“Good News for a Bad News
World”
by Bruce J. Johnson
Our text for this morning is the following:
“Now after they (wiremen) had left, an angel of the
Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said: Get up, take the child and his
mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is
about to search for the child to destroy him.”
(Matthew 2: 13)
What a threatening note is struck in the charmed
story of Christ’s birth with the mention of Herod and his sinister plan!
Within
days after the joyous good news was sung by the angels and received by the
shepherds and Joseph and Mary stood by watching precious gifts being place
before the Christ child… the angel of the Lord delivers the bad news--- that
Herod and all that is Herodian are also in search of the child, not to worship
him but to destroy him, to eliminate him.
Bad
News has never been far from ‘this good news of great joy that has come to all
the people.’ Cradle and cross, life and death, hope and despair, hatred and
love seemed linked from the very start.
I had chosen the title and theme for this sermon over a month ago. Imagine what I thought when I picked up the Hartford Courant on Friday morning, Christmas Eve Day--- to read the huge headline--- “GUILTY.” My heart sunk, feeling so sad about the bad news of former Governor Rowland’s admission of guilt—of being corrupt while in office, violating the trust of state, the confidence of colleagues and the ethics of his profession. “GUILTY,” what a harsh and contradictory juxtaposition of spirit and theme. On the very day that spirits and hopes were meant to rise on the Good News of Christ’s birth, we get, to borrow words of Governor Rell, “punched in the gut.”
Talk about being punched in the gut—poor Joseph and Mary--- and Mary a new teenage Mom---what news to get days after the birth of your child—that there was someone who wanted him dead.
Of course, for us, bad news is never surprising. As a matter, I hate to say this but not only has it been around but quite frankly there is something about us that is drawn to it.
I remember an editorial piece of a few years ago in U.S. News and World Report. John Leo described us as a society that has developed “an addiction to bad news.” An interesting phrase. I don’t think anything has changed since he said that. Newspapers are filled with it. TV thrives on it. Yet again, in the most recent Presidential election negative campaigning was what seemed to work best.
Indeed, yesterday’s AIM quick news on my computer screen had the lead article about the “Tense Christmas in Iraq’s ‘Triangle of Death.” The crippling snow storm in Texas—its first in 109 years and the bad weather across the country and finally, my favorite, the story out of Houston that a father of three naughty boys, 9, 11, 15 had sold the boys’ Christmas gifts on E-Bay and the mom’s been crying ever since!
Yet, in some sense, how better can we be set up for the message? What better to do than hear the Good News amidst all the bad?
But there is even bad news there. Again, this year even more has been made of the issue of the separation of church and state--- nativity scenes on public property, Christmas parties or pageants in public schools and even Christmas displays in Macy’s are gone and Christmas carols being broadcast over the public address system in our malls or coming out of the ground at street corners at places like Evergreen Walk--- they’re gone.
John Leo, a columnist for U.S. News and World Report had an article titled “In Search of Christmas”—dealing with our society’s full court press on what he calls the “C” word —even Jingle bells is now on the block because it is somehow connected to Santa Claus who originated with St. Nicholas.
I shared before that one of my favorite holiday children’s book is The Polar Express and I fully intend to see the movie version with Tom Hanks sometime this week. But I have marveled at the commercialism that surrounds the movie--- bells are certainly back in and Hallmark has a lot of other stuff promoting the movie. The other day I was walking into the store at East Brook and right there on the front display case was a pretty, simple plate with a bell at its center and under the bell—the word ‘believe.’
Indeed, even on the front page of the most recent Coventry Journal—between two candy trees and above a Santa the word—‘believe”
“Believe what?” is what I found myself asking. And Why? As good as Santa is, he just doesn’t cut it!
I had a copy of Friday’s Wall Street Journal on the back seat of my car when I went into the Mansfield Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation to do a service there Christmas Eve day. Both Kim and I thought that it was truly a pick-me up for the residents. Well, the Journal had an op-ed piece on Friday by Katherine Kersten who commented on the difference between Christmas carols and holiday music and how replacing ‘Christmas Carols’ with ‘holiday music’--- just doesn’t bring joy to the world.
The title is great: “Hark, Those Aren’t Angels Singing”
Listen to what she says:
What
place could be sadder at Christmas than a hospice?
Or so one might think. But my
high school-aged daughter discovered otherwise. She visited a hospice with her
choir to sing Christmas carols. The residents were in the final months or weeks
of their lives. Most were elderly, their faces gaunt, their eyes lusterless.
But as my daughter’s choir
filed from room to room, filling the halls with strains of ‘Silent Night’ and
‘Joy to the World,’ the patients seemed transformed. They become animated. Most
struggled to sit up, raising their voices to join in and sometimes weeping as
they did so-joyful tears, my daughter said.
Most strikingly, in my daughter’s view, was that many of the people she was singing for-even those seemingly comatose or barely able to move- strained to mouth the words or tapped their fingers beneath the sheets in an effort to participate in the music. Family members gathered around the beds holding hands and exchanging smiles, their burdens lifted for a moment… (WSJ, p. w 11)
This week’s U.S. New and World Report features an article for the New Year- I think that it must be a follow- up on an article back in May that labeled our nation as “A Makeover Nation.”
This one is titled:
“50 WAYS TO FIX YOUR LIFE”
Its suggestions were good!!!!—suggestions such as:
1. Set priorities and get a new filing system for our home offices
2. Grow a plant, become a bird watcher
3. Move to Bismark, South Dakota;
4. exercise a little, quit smoking, get married,
5. My favorite though--- and it had to last, yes, #50:
“forgive”--- It actually has a neat paragraph:
“Major world religions have long considered forgiveness one of the most important human virtues. Jesus’ radical forgiveness is the foundation of Christianity; Judaism’s high holy days, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, are focused on atonement; Buddhism calls for ceaseless empathy and compassion toward all beings, especially enemies; in the Koran, the angel Gabriel tells Mohammed to set aside vengeful anger. And Hinduism tells us: “If you want to see the brave, look for those who can forgive. If you want to see the heroic, look for those who can love in return for hatred.”
(US News and World Report 12/27/04, p.86)
The big Christmas present we gave to Tim and his new wife of just two months, Christi and Pete and his girlfriend Kaitlyn was a day trip to NYC and a Broadway show—We are going on Wednesday as a family to see “Beauty and the Beast.”---A tale as old as time about the transforming power of love--- the final scene and song is called “Transformation,” Belle and the Beast, now the Prince, singing:
Two lives have begun now
Two hearts become one now
One passion, one dream
One thing forever true
I love you.
Well, that’s what Christmas is, God saying in the Christ Child that one thing is forever true and it is: “I love you.” And I will never take away my gift of love and sell it on E-Bay because you have been bad. No, rather my gift to you is forgiveness, a forgiveness that is meant to transform you and empower you, so that you in turn can love and forgive and change the world.
Is this Good News or what? It sure is, especially for a world so afflicted with so much bad news and for a society that seems so bent on repressing the “C” word and eliminating Christ.
God says this Jesus is our Immanuel—the very presence of God with us forever and forever true!
Amen