Possibilities

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 30, 2007

Possibilities
Matt. 2:13-23
Isaiah 42:1-9

In his poem, “Christmas Oratario”
W. H. Auden captures the poignancy of the week
that follows Christmas:
“Well, so that is that.
Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes…
And the children got ready for school.
…The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory…”

Christmas, a fading memory.
It’s not even a week, and yet Dickens’s
Ghost of Christmas Past has Christmas 2007
firmly in his grip,
the Ghost of Christmas Present idle, out of work,
The Ghost of Christmas Future
gone on vacation,
back in the Fall.

Somehow it doesn’t seem fair, does it?
We put so much work into Christmas.
Was it really that long ago that we began to hear
Christmas carols in the Mall?
Was it really six weeks ago that I began quietly,
stealthily to bring up a few Christmas decorations
from the basement?

Wasn’t it only yesterday that we lit the first candle
on the Advent wreath?
And now the Wreath is gone,
packed away till next year.
its job done.

The New Year beckons,
our eyes, ears and minds focused forward,
at least as far as the weekend,
a blissfully long weekend,
with the New Year’s Day holiday
so conveniently on Tuesday.
Many of us will spend the day as Auden laments,
putting away Christmas, the celebration over.
Come Wednesday, even the church,
indeed every church of every denomination,
will pack Christmas away as quickly as possible
once staff look at the calendar
and realize that the beginning of Lent
is less than 6 weeks away.

So much promise, so much joy,
the brightness, tinsel, music, and light,
and yet what looms ahead
but the dull gray of January.

Go back to the day after that first Christmas 2,000 years ago
and we will realize things weren’t all that different.
After that first glorious Christmas,
with heavenly host singing out,
the shining star piercing through the frigid darkness,
the shepherds went back to their flocks,
to do their hard, cold work through the night.
The Wise Men turned around for their long journey home,
no bright star to guide them.
Even the animals went back to their work:
cows to give milk,
donkeys to carry heavy loads,
sheep to provide wool for clothing.
The joy in that child born in a manger
a fading memory.

But could anything compare to Joseph and Mary’s
post-Christmas season?
They were forced to flee, forced to disappear
in the darkness of the night,
just ahead of the murderous swords of Herod’s killers,
on their bloody quest to dispatch every boy
in Bethlehem under the age of 2,
all because Herod the King
was concerned for his security and his power.

Off the young couple went, into the darkness,
headed to a land that was unfamiliar to them,
far from their families and friends,
far from what was familiar
all to save the child, the son born that night.
Alone, afraid, Joseph’s ears alert for the sound
of horses behind him,
saddles groaning, horses snorting under the weight
of armor-clad men,
Joseph pushing the donkey forward, forward,
cold, hungry, tired, and yet resolute,
his eyes on the strange land that lay to the south.

And then once they settled in Egypt,
did they even think to celebrate their son’s birthday?
His first? His second?
Did things get any better once they returned to Judah
and settled in the town of Nazareth
where Joseph could ply his trade as a carpenter?
Did Christmas ever come again
to the house of Mary and Joseph?

It would be the better part of 400 years
before the followers of Jesus Christ
would make a celebration of Jesus’ birth,
before Christmas would become a date on the calendar.
The very act of making Jesus’ birthday a celebration
was fraught with complications.
No one knew the date of Jesus’ birth.
Two of the gospel writers thought Jesus’ birth and infancy
so unimportant they didn’t even bother to write about it.
The two gospel writers who did include the birth stories
couldn’t agree on the details,
and wrote markedly different accounts.

So church leaders made an arbitrary choice
and decided to set December 25 as the date,
tied to the end of a Roman pagan holiday
that marked winter time,
a time when daylight was shortest
and the nights their longest.

We have built on that tradition over the centuries,
especially over the past hundred or so years,
as we have turned Christmas into quite a party,
quite a celebration.
We build it up with such energy and enthusiasm
that it almost seems inevitable that
we feel exhausted, even let down,
once Christmas is past.
Even in the church sanctuaries that were so full
on the Sunday before Christmas,
and overflowing on Christmas Eve,
usually have room to spare the Sunday following.

But the message of Christmas hasn’t disappeared,
the light hasn’t gone out,
the hope hasn’t faded.
The possibility that is in Christmas is just waiting for us
to get to work on it,
waiting for us to stop celebrating Christmas
and start keeping Christmas.

For as we heard on Christmas Eve
“what has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.”
(John 1:5)

In the promise of Jesus Christ,
light has come into the world
light not just to brighten up Christmas celebrations,
light not just to reflect off of tinsel and ornaments,
but light that is life,
that illumines our lives
because it is the light of life.
When we sing “Joy to the World”
it is not a song for birthday party for one person;
it is a song for a birthday party for all the world,
for in Christ and through Christ the World is reborn,
reborn in hope and possibility.

As Henry Van Dyke so eloquently put it,
dawn broke with the birth of our Lord and Savior.
The light is shining,
but now, as Van Dyke reminds us,
we have work to do.
Work to do because Christ has come into the world,
work to do to take advantage of all the possibilities
that Christmas brings with it.

The possibility, for example of peace,
real peace, lasting peace,
because the Prince of Peace was born for us,
born to lead us.
Peace to stop the scourge of domestic violence,
against women, children, even men,
and increasingly, against the elderly;
Peace to stop young people from thinking
that gangs and rap songs that glorify violence
and dressing as an urban thug
is somehow cool and hip;
peace to stop the endless bickering in churches,
over issues that even the most cursory reading of the Bible
tells us were of no concern to our Lord.
Peace to top our warring madness,
and work for reconcilation,
to act on God’s words through the prophet Isaiah,
“come, let us reason together”
(Isaiah 1:18)

A book written five years ago
(Stanley Weintraub, "Silent Night")
tells the amazing story
of how, on Christmas Night in the year 1914,
German and British soldiers who had been engaged in fierce combat
at the very beginning of World War I
put down their weapons for a few hours,
climbed out of the muck and mud of the trenches
in the fields of Flanders on the Beglian-French border,
and shared food and cigarettes as they
sang Christmas carols.
Peace reigned on those blood-soaked fields
at least for a few hours, until their officers
ordered the men back to the trenches,
back to their fighting,
and men who had been brothers for a few hours,
went back to being enemies,
the possibility of peace gone.
The water in every snowflake that fell upon them
no doubt from tears shed by God,
as he watched his children
squander yet another possibility.

What are the possibilities for this church?
How will we build on the possibilities
our ancestors envisioned
when they established this church in those tumultuous years
of Reconstruction following the Civil War?
As the old hymn reminds us,
“in Christ there is no East or West,
in Him no South or North,
but one great fellowship of love,
Throughout the whole wide earth.”

Think of the possibilities if we’d only live that hymn,
if we stop the polarizing nonsense
that has paralyzed churches of ever denomination
of left and right, conservative and liberal;
if we lived the possibility that the church of Jesus Christ
could resemble the Body of Christ,
rather than a group of bickering
squabbling 8-year olds
who get mad whenever they don’t get their way.

Will this be the year we lay the groundwork for an Associate Pastor,
someone we so clearly need to work with our young people?
We have so obviously felt the
presence of the absence of a staff person this past year,
even with the dedication of so many volunteer helpers.
As we talked about last fall,
the decision to eliminate the Associate Pastor’s position
a few years back, was taken reluctantly,
with the expectation that it was temporary.
And my question, even my challenge,
was “how temporary?”
Unhappily Stewardship giving was up only a fraction,
so we are still a long way off from thinking about
an Associate Pastor.
But still the New Year has not even started,
and the possibility is always before us.

What are the possibilies in you,
for you to grow in wisdom and knowledge,
discipleship and faith in the New Year?
There are so many different ways for you to grow,
so many different ways for you to learn.
Adult Education, Bible Study, joining a Ministry Team.

Our Wednesday morning Bible study group has embraced
an ambitious possibility with their desire to read
through the entire Bible, cover to cover,
using a Year-With-The –Bible program.
Is that something you’d like to do?
Even if you cannot come to the class on Wednesday morning,
let me know if you’d like to read with the group
and we will get you a copy of the One-Year Bible.

The angel Gabriel reminded Mary,
after she learned that she was going to give birth
to the Son of God,
that “nothing will be impossible with God.”
Nothing will be impossible with God,
With God, all things are possible for us,
for with God there are no limits;
We are the ones who impose limits,
who cut back on the possibilities.

Christ was born to lead us to new possibilities,
God’s possibilities.
That’s the work Henry Van Dyke reminds us we are called to
in the quiet days after Christmas,
in the dull grayness of January,
in the somber days of Lent:
all throughout the year.
That’s the work we are called to
as we leave the celebration of Christmas behind
and get on with the more important task
of keeping Christmas.

For the light shines,
the old ways have passed,
a new year beckons,
a new life beckons.
A child has been born for us,
a Son given to us,
a Son full of grace and truth.
Just think of the possibilities!
AMEN