Luke 1:26-38
The entire family - several generations - has flown in for Christmas. They rise early and dress in their new holiday outfits. After a morning church service, they open their gifts. It takes two hours, but in the meantime Mother is putting the final touches on the huge dinner featuring everyone's favorite dishes. After the children play with all their new toys, they stack them neatly and help set the table with the best lace tablecloth and the recently polished silver. Dad lights a roaring fire, and then everyone sings carols and sits down to the wonderful feast.
What's wrong with this picture?
To begin with, this festive scene is an ideal for which many strive but which few attain. Even those who do are probably suppressing feelings of exhaustion and worry about the credit-card bills hat will come in January.
The Bible's picture of Christ's birth in poor and humble circumstances contains basic elements and symbols of the faith: longing and expectation, the joy of new beginnings, the intimacy of shared belief, the faithfulness of devoted seekers and followers. The simplicity of the manger scene as birthplace is profound. And yet in our culture, these symbols have become twisted and their meaning often turned upside down. Commercialism reigns, and the Advent-Christmas season has become one of panic and purchase instead of calm waiting and culmination.
Christmas is a time of celebration, and part of the festive fun is food. Our Thanksgiving-to-Christmas consumption of goodies will surely lead to a few extra pounds and a resolution to start the New Year with a diet. There's nothing wrong with dropping your excess holiday weight. But in our culture, dieting has become a chronic obsession. There may be some health benefits, sure, but without a steady regimen of aerobic exercise you may be easing the load while slowly killing yourself.
Killing yourself, that is, with stress.
"You do realize," writes a countercultural commentator named Philip LeFebvre, "that if you stand in front of the pastry case at the coffee shop and calculate calories in your head, trying to figure out if a chocolate chip cookie is going to show up on your hips, you are actually doing more damage to your heart from the stress than if you simply ate the d**n cookie and allowed yourself to experience the joy of it, right? You do realize that happiness and personal acceptance are hundreds of times better for you than stressful self-denial, right?" [ ASK FOR USHERS TO PASS OUT COOKIES—EVERYONE HOLD THEIRS SO WE CAN EAT THEM TOGETHER]
Refusing joy is nothing less than a form of blasphemy. Vanity kills, as does stressful self-denial. Happiness produces endorphins that keep you healthy. The truth of the matter is that you can eat right, drink your bottled water, take your vitamins, get plenty of sleep, and still get hit by a bus. Looking out the windows at your tragically broken body will be a bunch of gluttons who didn't think twice about eating that Christmas cookie.
Go ahead, relax - enjoy the holiday season. God has created a delicious world for us, and he wants us to experience joy! It's not like "Stress to the world, the Lord has come." Or, "Fret, worry, and fuss, the Lord has come." It's not like the archangel burst upon the shepherds and said, "Fear not, for today I bring you tidings of great stress -which shall be to all people." That's usually the way it works: When we're stressed, we bring our stress to all people - husband, wife, children, the family pet, friends and co-workers. Instead, the good news was: "I bring you tidings of great joy that will be for all people."
Let's look at the beginning of the Christmas story. (READ LUKE 1:26-38) Luke tells us that the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin named Mary, engaged to a man whose name was Joseph. The angel comes to her and says, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you" (1:26-28).
The greeting contains an assurance of divine favor and power and presence, and is meant to inspire joy. But Mary is much perplexed by his words, as any of us would be, and she ponders what sort of greeting this might be (v. 29). You can just imagine her standing in front of the pastry case at some divine coffee shop, wondering what to think, what to feel, what to do. She is no doubt suffering some serious stress.
"Do not be afraid, Mary," says the angel, "for you have found favor with God." He goes on to predict that she will bear a son named Jesus - one who will be great, the Son of the Most High, the heir of David and the ruler of an everlasting kingdom. The child will be conceived by the Holy Spirit, explains Gabriel, and he will be born a holy child, nothing less than the one and only Son of God. Since Mary's relative Elizabeth has already conceived in her old age, confounding everyone's expectations, it is suddenly quite clear that nothing is impossible with God (vv. 36-37).
What an offer. What an opportunity. What a stressful situation.
The angel is giving Mary a shot at incredible joy: the chance to be the mother of God. How big is that?! And yet, this opportunity brings with it the frightening thought that Mary will soon be visibly pregnant, carrying more weight than would come from eating a case full of doughnuts. Aside from the damage to her girlish figure will be the damage to her reputation - what will people say about a young woman becoming pregnant before her wedding day? According to the law, she could be executed for becoming pregnant by anyone but Joseph, or punished in a severe and humiliating way. It is anything but easy for Mary to agree to this offer presented by the angel Gabriel.
But she says yes. "Here am I, the servant of the Lord," proclaims Mary; "let it be with me according to your word" (v. 38). She accepts the angel's offer, takes a big bite of the opportunity put before her, and does not fall into the trap of stressing out and refusing joy.
Refusing joy - what a great phrase. We're so stressed by trying to live right, eat right, think right, act right, speak right, parent right, exercise right, look right ... that we've forgotten the joy of Jesus. Think of the many solid reasons that Mary could give for saying no to the angel Gabriel: not the right time, not the right place, not the right partner, not the right family system, not the right plan for the future.
And yet, she says, "Here am I ... let it be." In spite of all the seemingly solid reasons to show self-control and say no, she doesn't want to be guilty of refusing joy.
How about us? Have we left the joy behind as we observe the birth of Christ? Do we feel pressured to practice massive self-denial as we face the dessert table at a holiday party? Are we sensing that there is something not right about loosening up and simply having a good time, eating some really delicious food? Have we lost the ability to happily chow down with no thought of calories, carcinogens, fat grams, E. coli or genetically modified ingredients? Over the past three decades, Americans have become more and more wary about what they eat.
Come on, now, it's Christmas. Eat. Enjoy. That January diet will come soon enough.
But true Christmas - not to speak of Christian - joy is not about eating cream puffs without guilt. The joy we refuse more frequently has nothing to do with food. The happiness we so often ignore is spiritual, not physical ... it involves believing, not bingeing. The joy that we are guilty of leaving behind is the joy that comes from opening our hearts to the presence of Christ, the joy that comes from letting God bless us, the joy that comes from entrusting ourselves to his care. That's what Mary did, after all. And that's what saved her from the sin of leaving the joy of the Lord behind.
Although I want you to freely enjoy eating the Christmas goodies, I also want you to know that Christmas is more than an opportunity to eat and celebrate. It's also a chance to approach Jesus with a desire to be filled, and with an expectation of fulfillment.
In a sense, we should come to Christ in the same way that children come to the dinner table. They come because they are hungry, not because they feel a social obligation. They come with anticipation, expecting something good to be waiting for them. They come with trust, believing that the food will be nutritious. They come without worries about calories, carcinogens, additives and food-borne illnesses. They come expecting to be filled, to be strengthened, to be satisfied, to be nourished for growth.
We ought to approach Jesus in the very same way. Any other path could leave the joy behind.
A Lutheran named David Miller remembers kneeling in his pew after returning from communion, on a Sunday much like this one. Lost in a haze, he focused not on the Christmas holiday or the sacrament, but on his fears about what the next few days would bring.
He tried to pray through his distress as the choir sang of Mary: "Hail, favored one, the Lord is with thee." But his thoughts connected only with his anxiety.
Giving up his failed attempt at prayer, he listened to the choir, trying to catch his daughter's voice. As the soprano descant soared above the choir, surprising tears appeared in his eyes.
These were not helpless tears of self-pity. Those he would have expected. It was not sadness that he felt, but a joy and gratitude that flowed from a mysterious world deeper and more wondrous than the one his troubled mind inhabited.
David felt transported to another time and place, one where sadness and anxiety had no place. They had evaporated like so much morning mist, and a voice within him spoke to his fears. The Lord said to him, "It doesn't all depend on you. I am here."
What a gift. David came to God with a deep hunger, and he was satisfied. He came needing nourishment, and he was filled. He allowed himself to be drawn out of the world of his fears, a world that he describes as being limited by his shallow insights, minuscule skills and all-too-human weaknesses.
A sense of well-being washed over him, and he knew that the voice spoke the truth. He had no doubt that this joy was a pure gift - he had done nothing to produce it, define it or control it. But it was there. "Do not fear," the Lord said to him, lovingly. "I will not fail you. Don't you know by now how much I treasure you?"
In the middle of our stressful lives, God wants us to experience joy. He wants us to know that he favors us, that he treasures us, and that he will not fail us. He sends Jesus to remind us that he is with us, always, in the very center of the pains and problems of human life.
May we accept this gift from God, as Mary did ... and as David Miller did.
It's a joy that should never be refused. [PAUSE}
In Isaiah 61, verse 3, it says that God wants to give us “a garland instead of ashes,” and to anoint us with the “oil of gladness,” the oil of joy. If you are feeling far away from God’s joy, if you are experiencing a deep hunger that you haven’t been able to satisfy, come to God’s table. As we sing the last hymn, #210 in the Blue Hymnal, I invite you to come forward with your needs and allow me to anoint you with the oil of joy.
Sources: LeFebvre, Philip E. "Diet for a small pleasure," Clamor, November-December 2001, printed in Utne Reader, March-April 2002, 74. Miller, David L. "Swept up in joy," The Lutheran, December 1998, 8.
