For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called,
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
For there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots,
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of the knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

The simple Christmas story is irrevocably fused with the Prophets' visionary promises of Messiah's birth.

And there's the rub. We know the story, rejoice in the story, but Christians have from the beginning struggled with the Christmas story. Sometimes it seems just a bit too supernatural. It doesn't mesh with our scientific empiricism, smacks too much of divine intervention into Newton's well-ordered universe governed by natural law. When you've landed another Rover on Mars, what do you do with The Virgin Birth, the whole thing about Mary's mysterious pregnancy, Gabriel's announcement that she will be visited by the Holy Spirit so that the child will be called holy, the Son of the Most High. For many Christians, all that holy stuff hides the simple, human story. So, peel away the extraneous religious stuff, then you can see the core reality of Jesus' birth as a real baby.

Or sometimes it's just the opposite. The story of Jesus' birth seems too earthy, a little too human. He needs stature, more universality, a child destined for greatness, the potential to become a leader who can get the job done and set things right. Very early in the life of the Church, there were those who believed that the Savior couldn't be God's Son if he were a real human being, a real human being with a flesh and blood body so vulnerable to sickness, suffering and death. He may look like a real baby, but that's only an appearance. It's a disguise; Jesus is really God in a human costume. So, many Christians peel away the extraneous human layers, so that we can behold the divine core of God incarnate.

People think the Christmas story is like eating a banana. You've got to peel away the skin to get to the edible part. It's our logical mania which believes that the Child Jesus can't be human and holy at one and the same time. So, we tinker with the ancient story, peeling away a little here, a little there- until there's nothing left but an end-of-the-year gimmick to boost sales and get the economy going again. There's another way, besides The Southbeach Diet does not advocate eating bananas.

The way to digest the ancient story of Jesus born of Mary is like eating an apple: just eat it, peeling and all. When the ancient story remains the ancient story, then, only then does the Christmas story bring exuberant joy and boundless hope. If its not all clear to us; if it does not sit well on our finicky stomach of logic, then the remedy is to read it again, listen to it again, study it again, seek to understand what the story is saying and forget about peeling away the objectionable parts. That is not some Biblical fundamentalism infecting the Episcopal Church, for the words themselves are not sacrosanct, written by the finger of the Holy Spirit. What is holy is the Child Jesus of which the story speaks. Use our god-given intelligence to enlighten the mind with the wisdom from that old and familiar story.

Humanity doesn't need another guru from Lotus Land, someone teaching a sure-fire way to make all your dreams come true. Plugging into the right web site or having the politically correct race, religion, nationality and gender will never, ever enable us to jump over all life's hurtles. The problems people face are not solved by cleverness, nor by power to crush and kill - like Operation Santa Claws in Iraq- who thinks up those names? that one is despicable- nor do humanity's problems go away by winning the lottery or meditative positive thinking. All of that is like fighting a fire by carrying water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom. We cannot still the nagging voice of conscience with the pop psychology nostrum, Forgive Yourself. We cannot bar the door against the inevitable knock of The Grim Reaper of Death. Organic food, proper exercise, those 8 daily glasses of bottled water, will never make us immortal.

The dawning of wisdom and maturity in an individual or a people or a nation is the day when the swaggering ends, when the eye of the soul beholds the enormity of the forces besetting us. Then is when the voices of the ancient ones make sense. They say,

The forces and powers loose in the cosmos are too powerful. You have neither the power nor the knowledge to surpass them. You need help, Someone who can cope with the powers and forces which confront you, Someone from beyond, from that One who gave you the gift of life, You need a Savior, a Redeemer, a Man from God who knows what you're up against, One with the mercy to forgive the sin of the world, One whose sacrificial suffering vanquishes even evil and death.

And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid, for I bring you good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you, you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

Amen.

Epiphany 1
January 11, 2004
St. Paul's Church
San Rafael, California