My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#8 - The Shepherds) Here it is the third, and final, sermon installment for the My Nativity Project. It is a sermon I delivered this past Sunday at Crosspoint Community Church (Anchorage, AK) as part of the "Christmas Visions" series. You can listen to "The Shepherd's Vision" here. (You will need to search for it under the series title "Christmas Visions" or for me as a speaker). Happy New Year!!! Joel K BONUS: If, on the this New Years Eve, your not totally done with Christmas I can highly recommend Rob Bell's discussion of Christmas with Alexander Shaia here. This podcast blew my mind - like everytime I listen to Alexander Shaia. Also the audio of Rob Bell's "Revolutionary Christmas - Live at Largo is available for download here. It is TOTALLY worth the $5 (which is being donated in full to Charity:Water). This was another mind blowing look at Christmas
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#9 - The Star - Bonus Christmas Day Edition) NOTE: #8 The Shepherd's - will be available soon. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Often at the top of the nativity sits a star. We don't talk much about the star at Christmas other than to mention it in the Magi story. I once heard a sermon that was preached from the perspective of the star. I remember it being rather good, but I can't tell you one specific thing that was said. Such is that fate of even the best work of preachers, I guess. In my defense, and the preacher's, it was over twenty years ago. Speaking of the Star atop the manger scene, reminds me of one of my favorite songs from this Advent - "Another Christmas" by the Ohio-based band Over the Rhine. This melancholy holiday song offers some memorable and thought provoking lines such as:
"This old world so sweet and so bitter
Seeds of violence we humans have sown
And these weapons we still love to handle
May our children have strength to let go
When we look at the stars after midnight
Sparkling rumors of redemption at play
Can we still hear the echoes of angels
Who were singing that first Christmas day"
The lyrics speak directly to the current state of the world and offer the hope of redemption brought by Jesus moving into our neighborhood. However, it is the refrain that has drilled it's way into into my mind and spirit this Christmas...
" ‘Cause I’ve committed every sin
And each one leaves a different scar
It’s just the world I’m livin’ in
And I could use a guiding star
I hope that I can still believe
The Christ child holds a gift for me
Am I able to receive
Peace on earth this Christmas"
While we often seek feel good songs at Christmas, it is the depth of reality that is sung by Linford Detweiler that strikes me. As he confesses his need for a guiding star I sense my turn in the confession booth making the same claim. When he asks if he is able to receive a gift from the Christ child, I too wonder if I can trust that the baby Jesus still has a gift for me.
So as we finish this exploration of the nativity I find myself placing this hope of a guiding star on top of the manger scene residing in my blistered soul in hope that a true guiding star will take the place of that hope. That guiding star would be a gift I would be glad to receive.
Joel K
You can find the lyrics for "Another Christmas" here.
BONUS TRACK:
The second song I fell in love with this Christmas is Sam Phillip's "Cold Dark Night." It is just a great track and I offer it to you as a gift on Christmas Day!
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#7 - Jesus) For a few years I was a Bible teacher for a small Christian school. The main subject I taught was the Gospels. In that class, each week, the students were assigned to write a single page on Jesus. All the prompts began with "Jesus is / was __________" with some provocative word of phrase in the blank. Today we turn our thoughts to the child in the manger at the center of the nativity. In doing so I offer these two statements for consideration: Jesus is/was a rebel. Jesus is/was a refugee. Each with a song to guide our reflection. Back in the days before downloadable content I used to trade for bootleg live recordings a bit. One of my favorite trades was for a recording of Bruce Cockburn doing a live radio Christmas special (he did those for a few years). On that particular recording was a special guest appearance by Jackson Browne. The song Browne choose to sing solo is "The Rebel Jesus." That song is a critique of Jesus' followers. The third verse always strikes me with its bluntness and often needed rebuke: "We guard our world with locks and guns And we guard our fine possessions And once a year when Christmas comes We give to our relations And perhaps we give a little to the poor If the generosity should seize us But if any one of us should interfere In the business of why there are poor They get the same as the rebel Jesus"
But as we gaze into the manager at the center of our nativity and see a baby it is hard to see a rebel. A few weeks ago a Facebook friend of mine (Nate Bacon) posted this thought:
"Advent. The coming of the King…as a defenseless child. The age-old adage, ‘might makes right’ is literally undermined by the birth of a Child who had no place to lay his head…born at the margins of Empire whose local manifestation—Herod—teetered with insecurity at this threat from below, and responded with violence and infanticide. Terror has long roots in our world…the white-knuckled gripping onto transient power…the hatred and persecution of those who would oppose and subvert our regimes…the pitting of race against race…denying our common humanity and ignoring the common threats to our existence on this planet. Into this malaise comes a child who will lead the Way."
Looking at the child in that light begins to unlock the rebel-ness of Jesus and hints at another prompt I used to hand out - "Jesus is/was a revolutionary." Can we see in the Baby Jesus, laying in a manger, the subversion of a rebel and a revolutionary? Can we hear in the words of Jackson Browne the reality that often we, as Jesus' followers, are far from rebellious or revolutionary?
If I were still teaching high school students this Christmas season I would have assigned the prompt "Jesus is/was a refugee." All the talk of national security with Presidential candidates and politicians making statements daily about closing our borders and other responses to the crisis' at hand we forget that Jesus is born into volatile political environment. Luke's account of the birth starts by telling us who the Roman ruler was that was ordering the census and a few verses later Luke is stealing a title from that ruler - "The Lord" - and giving it to the baby in the manger. That is an act of political poetry that speaks to the unrest of the time. The birth account in Matthew tells us about how threatened Herod by this new King. Put another way, the situation was so tense that a king was put on guard by a baby, so much so that he kills any potential rival to his throne and power. It is at that exact moment that Jesus becomes a refugee as he and his family flee to Egypt.
Can we look into the manger this Christmas and see a baby refugee? Can we see Jesus in the faces of those forced from their homes and countries because of political unrest that often flood our TV news broadcasts? Can we see the story of the birth of a rebel, revolutionary, refugee has happening in a world much like our own?
I offer the song "If You Were Born Today" by Low as a soundtrack for mulling over the rebel, revolutionary, refugee who came as a baby to be "God with Us"?
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#6 - Mary) Here it is the second sermon installment for the My Nativity Project. It is a sermon I delivered this past Sunday at Crosspoint Community Church (Anchorage, AK) as part of the "Christmas Visions" series. You can listen to "Mary's Vision" here. Joel K
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#5 - The Maji)
As I have noted I don't typically put the Maji (also called the Wisemen or Kings, usually assigned the number 3 because of the gifts) in the nativity since it's likely that they arrived about two years after Jesus birth. However, for this exercise we are dropping them in the scene.
While we sing of these men and place them in the story each year it appears to me that we don't really know who they were - other than worshipers of the toddler Jesus from the East. The word Magi is explained in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible as "Oriental Scientist, by implication a magician; sorcerer." This definition strikes me in two ways. First, it sounds more than a little racist. Second, is the idea that these men may have been scientists. We don't sing, "we three scientists, of Orient are..." How would the story of Christmas be different if three scientists were next to the manger on our mantle?
Another way to define Maji is, "a member of a priestly caste of ancient Persia." Now if a group of scientists in the Manger Scene wasn't thought provoking, how about priests of a different Religion worshiping Jesus in the Nativity? But this definition makes some sense to me.
A few years back I was student in a class on Church History being taught by Dr. Ray Bakke. Ray, in speaking about the Magi, stated that 600 years before Babylon had carried off the royalty of Israel, including Daniel. He noted that in Matthew 2:18, the verse about Rachel weeping, it not just about the toddler genocide of Herod, but also the weeping of Rachel for those taken in exile. He went on to speculate that the wisemen were Rachel's children returning after being on mission in Babylon. With a bit more speculation about Daniel having prophicied about the coming Jesus, Ray stated that the first non-Jewish worshippers of Jesus were from a land and people that had nearly destroyed the Jews and had carried them off into exile. I don't know about you, but I find all that pretty thought provoking.
If the Maji were from Babylon and representatives of an oppressing army that carried Israel into captivity, its interesting thatas soon as they arrive a new oppressor kills all the toddler and baby boys forcing Jesus, Mary and Joseph to flee into exile. The paralell is stunning. It is also a part of the story we don't talk about. We put the wisemen in the manger scene, but maybe we should have a soldier with a bloody sword or a maniacal king lurking in the back.
Today in church services across the US and Canada some time will be given to talking about refugees, in particular Syrian refugees. There has been a lot of discussion recently (interestingly at the center has been a maniacal wannabe king) about what to do with refugees and what a Christian response should be. Matthew 2, and the Magi should tell us all we need to know. Jesus was a refugee. That is a song we don't sing at Christmas either. Jesus was a refugee.
A few years ago I added a Christmas ep titled simply Christmas by the band Low to my collection of holiday music. Their song "Take the Long Way Around the Sea" (above) offers the perfect atmosphere for reflecting on the Magi, Herod's toddler genocide, and Jesus the refugee.
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#4 - Zechariah) Here it is the first sermon installment for the My Nativity Project. It is a sermon I delivered this past Sunday at Crosspoint Community Church (Anchorage, AK) as part of the "Christmas Visions" series. You can listen to "Zechariah's Vision" here. After checking out my sermon, if you are not on sermon overload, I highly recommend Pastor Kizombo L. Kalumbula's (Tabernacle Community Church in Grand Rapids, MI) sermon on Zechariah. You can listen to it here.
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#3 - Bethlehem)
I don't pick up my guitar(s) much these days. Life is pretty full, so my collection of six strings sits in the closet, silent, waiting for some stolen moment when they will be played. When I do pick one up this Christmas season I will likely play very few Christmas songs. However, I know I will play On To Bethlehem by Vigilantes of Love. It is one of my favorite Christmas songs and one that strikes a deep chord in me.
The song captures the mood I often enter the holiday season with - a mix of weiryness and despair. This comes through in lines like:
and i'd like to say i'm faithful to the task at hand speaking gospel to a handful and others with their list of demands
The song also captures a bit of the hope Christmas offers in the refrain. There Bill Mallonee sings:
it's cold this year and i'm late on my dues it's cold in here ah but that's nothing new my heart's electric with your love again so it's on to bethlehem
Though I love the tone of the song, it is the lines in the middle and last part of the song that have bearing on this reflection of the nativity. In those lines we see a reluctance to approach the manger. We see a hesitancy to rush up to the newborn Jesus. We are drawn by the lyrics to experience our own humanity and the incarnated humanity of Jesus. First the middle: you might surmise that i ran there but i really only crept lead me to the place where love runs wild and then it dogs your every step
you know how fickle my heart is prone to wonder my Lord yeah we talk but it's at arms length always got one eye on the door Do we rush to the manger too easily each Christmas? Are we too much like Ricky Bobby (1) wanting to worship the "Dear Lord, Baby Jesus"? Do we truly love the baby Jesus the best? Sometimes I think we like Christmas more than the rest of the liturgical year because the baby Jesus doesn't come to us us and bid us to die (2). The baby Jesus doesn't command us to give to the poor, or lay down our lives, or rest on God's protection and provision. In fact we like that "The little Lord Jesus, No crying he makes" and sing it out loudly. Pastor and author Nadia Bolz-Weber expresses what I think our reaction to the adult Jesus often is in an interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program: "I was at a Q&A recently and this really earnest young seminarian was like, "Pastor Nadia what do you do personally to get closer to God?" and before I even knew I was saying it I was like "What?! Nothing. Why would I do that?" Half of the time I wish He would leave me alone. Because if I'm going to try to get closer to God because I'm going to end up having to love someone I don't like again or give away more of my money or be confronted with some horrible inconsistency about myself and be called to repent. None of those things - I'm not interested in those things. They keep happening to me, but it's not because I've climbed some spiritual ladder and I'm constantly pursuing God. God is pursuing me." (3) Bolz-Weber was talking in that moment about having the gift of faith. How many of us have a faith - not even a faith, but a curiosity about Jesus - that is marked by or fickleness and having "one eye on the door"? I bet that most of us - if we are nakedly honest - creep, at best, to the manger and are ready to leave at any second. If Mallonee hasn't made us uncomfortable enough yet, now the end: God wraps Himself up in human skin for those who want to touch and God let them drive the nails in for those of us who know way too much
You come bearing all our burdens and take Your lovers for a ride but we stay holed up in our cages fashioned by our own design
so tell me what is your secret what's on your blister soul what is that one little secret you know the one that has taken its toll
'cause daddy's banging on your gate again yeah he won't leave you alone got a whole lot of dry warm rooms and the finest of homes
The mystery and the magic of Christmas is that God could somehow become human. In the Disney movie Aladdin the genie describes the situation of living in a bottle by saying something like, "UNLIMITED POWER!!!, tinny-weeny little living space." This always seems to me a statement of the incarnation at Jesus' birth. God becomes human, the ruler of the universe packed into the body of a newborn baby. Eugene Peterson put the incarnation this way in his translation of John 1, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." Jesus moves into our human neighborhood, and also the places where we live. Our being human and the world we live in leaves scars on us - scars that need healing. But while Jesus is coming to heal us, we insist on living with a blistered soul. I love the direct way Mallonee gets the listener to admit to that? "so tell me what is your secret, what's on your blister soul, what is that one little secret, you know the one that has taken its toll?" The question is not if you have a secret or if your soul is blistered, but what the secret is in that tattered soul of yours. In what way has being a human in this world left its mark on you?
Today we reflect on the setting of our nativity - our manger scene. Sure the birth of Jesus took place in Bethlehem, and sure the representations we have of the birth of Jesus might set on a table or mantle, but as we set up the manger scene in our lives during advent the nativity is resting deep in our blistered soul.
Can we say, with our blistered soul, that our heart is electric and that we will creep up to the manger one more time seeking the healing of the baby Jesus?
(1) Will Farrell's character in Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby Talladaga Nights... (2) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (3) http://www.npr.org/2015/09/17/441139500/lutheran-minister-preaches-a-gospel-of-love-to-junkies-drag-queens-and-outsiders
My Nativity Project: A Journey Through the Manger Scene in Sermon and Song (#2 - Joseph) Maybe it is because I'm a man, or maybe it's because I'm usually drawn to the fringe characters of any Biblical story, but I have often pondered Joseph at Christmas time. Quite often he gets brushed to the side in our telling of the Christmas story becoming nothing more than Mary's husband and the guy leading the donkey. However, Joseph has got some real depth and gives us a lot to think about. First off Joseph has some decisions to make. He must to decide whether or not to follow through on his engagement to Mary. In order to do that Joseph has to choose to believe that Mary has not been unfaithful to him and is carrying God's baby which was created in her womb, somehow, but the Holy Spirit. This decision - to remain on course with marrying Mary - also comes with a choice to be an outcast. Joseph will be looked down upon by everyone for his union with the unclean, and seemingly untruthful, Mary. It's no wonder the Bible tells us that he thought about dismissing her quietly. It's my guess is the mention of this consideration - "he had in mind to divorce her quietly" (Matt. 1:19b) - is a bit of an understatement. The second decision Joseph needs to make is to leave what little support he may have had left and travel to safety. Following the visit of the Magi and just moments before Herod's murderous rampage against Bethlehem area toddlers Joseph scurries away with Jesus and Mary to Egypt. Joseph's story seems ripped right from the headlines. A man fleeing a tyrant to another country as a refugee seeking asylum is the experience of many in our world today. Both of those decisions needed a visit in a from the Angel of the Lord in a dream to take root in Joseph. I've always wondered what it was like to be Joseph. Did he ever doubt the story he was told about how Mary got pregnant after he had the dream? How did he feel having to leave home, and everything he knew, to protect his family? What was it like knowing you were the stepfather of the Messiah? I once preached a sermon titled, "Out on a Limb with Joseph." That sermon is long gone from my notes, papers and memory, but the feeling of Joseph being out on a limb as we read Matthew 2 persists. While there are plenty of risks being taken in the Christmas story...Joseph is certainly a man who is going out on a limb - risking it all multiple times. For the past decade the rock band The Killers has released a Christmas tune each holiday season. The third year of the run, 2008, they released with the help of Elton John and Neil Tennant, "Joseph, Better You Than Me." This excellent, and non-traditional, Christmas tune serves as a wonderful prompt for reflecting on Joseph as we place him in the Manger Scene. Better you than me indeed. Joel K
