls us beyond our old ways into the unknown. New calls us out of our comfort and our security into risk and possibility. So why on Christmas are we told to sing a new song to the Lord?

It’s because of the specific marvelous thing that God has done that we celebrate today. Today we celebrate the fact that in Jesus Christ God came to us as one of us. In Jesus Christ God demonstrated God’s love for us and for all people. In Jesus Christ we know that we are safe with God. We are safe no matter what, because in Jesus Christ we know that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:38-39 In Jesus Christ we know that we are forgiven. In Jesus Christ we know that God is a God of grace and mercy, not a God of judgment and condemnation. Because we know all these things in and through Jesus Christ, we are free to dare, to risk, to sing a new song, to do a new thing.

And because we have this Jesus whose birth we celebrate, we know not only that we are safe, that we can dare, risk, sing a new song, and do a new thing. We know also that God calls us to do precisely that. In Jesus Christ, God calls us out of our security, our of our comfort, out of our old patterns and into the new. God calls us to transformed lives. God calls us to nothing less than the task of transforming the world.

Because you see that’s what this Jesus did. Today we celebrate a baby. We sing Away In A Manger and What Child is This. We have images of the Holy Family, a young mother meek and mild. A poor father who must have been more bewildered than we can imagine by all that had happened. Our images are of meekness, even helplessness and defenselessness. Our images are so tame. So peaceful. So comforting. In many ways so ordinary-a young family experiencing the birth of their first child. It’s a beautiful thing when it happens. I know. It happened to me once, and it has happened to many of you. I just learned yesterday that this summer, probably in August, good Lord willing, it will happen for my daughter and son-in-law. But the thing is, it happens for somebody every day. It’s all so human, so ordinary, and so utterly unthreatening.

Yet if we are to understand what it all means, we cannot forget the man this baby grew up to be. That man was the Prince of Peace, the prophet of nonviolence; but he was anything but safe and unthreatening. He stood the world of his day, and of ours, on its head. He called people to a new way of being. He called people out of themselves into lives of love, caring, and even sacrifice for the sake of others. He challenged the demonic powers of the world with God’s word of peace and justice for all people. He said: God loves those whom you scorn. God hates your selfishness, your opulence, your greed, your indifference to the plight of the poor. Even more God hates your violent ways, your fighting and your warring. He said: God detests all forms of oppression of any of God’s people-and all people are God’s people. And he said: God wants you to love the things God loves and hate the things God hates. He said: I will leave you one day, and then it will be up to you. My Spirit will always be with you, but it will be up to you to do even greater things than I have done. Greater deeds of mercy. Greater deeds of peace. Jesus the baby was helpless and unthreatening. Jesus the man was a revolutionary prophet of the Kingdom of God, and the world has never been the same since. And here’s the thing: Jesus the man is why we celebrate Jesus the baby.

So today, this Christmas Day, let us resolve indeed to sing to the Lord a new song. Let us resolve to live for the Lord new lives, transformed lives. Let us work without ceasing to overcome our selfishness. Let us open our hearts to the plight of those in need. Let us work to end all oppression everywhere. Most of all, let us commit our lives to the great work of peace, peace in our own lives and peace everywhere in God’s world. That, my friends, is the new song we are called today to sing.

We can do it because of the marvelous thing that God has done. We can do it because Jesus Christ is born. That marvelous act of God inspires us, encourages us, emboldens us to live as faithful disciples of the man the baby became. That marvelous act of God saves us. It makes us ultimately safe with God; and because we are, there is nothing we cannot do in the name of Christ. Because we are safe in Christ we can risk the disapproval of the world. We can face the questioning of our friends and even rejection by the loudest, most strident voices among us. We can take the risk of peace. We can take the risk of demanding justice not for ourselves only but for everyone. We can speak a prophetic word to power when it, as Jim Wallis says, turns Mary’s prayer on its head and sends the poor away empty while filling the rich with good things. Luke 1:53. We can speak a prophetic word to power when it forsakes the ways of peace for the ways of war. We can do it all because Jesus Christ is born. We can indeed sing a new song to the Lord, for God has done a most marvelous thing. Jesus is born! Praise the Lord! Amen.