Jason Micheli's Blog, page 94

Episode #2 — Without Apology (with Stanley Hauerwas)

“When you dumb things down for your hearers, you only end up with dumb people.”

For the second installment of our new podcast series, You Are Not Accepted: Engaging Holiness with Stanley Hauerwas, Dr. Johanna, Teer, and I talked with Stan the Man about his essay “Without Apology. Stan shares with us why sermons should be arguments and why listeners should be respected enough to give them the Gospel rather than something allegedly “relevant.”

Before you listen, go to www.crackersandgrapejuice.com where you can become a patron of the pod, get your very own Stan the Man t-shirt, or order a copy of our new book, Crazy Talk.

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Salvation by Baptism Alone

This Sunday’s sermon was delivered by my minion, David King. His texts were Exodus 14 and Matthew 3. For someone not even graduated from college yet, he’s a damn good preacher.

 

PRAYER: 

“Lord Jesus, rip open the heavens and come to us, reach down, reach in, disrupt, touch, embrace, speak to us. Do not leave us, O Lord, to our own devices. Abandon us not to our own voices. Speak to us, miraculously appear to us, and then give us the grace to listen. And now, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hears be acceptable in your sight, our Lord, our rock, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen.” — Will Willimon

I must say, I do not know how to preach this text.  Not that I really know how to preach at all — I am just a kid — but these texts have proven quite difficult to wrestle with, not least because of the time in which we live.  The past week has left me shocked, scared, sad, exhausted, depleted, angry, and a variety of other emotions that are not particularly conducive to preaching.  One might assume that the potential for war would make sermons easier to write.  I can assure you it does not.  The task of truthfully declaring the peace incarnate in Christ is made all the more difficult by war.  In fact, a theological analysis of war would probably conclude that this is precisely war’s purpose: to make the Gospel mute.  Understanding how baptism could bear on the prospect of war has made for tough muddling.  

You see, the fact that this country has been at war almost every single day that I have been alive means that peace — and, moreover, justice — are concepts that are difficult to entertain.  Such entertainment has been precluded by the ubiquity of war in our collective, modern lives.  In the U.S., this is true also because war does not happen here. We are blissfully untouched by the corporeal vicissitudes of militaristic violence.  The flip side of this bliss is the ignorance of the ways in which war directs and pervades every aspect of ours lives, especially those of us who live in the DC area.  We are ignorant especially of war’s tangible effects.  We see a rising defence budget, while others only see a bomb dropping towards their village.  Aeschylus was quite right to note that truth is the first casualty of war.  War and its bedfellow Fear inoculate us to the violence they require, turning children into statistics and families into cold calculations.

I should say, though, that the prospect of war is not new to me: my generation has never known the United States without war.  That I have never known this country without war is in itself a testament to the power war has to perpetuate itself.  War makes a weapon of fear, and fear makes a weapon of the mundane, meaning that the everyday occurrences constituting our normal lives must never be taken for granted.  It is a time of crippling, systematic anxiety, what Kierkegaard would have called “fear and trembling.”  

The same fear and anxiety is what strikes at the heart of the Israelites in the Exodus scripture.  This people has not known peace or justice for centuries; they have been slaves in Egypt for 400 years.  The everyday activities of their lives are marked by violence, death, suffering; all at the hands of their captors.  So when Moses comes along, we all read the text and assume the Israelites are ready to go, ready to get out of Egypt and go to the land promised to Abraham.  

“Stand still,” the inspirational plaque painted in our minds reads.  “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.  The lord shall fight for you, and you shall have peace.”  

But wait, look again.  Did you notice?  Israel didn’t want to go.  To say they are scared does not do justice to the situation of Israel.  They are paralysed by a fear that causes them to want to return.  The status quo of slavery to the Egyptians at least offered them the possibility of a life.  Slavery, they say, is better than death.  And further, certain early church interpreters of this Exodus text understood Egypt to represent Death itself.  What they did in identifying Egypt with death was to illustrate the sheer bind that faced the people attempting to escape.  Death stands on both sides of them, one in the form of war, the other in the form of drowning.  Israel sees death approaching, hears the march of war, and thinks, “this has got to be the end.”  

Go back – its right there in the text.  In verse 12, the Israelites yell at Moses, the drumbeat of the Egyptian army getting louder and louder by the minute.  “Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians. It is better to serve them than to die in the wilderness.”  They are, on all accounts, surrounded.  War and death, personified in the Egyptian army, approach from the one side, and the Red Sea surrounds them on the other.  They are sure to lose the battle, and they cannot survive the swim.  The fear that Rameses held over them as slaves sets in once again, and the Israelites are afraid to leave.  The fear strikes at the very core of their being.  

Don’t get me wrong here: I am not blaming the Israelites for wanting to survive, no matter the cost.  Their situation is the very opposite of envious.  It seems that the only option is surrender.  

But they are the people of God, and if there is any lesson to be drawn from that, it is that God will make his way happen, whether they like it or not.  That’s why Moses’ directions is to tell them to stand still.  Don’t do anything, Moses says, or you’ll muck up God’s work.  

And then, well, you know the story.  Moses raises his staff, and God does the rest.  Egypt is no more, and Israel is saved.  They are baptised in the Red Sea.  

Fast forward a while and we find John, a rather extraordinary person dropped in the middle of the height of the Roman Empire to call Israel to repentance.  He comes from the desert, from an undesirable place, calling out from the wilderness.  He calls Israel out of Rome.  John’s call to repentance mirrors Moses’ command to the Israelites: “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.”  “Repent ye,” John says, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Come, be baptised, John urges.  

Until Jesus comes along.

Then John stops.  “I can’t baptise you,” he says.  “I’m not even worthy to touch your sandals.  In fact, you should baptise me.”  John’s right.  For all intents and purposes, John is right.  The man before him is not a sinner; Jesus has no need to be baptised.  There is nothing, John thinks, that he can do for Jesus.  Putting aside John’s good-willed intention to tell God what God ought to be doing, John is right to wonder why Jesus comes to be baptised.  The judge comes among the judged to be baptised; the one who is without sin approaches John with the worst of criminals.  And John is right to be confused.  Here is the man he has been waiting to see his whole life, the Messiah of the world, and he wants to be baptised? For what? 

“Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness,” Jesus says.  

Did you get that? Baptism, His baptism, is necessary “to fulfil all righteousness.”  He didn’t say, “Baptism is necessary for my personal repentance.” He didn’t say, “we need baptism to get to heaven.”  He didn’t say, “baptism is about your choice to have a relationship with God.” No! Jesus is emphatic: “my baptism,” he says, “is necessary to fulfil all righteousness.”  

Baptism, Jesus says, is about me.  Baptism is about who I am.  

Just like when God saves Israel through the Red Sea, the baptism isn’t about them.  The baptism of Israel is about God.  Baptism reveals to us not who we are, but who God is.  Israel rejects God, and yet God parts the waters and drags them through to the other side.  God refuses to let them return to slavery.  The exodus story parallels what God does for us in the baptism of our Lord. Christ is baptised such that we may all be baptised — Christ’s baptism brings us through, kicking and screaming, from the clutches of death and slavery.  In Christ’s baptism, the law is fulfilled.  Whereas before, Jesus came in the form of a cloud that separated the Israelites from the Egyptians, in his baptism he is fully revealed to us as the Son in whom the Father is well pleased.  

The God who is baptised in the Jordan by John is the one who seeks us out first and speaks to us first, in fact, speaks us into existence. We cannot conjure up this God; we could not think him up. If we could, we wouldn’t need to be told who he is.  But the whole purpose of John’s baptism of Jesus is for us, for Israel, to find out who this sinless man really is.  And as if it isn’t enough of a slap in our rational faces, this God who would humble himself to receive a sinner’s baptism is the God who saves us despite our rejection of him. The baptism of Christ is the moment in which the character of God is revealed, the character of the God who brought the Israelites through the Red Sea despite themselves.  

So yes, I understand that the title of this sermon may be somewhat controversial, but it is true.  Salvation is by baptism alone… Salvation is by His baptism alone.  The baptism we have, the practice by which God enfolds us in Christ’s story, is the means by which we understand who God is.  That we baptise babies is no joke: they are the precise markers of someone who cannot confess, who cannot conceive of their own sin, who is ignorant of everything except itself.  Infant baptism shows us that our God, the God whose name is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the centrepiece of baptism.  Baptism is the moment in which God tears open the world, breaks in and declares the Son ‘good.’  

If baptism is really about revelation, if it is really about God showing us who God is, then the baptism of Christ cannot be abstracted from the cross on which he will hang later in the story.  That is, Christ’s baptism and Christ’s crucifixion are two moments of the same revelation.  Which means that to be baptised is to be baptised into death, into Christ’s death.  The tearing open of the Red Sea is a foreshadowing of the tearing open of the heavens in Christ’s baptism, which in turn is the same salvation indicated by the tearing of the temple veil on Good Friday.  

When we are baptised, we are baptised into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  We are baptised into our own deaths, and reborn in his life.  The life of Christ is embodied in the people, the body that believes that war has been abolished, that death has been defeated, and that a new ruler has been enthroned. Notice: we are not a people who believe we have to work to abolish war.  Our baptism, the act in which we find out just what kind of God we worship, tells us already that war has been defeated.  It has been defeated because Christ has been baptised, because God broke into the world and did not let death win.  

Matthew tells us that the dove of peace, the Holy Spirit, alights on Jesus when he emerges from the waters.  That this happens indicates to us that every prophecy has been fulfilled in the one who humbled himself and took our form.  And it tells us that war is no more.  War lost its stranglehold of fear when Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan.  The world has been baptised.  And that means that our hope is not in vain.  

I offer to you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.  

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You Are Not Accepted — Episode #1: Preaching in the Ruins (with Stanley Hauerwas)

Dr. Johanna Hartelius, host of Hemeneutics, is hosting a new podcast series for Crackers and Grape Juice called “You Are Not Accepted: Engaging Hauerwas on Holiness.” Every other Wednesday Johanna, Jason Micheli, and Teer Hardy will discuss a writing by the theologian Stanley Hauerwas and oftentimes with Stanley Hauerwas. For our first episode, we talked with Stanley about his essay in Minding the Web entitled “Preaching in the Ruins.”

 

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You Are Not Accepted — Episode #1: Preaching in the Ruins

Dr. Johanna Hartelius, host of Hemeneutics, is hosting a new podcast series for Crackers and Grape Juice called “You Are Not Accepted: Engaging Hauerwas on Holiness.” Every other Wednesday Johanna, Jason Micheli, and Teer Hardy will discuss a writing by the theologian Stanley Hauerwas and oftentimes with Stanley Hauerwas. For our first episode, we talked with Stanley about his essay in Minding the Web entitled “Preaching in the Ruins.”

 

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Jesus is NOT the Reason for the Season

    Matthew 2.1-12

     When I first sat down on the plane, I did what anyone would do. 

     I began thumbing through the pages of SkyMall.  

     A Kenny G Muzak cover of Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love” played over the speakers as the throng of travelers stepped on board and stowed their carry-on above them. 

     Across the aisle, a boy who looked to be in the third or fourth grade was wailing loud enough to make the veins in his neck pop out. His mother had her arm around him and was saying “shush,” but the boy was inconsolable. 

     Behind me, a woman argued with her husband: “All I know is that if your mother treats me like she did last Thanksgiving this year, I won’t keep my mouth shut.”

     On my right, a teenage girl was smacking her gum and blowing bubbles. On her lap she had opened a copy of Seventeen magazine. She was reading an article about teens and plastic surgery and how to know when too much plastic surgery is too much. Sitting on my left, a middle-aged man in an expensive-looking suit was barking orders into his iPhone. He had a Wall Street Journal, as well as a Financial Times folded underneath his arm and a leather tote overflowing with papers on his lap. 

     He spoke with a Northeastern accent— Boston maybe— and he smelled so strongly of cologne that I couldn’t help but wonder if his musk had real bits of panther in it. 

     He kept barking instructions into his phone until the stewardess came over and shot him a stern look and told him we were getting ready for takeoff.     

And there I was, the happy, holiday traveler, stuck in the middle of Bernie Madoff and Miley Cyrus. 

 

     I was flying home from a speaking gig I had in Tyler, Texas, and I had an early morning flight. The sky was still dark enough that when we were in the air, you could see the stars. 

     Once we were in the air, the girl to my right had moved on to read an article about eyeshadow. 

     Seriously, eyeshadow.

And the woman behind me— though it sounded like she was actually in my ear canal— was giving a blow-by-blow recount of the last holiday she’d had to spend with her husband’s mother. 

     Having had many of these same conversations with my own wife, I didn’t bother to turn around. Even without looking, I knew her husband was looking sheepish and emasculated, and probably gritting his teeth in a ‘serenity now’ kind-of-way. 

     “Where you headed?” the businessman on my left asked. 

     And I thought to myself: “Well, it says Atlanta on my ticket, but it feels like I’m already half-way to Hell.”

     “I’m headed home, D.C.,” I said. 

     He chuckled and said, “Good luck.” 

     Now, I don’t like to talk to people on airplanes. 

     It’s not that I’m unfriendly or shy. It’s just that I learned early on in my ministry that there are certain situations in which revealing to a stranger that I’m a pastor can provoke interminable, unwanted conversations. 

    

     Ironically, though, I’ve learned that one of the best ways to avoid conversation with strangers on planes is by taking my Bible out of my bag and simply opening it up on the tray table in front of me. 

     You don’t even have to read it, necessarily. You can just leave it open like a force field of personal space. 

     Religious people will think you’re doing your devotions and will respect your privacy, while non-religious people won’t say anything for the fear that you’re Baptist and might evangelize them. 

     And, if you really want to make sure no one bothers you, just open it up to the Book of Revelation along with the current issue of Guns and Ammo. 

     

Stops them every time. 

     That morning I thumbed through SkyMall and I had my Bible out and opened, not to Revelation, but to Matthew— not only to stymy potential conversation with the businessman to my left, but also, because Advent was ahead and I thought I’d jot down some sermon notes while I had the chance. 

     Meanwhile, the businessman sitting next to me pulled out his laptop and opened it up. He had at least a dozen windows opened in his browser, the homepages for all sorts of stores: Williams Sonoma, REI, Pottery Barn, Kate Spade. You name it.He pored over them like he was reading an ancient map. 

     He had Excel open on his computer, and he was building a Christmas shopping spreadsheet. He was typing in the name of the item, the cost, the person who would receive the gift, and then he inserted a hyperlink to the company’s website. Every now and then he would click the “Sum” button on the screen, giving him a grand total cost for his 2019 Christmas. 

           I went back to thumbing through the Christmas issue of SkyMall, where I saw that I could get a replica Kylo Ren lightsaber for only $800.00. 

     I was just thinking to myself who in their right mind would pay that much money for a fake lightsaber— especially for the bad guy’s lightsaber— when the guy sitting next to me said, “Hey, can I see that a minute? My nephew would love that.” 

     I watched while he typed all the information into his spreadsheet. His nephew’s name was Brian. He handed SkyMall back to me and with his tiny travel-sized mouse he clicked “Save.” 

     After he finished, he let out a deep, exhausted sigh. And he said, “It’s the same every year. This can’t be what it’s all about. Can it?”

     I looked over at him. “You talking to me?” I said as the fingers of my right hand deftly felt over my bible for the Book of Revelation.      

           “Yeah”, he said. 

     “Are you religious,” he asked, and nodded at the Bible on my tray. 

     “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. 

     “That’s good,” he said in an absent sort of voice. “I’m not. I mean, I’ve searched before for….” 

     I let his voice trail off. 

     A few moments passed and he asked what I was reading, in the Bible. 

     “It’s the story of the magi,” I said. He just blinked at me like a deer in headlights. 

     “The what?”

     “The wise men,” I said. 

     

He said, “Right, I know what you’re talking about. I’ve seen them in those displays in people’s yards. They have the turbans and the camels, right? They’re the ones who follow the star to the manger?”

     “Not exactly,” I said. “They go to Jerusalem first, not the manger in Bethlehem. It’s close but they’re off by about nine miles.” 

     “Sounds like they must’ve let their wives drive,” he laughed. 

     I thought that might be the end of it. I was just about to turn to Revelation or pull out Guns and Ammo, or pretend I was asleep. 

     But then he asked me, “Why do they go to Jerusalem first?”

     “Well, they were looking for a King. The magi were just like us, educated, rich and sophisticated. They came from a powerful nation,” I said.

     “They went to Jerusalem first, because they just assumed any ‘King’ worth their worship would be found at the center of money and might.” 

     He smiled at me and said, “In other words, they thought they could celebrate Christmas by traveling, giving a few gifts, and then getting back to their normal lives.” 

      And, I smiled and said, “Something like that.”

 

      

     Outside the window the stars were starting to fade against the oncoming sunrise.  The woman behind me was giving her husband the silent treatment. And, the girl next to me had fallen asleep reading 50 Shades of Grey, with a half-blown bubble of gum spread across her bottom lip. The man next to me sat up and turned towards me. 

     “Can I read it?” he asked. 

     “Well, you’ll have to ask her when she wakes up,” I said, “but I don’t think that’s the kind of book you borrow from someone.” 

     

“No, not that book,” he said. 

     And, he held out his hand for my Bible. So, I handed it to him. I pointed out the first part of Chapter Two. “It’s this part,” I said. 

He must’ve read it several times, searched over the words as though they contained the universe. 

     When he was done, he turned a few pages further into Matthew’s Gospel and then he turned a few pages back. 

     Then he held the Bible out to me, and he put his index finger down at the page.

     

“What’s this?” he asked me. 

     He was pointing to the poem indented in Matthew’s Gospel text: 

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd my people.

     “That’s from Micah,” I said, “from the Old Testament.” 

     “Can you show me?” he asked. 

     And, I flipped back into the Old Testament until I found Micah, the peasant prophet, and handed it back to him. 

     “It’s short,” I warned, “only a few pages long.” 

     I watched him read it, gazing over the constellation of words. 

     I saw him furrow his brows intensely at times and wondered what he might be reading.

    When he finished reading, he just sat holding it for a while. Then, he handed it back to me.  

“It’s about Jesus, right?” he asked. 

I must’ve looked confused, because he pointed at the Bible and added, “The Old Testament passage. What’s his name? Michael was making an…uh…a prediction about Jesus?” 

“Sort of,” I said,

“Prediction makes it sound like a guess or, at best, a bet— like Micah’s not sure of what’s to come. It’s a prophecy. It’s a promise about what’s to come. And Matthew wants you to see that the coming of Christ is God making good on what Micah promised was to come.” 

“In other words,” he said, “it’s saying Jesus is the reason for the season.” 

“Well, actually, no.” I said, “Jesus is not the reason for the season.” 

“What do you mean Jesus is not the reason for the season?” 

He threw up his hands like we bartering in a market and I’d insulted him with my offer. 

“I hear Christians saying “Jesus is the reason for the season” all the time. My neighbor has a sign in his front yard next to a wicker reindeer that says, “Jesus is the reason for the season.”” 

“Well, it shouldn’t be news to you that Christians have screwed the pooch on a good many things over the years.”

He chuckled. 

“Your neighbor’s wrong,” I said, “Jesus isn’t the reason for the season.” 

“You’re pretty argumentative, aren’t you?” he said.

“No,” I said, “I just happen to be right.” 

“When I first saw you with your Bible, I thought maybe you were a priest or a preacher, but there’s no way church folks could put up with someone as lippy as you.” 

“Probably not.” I smiled, “that’s why I’m an architect; nevertheless, I’m right. Jesus isn’t the reason for the season.” 

He just looked at me like I was full of it. 

“Look,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt, so I could turn and face him, “You are the reason for the season. Saying “Jesus is the reason for the season” is like saying, “My cousin is the reason for April Fool’s Day.” It’s so obvious and redundant it doesn’t convey anything. No, the “reason for the season”— the reason for Christ’s coming— is you.” 

“I’ve never heard it put that way before,” he said, starting to chew on it. 

“Sure, you have,” I said. “You just weren’t paying attention. It’s in the Creed, “for us and for our salvation He came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man.” It’s in the carols too,” I said. “For unto us a Child is born, for unto us a Son is given…” Salvation is a gift for you, not a bargain with you.” 

“I just figured that “Jesus is the reason for the season” was a way of saying people should remember to give God his due while they’re busy giving everyone else gifts. You know, that Christmas isn’t our birthday, so we shouldn’t leave Jesus off our gift list.”

“Well, that may be what the cliché means, but it’s still not the Gospel. It’s not even in the same area code as the Gospel. It’s a million zipcodes away from the Gospel,” I said. 

“You’re pretty opinionated too, aren’t you?” he said.

“Maybe so, but— Look, there’s nothing peculiarly Christian about thinking we ought to give God our praise or charity. Every religion thinks their god is the reason for their holy days. Big deal. But the really bad idea— the suggestion that has not a scrap or grisel of the good news in it— is the hare-brained notion that Christmas is about you needing to give God anything.”

“What about the Christmas carol?” he said. “I’ve got the James Taylor cover of it. How does it go? “Yet, what I can I give Him, give my heart?””

I nodded. 

“It’s a pretty tune, but it’s tone deaf theology. Why in the world would you give Jesus your heart? The only thing in your heart is sin and cholesterol.”

He laughed. 

“Even the promise from the prophet Micah,” I said. 

“People love the line about doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly, but the prophecy ends two chapters later with Micah throwing his hands up in the air and bemoaning that there’s not a single righteous person among the lot of us, and that if there’s going to be any hope— even for the religious— then God will have to come down and find a way to cast away all our sins for us.”

“The Gospel begins where you end. Christmas isn’t about you needing to give God anything. Christmas is about you not having anything at all whatsoever to give God, so God comes down in the flesh to give you Christ and everything that belongs to him. Christmas is about receiving, not giving.”

“I don’t know about all this Jesus stuff,” he said. “I feel pretty lost most of the time.”

“The magi got themselves lost too,” I said, “God was still determined to find them.” 

      We started our descent. The stars had leeched and disappeared in the sky. The sun was coming up through the windows. I’d closed my eyes. 

     “I thought that story was supposed to have shepherds and angels in it,” he said. 

“That’s Luke’s Gospel,” I said. “Matthew says everything he wants to say about Christmas with the wise men.” 

“But the wise men give Jesus gifts. If Christmas is about receiving, then why do the wise men give Jesus gifts?” he said.

“The gifts they give him— frankincense, gold, and myrrh— they’re gifts for a King, but they’re also gifts for a burial. They’re meant to be gifts that foreshadow the gifts Christ gives you.” 

He just looked at me blankly. 

“Jesus lives the life of perfect faithfulness that God requires of us all. He lives that life for us, and for that faithful life, God has made him King and seated him at the right hand of the Father— that’s the gold. 

“Jesus dies to Sin in our stead— that’s the myrrh. 

“And, Jesus is our Great High Priest who has made a perfect, once-for-all sacrifice so that we can come before God holy and blameless— that’s the frankincense. 

“Through his faithfulness lived for you and his death to sin offered instead of you, God gives you Christ’s righteousness— Christ’s permanent perfect record— as your very own. 

“Nothing you do for God or give to God could ever improve upon the gift God gives you in Christ at the rock bottom price of free,” I said.

“And what do I got to do to get this gift?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said. 

“Nothing?! What’s the catch?” he said.

“No catch. The Gospel works like a wedding vow. 

He’s already said, “I do,” to you. 

Everything that belongs to Him is yours forever and everything that once belonged to you (your sin) became His forever. 

There’s nothing for you to do but trust that it’s so and live your life with Him. 

And there’s nothing you can do to undo that gift, either. 

You can prove to be a less than faithful bride, but you’re still his bride and, as his bride, everything that’s His is yours. 

You can blow $800.00 on a Kylo Ren lightsaber or waste hours reading 50 Shades of Grey; nevertheless, whenever God looks upon you, the Father will always see Mary’s Son,” I said.

“But I’ve got to believe in it first, right?” he said.

“Only in the sense that there’s nothing for you to do but believe it. It’s his faithfulness that justifies you before God not your faith in him,” I said.

     And, just like that, we’d landed and were waiting for the seats in front of us to empty. 

“Maybe you wouldn’t make a completely terrible preacher,” he said, “Except…”

“Except what?” I asked.  

     “Aren’t ministers all dull and creepy?”

     I laughed and said… “pretty much.” 

“I bet we’d all be less stressed out at Christmas,” he said, “and less judgmental about how much or how little we’re supposed to spend on gifts if we all believed that we’re the reason for all the celebrating,” he said and then clipped his teeth like he was biting off the rest his sentence. 

“It all feels too convenient, too good to be true.”

“I’m not making it up,” I said. 

“It’s right there in the nativity story. The celebrating starts in heaven. Don’t you see, you’re the gift God gives to himself at Christmas.”

He smiled and said, “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

And then we went our separate ways.

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Top Episodes of 2019

Crackers and Grape Juice will celebrate it’s fourth birthday this spring, cranking out a new episode every Friday. As we close out 2019, here are the most popular episodes from the past year.

Barbara Brown Taylor — Holy Envy

David Bentley Hart — That All Shall Be Saved

Phillip Cary — The Meaning of Protestant Theology 

Steve Harper — Holy Love

Emma Green — Because Beth Moore is Their Pastor

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Episode #241 — Mark Galli: What Evangelicals Could Learn from Karl Barth

Mark Galli recently set off a Twitter war and a media feeding frenzy for his editorial in Christianity Today, of which Galli is editor-in-chief, arguing for the removal of President Donald Trump. While Trump labled CT a “far-left” magazine, it is in fact the National Review of conservative Protestants. Galli is also the author of a number of books. His most recent, Karl Barth for Evangelicals, is the topic of our conversation.

 

You can find Mark’s editorial here

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Paradise for the Insane

Christmas Eve — Isaiah 9, John 1

The first time I ever went to church was on a night like tonight; it was a cold and crowded Christmas Eve. My mother made me go. When she said through my bedroom door, “Get dressed in something nice, we’re going to church,” somewherea needle scratched clear off a record. 

At that point in my life, the closest I’d ever come to church was with Kevin McAllister and Old Man Marley in Home Alone.

We’d never gone to church before. We sat far up in the balcony in some of the last seats left. From the discreet removal of the balcony, I learned “Silent Night” had more than one verse, and I discovered that the wise men, whom someone called magi, were conspicuously missing from the gospel lesson the woman wearing an “ugly Chrismas sweater” read to us.

I was a teenager. 

And, I didn’t want to go. 

Why would anyone want to ruin Christmas by going to church? I didn’t want to get dressed up. I didn’t want to sing songs that others knew better than me. I didn’t want to listen to a middle-aged gasbag preach at me and try to make it all go down easier by telling lame jokes and making tame pop culture allusions.

Now, I’m the middle-aged gasbag some of you are forced to endure and— fair warning— lame jokes are the only sorts of jokes the geezers will let me get away with  on Christmas Eve, so don’t get your hopes up.

But, God got to me. 

And I’m up here, now because years ago someone forced me to sit out there on a night like tonight, even though I felt so woefully out of place as to feel “unwelcome.” 

My point is that I know firsthand how Christmas Eve is a night when all sorts of people gather from different places in life and do so for a variety of reasons. Whoever you are, from wherever you have come, and whatever the reasons that brought you here, “welcome.” 

You might be an every Sunday regular listening for bits of sermons you’ve already heard. Welcome.

You might be parents of amped up kids with sugar in their veins and Santa on their minds; meanwhile, you’re sitting there wondering if you’re out of Scotch tape or AA batteries, and if the CVS and the ABC will still be open by the time the service is done. Welcome.

You might be a fingers-crossed skeptic, thinking you’re the only one here tonight with more questions than clarity. You’re wrong and you’re still welcome. 

You might be depressed and feel no joy in you tonight. And that’s okay because tonight the joy isn’t about you, it’s about something that has happened outside of you. So, welcome.

Maybe you yelled at your wife on the way over here tonight. Welcome. 

Maybe you’re like Alan Rickman in Love Actually and have a present hidden in your pocket that your wife thinks is for her. If so, A) Joni Mitchell never makes a good gift and B) Welcome. 

Maybe you’re secretly relieved your sister won’t be coming this year. Welcome. 

Maybe you’re giddy with spite that your ex-husband won’t see the kids this holiday. Welcome. 

Maybe you’re terrified you can’t make it through another Christmas on the wagon. Welcome. 

Maybe you can’t believe to see your Trump-loving neighbor here tonight. Welcome. 

Maybe you can’t believe your Trump-hating neighbor is here tonight. Welcome. 

Maybe all the images of the baby Jesus this season just make you think of Baby Yoda and, after five weeks and seven episodes of the Mandalorian, you just want to strangle that little green Benjamin Button. 

Welcome to you too.

Tonight, all of you are as welcomed as the next person because, contrary to what you may have heard, Christianity is not a club of good, pious, religious, moral people making their way up to God. 

Christianity is about God coming down— God coming down in Jesus Christ— to people like us. 

People whose goodness is inconstant. 

People whose piety is imperfect. 

People whose morality is convenient and whose faith is unreliable.

All of us— 

We’re all guests tonight of the God who has come down to us in the flesh. 

To dwell with us. 

We’ve all been welcomed as God’s guests— just as we are.

———————-

Here, I’ve got a Christmas story for you. 

Ellen Baxter is the founder of Broadway Housing Communities in New York. 

In the 1970’s as a pyschology student at Bowdoin College, Baxter set out to discover a more humane way to treat the mentally ill. 

As an undergraduate, she’d faked her way onto a pyschiatrict ward with a bogus diagnosis of dangerous depression, so that she could observe how the patients were treated. 

She left convinced that American culture’s obsession with improving and fixing and changing ourselves had infected the mental health system, too. “We’re stuck on recovery,” I heard her tell NPR, “but when you fail to deal with people as they are, when you’re dead set determined to fix them and change them, you end up changing them for the worse, because you erode their humanity.”  

Ellen Baxter’s research through old medical journals and pyschology articles led her to a modest village in Belgium named Geel (pronounced, “Heil”)

According to those dusty journals, Geel had the highest success rate of recovery for the mentally ill.

At the center of Geel is a church dedicated to St. Dymphna, who was martyed in Geel in the 7th century. 

St. Dymphna is the patron saint of the mentally ill, which is why, beginning in the 8th century, Geel became a pilgrimage destination for the mentally ill. 

Five centuries later, starting in the 13th century, the residents of Geel began boarding those pilgrims into their homes. 

Geel became a place where everyday people (farmers, bartenders, blacksmiths) welcomed insane strangers into their homes no questions asked, just as they were, no matter the risks, welcomed them “like they would a beloved aunt or uncle.” 

By the 19th century, this practice of hospitality earned Geel the nickname, “Paradise for the Insane.” 

And by the turn of the 20th century, this Christian practice became a public system where doctors place patients into the homes of hosts, who have no idea what diagnosis their guests bring with them. 

By 1930, over a quarter of all the residents of Geel were mentally ill— about 10,000 people. 

According to Ellen Baxter, the average length of stay for a guest with a host family— and notice, they call them “guests,” not patients— is 28.5 years; meanwhile, a third of all the guests stay with the same host family for almost fifty years. 

They take these broken, crazy guests into their homes, and they live with them and they die with them. 

Ellen Baxter won a grant fellowship to spend a year studying in Geel. 

She describes going from house to house in Geel, interviewing host families, asking the same questions and always getting the same answers. 

“Do you find it to be a burden? 

No.”

“Do you find it tiring?

No.” 

“Do you find it painful?

It’s just life, a bus driver told her.” 

“Over and over again, I heard the same responses from the host families I would visit. Host families would shrug their shoulders and reply that “crazy” is just part of normal life. It made me wonder,” Ellen Baxter says, “if I had stumbled upon a race of angels.” 

But, Ellen Baxter says she still didn’t understand why the villagers of Geel were so successful at rehabilitating guests— more successful than modern medicine and these are peope with serious mental illnesses— until she met the “buttons guy.” 

The buttons guy was a middle-aged man, a boarder, who, every single day, would twist all the buttons off his shirt, nervously twirl them off slowly every single day. And every single night, his host mother would sew all the buttons back onto the buttons guy’s shirt. 

Every day he twists them off. 

And every night she sews them back on. 

“What a waste of time,” Ellen said when she first heard the host mom describe what she did in order to live with the buttons guy, “You should sew the buttons back on with fishing line so that way he can’t twist them off.”

And the host mom reacted with offense, 

“No! No, that’s the worst thing you could do. This man needs to twist the buttons off. It helps him— to twist the buttons off every day.”

“You don’t understand,” the host mom explained to Ellen Baxter, “In order to accept mentally ill people into your home, you first have to accept what they’re doing. You have to accept their oddness and their idiosyncracies. You’ve got to let them take their buttons off. Being with them is the first step in being able to do anything for them.”

And that’s when Ellen Baxter stumbled upon what she calls “the solution of no solution.” 

Once she knew what to look for in Geel, she saw it practiced from house to house. 

What freed guests for healing and rehabilitation was the way their hosts refuse to treat them as people with problems to be fixed. 

Instead, they just welcomed them into their homes to share life with them. The hosts’ acceptance of their guests without any expectation of changing them is, in itself, the elixir with the power to change them. 

Ellen Baxter calls what she found in the homes of Geel “the strange healing power of not trying to fix the problem.” 

In the Church, we call it grace. 

And it’s why we call this story that gives us Christ Gospel. 

It’s good news! 

———————-

John doesn’t give you the Christmas story the way Matthew or Luke tell it. John doesn’t mention Caesar or a census or a star over the city of the shepherd king. There’s no manger, no donkey, neither a Joseph nor an angel.  John gives you his Christmas story by telling you that the Word which spoke the stars into the sky “became flesh and dwelled with us.” 

The Law— God’s expectations for who you should be and what you should do and how you should change and fix yourself— came through Moses, John announces as excitedly as the angel Gabriel in those other Christmas stories. 

But, the strange healing power of not trying to fix the problem has come through Jesus Christ. 

The Word became flesh and lived with us, John writes. 

And the word John uses there for “Word” (logos), is the same word the Old Testament uses for the tabernacle, the make-shift tent the Israelites pitched as they wandered in the wilderness. 

As God’s people journeyed for forty years, from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land, God journeyed with them in the tabernacle. 

The word in Hebrew is dabar. 

It’s the same word the Bible uses to describe the ten words of God, the Commandments, sealed inside the ark. It’s the word the Bible uses when Moses hides himself in the cleft of a rock in order to catch a glimpse of God’s glory. And it’s the word the Old Testament uses for the holy of holies in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem— the place Jesus will call his Father’s House. The holy of holies was where God lived. 

The dabar was where God met man. 

But not just anyone could meet God there at the curtain into the dabar. 

We’re too broken by sin, the Bible says, even to come close let alone be welcomed in the place where God lives. 

Only the high priest of Israel on behalf of all his people could venture near the dabar and even the high priest first needed to be made acceptable. Even the high priest had broken too many of God’s expectations, God’s Law. The high priest first needed to fix his own sin problem through ritual purification. Only then did the high priest dare come near God’s home. 

Mary’s womb is the holy of holies and in her baby, the dabar became flesh and lived with us, John tells us in his Christmas story. 

And notice, there’s no high priest in this Christmas story. 

Nothing’s been required to render you acceptable first. 

———————-

Ellen Baxter describes a guest she met in Geel named Des. 

Des suffered terrors every night that bloodthirsty lions were about to pounce through the walls to eat him. 

“It wouldn’t work to tell him the lions aren’t really there. It wouldn’t work to try to convince him that he should change and be not afraid,” his host, Toni explained. 

Instead, every night, Toni and her husband would rush outside banging pots and pans and roaring like lions themselves to scare the lions away. 

“And that would work every time,” Toni explained, “He could rest. And then, eventually, one day Des wasn’t afraid of the lions anymore, and then one day the lions weren’t there anymore. But, this is important, making him unafraid of the lions, curing him of his terrors, was not our goal. Our goal was simply to welcome Des into our home, just as he was, and to share our life with him.” 

Maybe you don’t twist the buttons off your shirt day after day. 

And you might not think bloodthirsty lions are about to leap out of the walls to eat you. 

But we all suffer delusions. And we all hear voices in our heads. 

Some of you may be crazy enough to think that you’re basically a good person and, therefore, you don’t need Mary’s boy to live for you the life of perfect faithfulness that God requires of you. 

Some of us could be so insane we actually think the sins we’ve sinned are somehow too great for Jesus Christ to have forgotten them forever in his grave. 

And, some of you just might be deluded enough to think that you’re bad, that your resentments and jealousies, your broken relationships and bitter strings of regret, somehow put you beyond God’s mercy— now that’s just plain crazy. 

Some of you actually may think that, because you tweet the right opinion or post the right position on Facebook, you’re righteous; meanwhile, some of you really think that you’re the only person here tonight who doesn’t have it all together.  

You might think you’re the only person here whose family is a disaster or whose marriage is a trainwreck.  

Or, you’re the only person here who doesn’t believe most of what I’ve preached and, therefore, it doesn’t apply to you, too. 

We all suffer delusions.

And we all hear voices in our heads. 

Voices telling us we’re unlovely or unloveable. Voices that tell us we’re inadequate or unforgiveable. 

Voices that never tire of pointing out all the ways we fall short of a standard that exists only in our heads. 

Voices that never quite go away and quit their whispering that the Gospel news is too good to be true. 

If I have one Christmas wish tonight for people like you— people like us— it’s for you to see what John wants you to see: 

that in Jesus Christ, in the humanity of God, 

God has welcomed you into his home— this is paradise for the insane.

In what the Church calls the incarnation, God has taken you into himself not as a patient (to be changed) but as a guest (to be welcomed). 

God has welcomed you into the home that is Christ’s body and wrapped you in the gift of Christ’s own perfect righteousness, to live and die with you, without any expectation or need for you first to be fixed. 

In Jesus Christ, God dwells with us, sewing our buttons back on and banging away our imaginary lions until all is calm and bright and we can rest. 

John, in his Christmas story tonight, calls that grace, and even an unbeliever like Ellen Baxter can testify to its strange healing power. 

Merry Christmas and welcome home.

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Taking God at His Word — Sermon for Children’s Christmas Eve Service

For our Children’s Christmas Eve service, I scripted a series of reflections that some of the children and I delivered together, taking the verses of the carol “The Friendly Beasts” as a guide. I don’t think it sucks.

1. Jesus Our Brother, Kind and Good

Pat singing: “Jesus our brother, kind and good, was humbly born in a stable rude…”

Luke Houghton:

Hold up, “brother?” My last name isn’t Christ. Unless my mom has neglected to mention a very big piece of information, I don’t have any brothers. And if the baby Jesus is my brother, then why didn’t I get any golden fleece diapers too? How come I got stuck with the Costco brand?

Ella Houghton:

No, it’s not like that— Jesus is everybody’s brother; you, me, the guy in the back with the ugly Christmas sweater, the uncle your mom hopes doesn’t come for Christmas dinner this year, the lunch lady with her hair net. 

All of us, Jesus is our brother. 

Jason:

It’s what the Bible means by calling Mary’s baby the “Second Adam.” 

He’s the start of something new.. It’s why Matthew starts his nativity story not with the angel Gabriel, but with the very same word that starts the whole Bible. 

“Genesis.” 

“In the beginning…”

So Jesus is our brother because Jesus is the Second Adam. 

Christmas is like God’s “do-over.” 

Luke Houghton:

Do-over? What was the matter with the Old Adam?

Ella Houghton:

What was the matter with the Old Adam? Really? It’s like Indiana Jones says in Raiders of the Lost Ark, “Any of you guys ever go to Sunday School?” The problem with the Old Adam was, you know, the s-word. 

Luke Houghton:

The s-word? You mean the word my dad says during Redskins games?

Ella Houghton:

What? No. Sin. The s-word. 

Luke Houghton:

Oh right, sin— that’s the stuff we do to get on God’s naughty list, right?

Ella Houghton:

No, God’s way better than Santa. God doesn’t have a naughty list. No, sin— pay attention now— is not taking God at his word. Sin is not trusting God’s words. 

Luke Houghton:

I don’t get it. 

Jason:

Remember, God tells Adam not to eat a particular kind of fruit from a particular sort of tree, because it would make him die— must’ve not been organic or something. 

Anyways, before you can say, “Do these fig leaves make me look fat,” a snake comes slithering along and Adam must’ve understood parseltongue, because the snake says to the Old Adam, “Did God really say that fruit would make you die? It’s as good as any fruit at Whole Foods. It won’t make you die.” 

Just like that, faster than God hung the stars in the sky or Anthony Rendon signed with the Angels, Adam no longer trusted God’s words. 

Adam ate the fruit and died.. 

And God had told him the truth. 

Later, Adam’s children, the People of Israel, they didn’t take God at his word either. Before you know it, the s-word, not trusting God’s promises, led to violence and greed and injustice. 

Luke Houghton:

So what’s the New Adam do?

Jason:

The New Adam does what the Old Adam didn’t do. Jesus lives his whole life trusting every word God gives him. 

Thus, tonight, for all of us, to be the brothers and sisters of the baby Jesus, it’s about taking God at his word. 

It’s about trusting God’s word when God, through his angel, tells you tonight, “I am bringing you good news of great joy. This day, in the City of David, a savior is born for you.” 

2. The Donkey, Shaggy and Brown 

“I, ” said the donkey, shaggy and brown,

“I carried his mother up hill and down;

I carried his mother to Bethlehem town.”

Jason—

Did you know there’s a talking donkey in the Bible, in the Old Testament?

Joshua Vaughn—  

So what? My mom says there’s one in the pulpit here most Sundays. 

Jason— 

I guess Christmas isn’t the only day miracles happen. 

If the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem could talk, I bet it would’ve had some four-letter words for Caesar Augustus. 

Just think, the trail from Nazareth to Bethlehem is seventy miles long. And that’s without any WAWAs, EZ Pass lanes, or podcasts. 

The journey likely took Mary and Joseph a week, and all because some stooge sitting behind his desk in the capital of the free world decided to take a census. Caesar wanted to count the Jews in order to figure out how much he should charge them for the privilege of Caesar’s army occupying them like prisoners. 

Mary and Joseph have to pack their bags and head to Bethelehem because of politics. 

Joshua Vaughn—   

Gosh, I’m glad we don’t live in a time when the census gets used as a political weapon. I guess when you have a salad named after you, you think you can get away with anything. 

Jason— 

No, actually, Caesar isn’t his name. Caesar is his title. Caesar is just the Latin word for the Greek word “Christ” and the Hebrew word “Messiah.” 

They all mean “King.” 

The Christmas story, the Gospels want you to see, is a collision of kingdoms.

Joshua Vaughn—  

 

Wasn’t it a donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusalem to a cross just like it was a donkey that carried him in Mary to Bethlehem? 

Jason— 

Yes, and I bet that donkey had some awful things to say— the kinds of things you can only say on Twitter. After all, that donkey was a witness to the terrible ways they treated Mary’s boy before finally nailing him to a tree. 

Do you know the difference between animals like donkeys and all the rest of us?

Joshua Vaughn—   

Um, we can distinguish between a water bowl and a toilet?

Jason— 

No. Well, maybe, yeah, but— we’re the only animals who can choose to doubt or to trust words. Animals like dogs and donkeys can recognize words— but they can’t trust words. 

We’re the only creatures who can take the incarnate God at his word when he says from his cross, “I forgive you, you don’t know what you’re doing. But, you will be with me, in paradise.” 

3. The Cow, White and Red

I, ” said the cow, all white and red

“I gave him my manger for his bed;

I gave him my hay to pillow his head.”

“I, ” said the cow, all white and red.

Coleman Todd— 

When it comes to Christmas, most of us think the important word for the season is “for.”

Christmas is a time we feel drawn to doing things for others. We buy  presents for our loved ones. We worry over cooking up the perfect meal for our family. We think this is the season when we should do something kind for those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Cows aren’t the smartest beasts in God’s creation, but…

Jason— 

What do you mean cows aren’t smart? They might misspell chicken, but that’s still pretty good for not having opposable thumbs.

Coleman Todd— 

I don’t get it. 

Jason— 

Duh, it was a Chik Fil A joke. 

Coleman Todd—  

Not your best material. 

Jason—

They can’t all be pearls, but when half the room is here against their will we gotta try to make them smile, right?

Coleman Todd—  

If you’re just trying to shamelessly appeal to the audience, you should make a reference to Baby Yoda. 

Jason— 

I’d never stoop so low. 

[Show Slide of Baby Yoda]

I still say cows are dumb; on the udder hand, the cow at the manger knows what we forget. “For” may be the word with which we celebrate Christmas, but “for” isn’t the way God celebrates Christmas. 

Coleman Todd— 

Remember, the angel says to Joseph, “‘Behold, the virgin shall bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.’”

Jason—

Before Christmas is the start to God doing something for us, it’s God coming to be with us. 

Coleman Todd— 

So with is a tiny little word but it gets to the heart of Christmas?

Jason— 

And “with” is the word that gets at the heart of that other word “Gospel,” because the Gospel is the promise that God is not far off from you somewhere in heaven. 

You don’t have to change. 

You don’t have to straighten up or stop your sinning. 

The Gospel is the promise that God comes down to you— not just in a dirty manger but in the muck and mire of your everyday life. 

The Gospel is the promise that the Holy God is with you in the difficult places of your life. 

The baby in the manger is not the way we come to God. 

The baby in the manger is the way God comes to us. 

Coleman Todd— 

People often ask themselves “Where is God?” in the midst of their problems. 

Jason— 

If you’ve ever wondered where God is for you when your life has turned upside down, then remember that the promise of Christmas, the promise of the Gospel is that Heaven has been turned upside down, too, and that God comes down to you. 

Whomever you are, the only work you need to do tonight is to take Jesus at his word. 

When the God born tonight comes back from the dead, he promises his friends— friends who DO NOT deserve such a promise— “Always, until the end of the aeon, I am with you.”

In fact, he’s as close to you tonight as this table. 

Mary and Joseph rested the incarnate God in the hay the cow was to eat. Likewise, 

Christ is here in creatures of bread and wine. 

For you. 

With you.

4. The Sheep with Curly Horn

I, ” said the sheep with curly horn,

“I gave him my wool for his blanket warm;

He wore my coat on Christmas morn.”

“I, ” said the sheep with curly horn.

Alexander Micheli—

I thought the next verse was about a pig. 

Jason—

No. 

Alexander Micheli— 

No, I’m sure of it. I learned the song in preschool. It’s “I, said, the pig with curly tail.” It’s a pig. 

Jason— 

No, there were definitely no pigs at the nativity. 

Alexander Micheli—

Are you sure?

Jason— 

As sure as I am that the wise men didn’t bring the King of the Jews Persia’s finest oysters and bacon. If we can identify with anyone in the manger scene, it’s probably not the wise men or the shepherds. 

It’s the sheep. 

Jesus says that he’s the Good Shepherd. Think about it, he’s the one to whom his mother grew up praying “The Lord is my Shepherd.” 

To profess that the Lord is your Shepherd is to confess that you are a sheep.

Alexander Micheli—

But, sheep are lame. 

Jason— 

That’s the point. Sheep are stubborn. Sheep wander. Sheep get lost. Sheep fall into problems entirely of their own making. Sheep are dependent totally on their shepherd.

Alexander Micheli— 

Being a sheep is worse than finding out you’re a Sagitarius. 

Jason— 

Exactly. It’s offensive even. Sheep aren’t like other animals. Sheep aren’t like donkeys. The only real work— if you can call it work— a sheep performs is listening to the Shepherd’s voice.

Gabriel Micheli—

I have a hard time just listening to my teachers. 

Jason—

Don’t we all, but Jesus is better than your teacher. 

Alexander Micheli—

I’m not sure you’re allowed to say that.

Jason— 

Sure I am. Look, the baby Jesus— when he grows up—  tells a story about a single lost sheep who wanders off from the flock of ninety-nine. 

The story is Jesus’ way of responding to a question about who is most awesome in God’s eyes, the do-gooding every Sunday types or your garden variety skeptics, cynics, and sinners. 

Jesus doesn’t answer their question by telling them the greatest in the Kingdom are those who give to the poor or never leaves a nasty comment on Facebook.

No, Jesus answers with an image of a sheep who is nothing but the recipient of the Shepherd’s finding. 

We think the story’s supposed to be about the sheep, lost from its flock, but it’s about the Shepherd’s determined work of finding.

Gabriel Micheli—

Speaking of getting lost, what’s this got to do with Christmas?

Jason— 

Christmas is a time when it’s easy to wonder whether you’re really a part of the flock. 

It’s easy to doubt God. 

It’s even easier to doubt you’re worth him finding you. 

St. Paul calls the incarnation an invasion; that is, Christmas is the beginning of a rescue mission. And the promise of the Gospel is that you don’t need to do anything to make yourself findable. 

5. The Dove from the Rafters High 

I, ” said the dove from the rafters high,

“I cooed him to sleep so that he would not cry;

We cooed him to sleep, my mate and i.”

“I, ” said the dove from the rafters high.

Ahkeemah Lee—

Jesus is called a Prince, right?

Jason— 

Yep, the Prince of Peace, Isaiah says. Why?

Ahkeemah Lee—

Well, I was just wondering. If Jesus is a prince, then does that mean Jesus knows what it sounds like when doves cry? Because I’ve been listening to the song on Spotify, and I have no idea. 

Jason— 

Just don’t start asking questions about Little Red Corvette, too. 

I can tell you, though, what sound this dove at the manger is meant to make you recall— what words actually. 

Just after the Christmas story— turn the page— Jesus is all grown up and he shows up at the Jordan river to be baptized.  

And as Jesus comes up out of the water, the Bible says the sky opens up and the same Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary’s womb comes down like a dove and God the Father’s voice declares, “This is my Beloved in whom I am well-pleased.”

Jesus’ baptism is not the first time in scripture that God says to someone, “You are my Beloved.” 

But, it is the first time in scripture that someone actually believes it and lives his life believing it and never forgets it even when he’s forsaken by his friends. 

Ahkeemah Lee— 

Yeah, sure, but Jesus is different than the rest of us.”

Jason— 

No. Jesus was like us in every way. 

Except one way.

Jesus never forgot who God said he was. He never doubted God’s words about him and taking God at his word set Jesus free to live as though the whole world was a new and different creation. 

Ahkeemah Lee— 

Well, it’s easy to believe you’re beloved and pleasing to God when you’re good ALL THE TIME. 

Jason— 

I think sometimes the problem we have with believing we’re beloved and pleasing to God is that we have bad ideas of what God considers good. 

Like, right after God says to Jesus, “You’re my beloved in whom I’m well-pleased,” guess what Jesus does? 

He starts going to dinner parties with people who drink too much and tell dirty jokes. 

He heals people that doctors won’t touch. 

He makes friends with cheats and losers, and he makes bad guys the heroes of his stories. 

For God, what it means to be “good” is to be a friend of sinners. 

Ahkeemah Lee— 

That’s a strange definition of good. I think my parents would have a hard time believing it if I told them. 

Jason—

Of course, they’d have a hard time believing it. We do. 

That’s why we’re here tonight, and why someone like me is here every week to give you the goods and remind you what God says about you. 

In a way, Christmas Eve is how all of Christianity works. 

It’s how we become holy and faithful. 

It’s not like we hear the promise of the Gospel once and then move on from it to figure out how to make changes in our life. 

It’s hearing the promise, receiving Christ over and over again, that changes us. Being a Christian, it’s like…

Ahkeemah Lee—

Listening to a bird singing the same song, over and over. 

6. The Gift They Gave Emmanuel 

Thus every beast by some good spell

In the stable dark was glad to tell

Of the gift he gave Emmanuel,

The gift he gave Emmanuel.

Jaanaiya Lee—

Okay, so we know the sheep gave Jesus his coat and the cow gave him his manger, but what about the gift God gives us in Jesus Christ? What is it exactly?

     Jason— 

We’ve all memorized the gifts the wise men give to Jesus (frankincense, gold, and myrrh), but can we name the gift God gives to us in Jesus? 

We like to say that Jesus is the reason for the season, but do we really know the reason for Jesus?

    Maybe the problem is that we spend too much time talking about what God takes from us in Jesus Christ (our sin) we can’t name what God gives to us in Jesus Christ. And God taking it, taking our sin, is only half of the Gospel. 

What God takes from us in Christ isn’t the whole Gospel. 

The Gospel is incomplete if it doesn’t also include what God gives to us: Christ’s own righteousness. 

Jaanaiya Lee—

Hold up. Up until now, I was going to give you a solid C+ for tonight, but now you’re threatening to wreck everything at the end with some stained glass language. Righteousness?

Jason— 

Righteousness. 

It’s the Bible’s word for…well, think of it this way. 

“Righteousness” is your permanent perfect record. 

Christ became what we are, says the Bible, so that his permanent perfect record might become ours. 

     His righteousness is reckoned to us, says the Bible, as our own righteousness. 

As a gift. 

Jaanaiya Lee— 

     It’s like a Christmas gift exchange.

Jason— 

    Exactly, and it’s yours for free, forever. 

But the only way to receive it— the way Christ gives you this gift— is in his promise. 

That’s why we’re here tonight, and that’s why it’s important that we take him at his word, because he gives himself and everything that belongs to him, including his righteousness, in his promise. 

Tonight, what you receive here is something you can receive nowhere else. What you get at church tonight is a gift  you can get no place else. 

Jesus Christ, himself. 

The Gospel works like a wedding vow. 

The Gospel is a promise by which the Bridegroom gives himself and everything that belongs to Him to his beloved. 

Like the song says, we live in a dark world. 

It isn’t easy. 

Most of us do the best we can to believe, to do good, to follow Jesus. 

All may not always be calm and bright. 

But, take God at his word and rest in the good news that you’ve been given Christ’s own permament perfect record. 

For tonight, it’s not just that when we look at Christ in the manger we see Emmanuel, God is with us. 

It’s that because of Christ, whenever God looks upon us, he sees Jesus. 

Merry Christmas!

[End with Slide of Manger Scene including Baby Yoda]

     

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Episode #240 — Robert Hart: A Christmas Fugue for You

Fr. Robert Hart is the Rector of Saint Benedict’s Anglican Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, NC, a contributing editor of Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity, and frequent contributor to The Continuum blog. He’s an incredible music fan, and Robert graciously agreed to share an original Christmas composition as a part of the podcast.

The brother of Addison Hart and David Bentley Hart, Robert Hart is a good follow on social media. In this conversation, Robert talks with us about the Christian vocation to be with the poor, how the pro-choice language of “personhood” is the language of slavery, and the priesthood.

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Become a patron (we’ll send you swag), buy a Stanley Hauerwas “Jesus is Lord and Everything Else is Bullshit” t-shirt, or leave us a comment.

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