“A Presence in the Manger”

“A Presence in the Manger” by the Reverend Michael J. Heggen

Based on the reading found in John 1:1-14 for December 25, 2004

For Christmas Day; I.N.I.; Hope Lutheran Church, Park Forest, Illinois

A pastor tells of enlisting four little children to help him preach his Christmas sermon on “The Star.” He gave each child one of the four letters to hold up so he could make an emphasis on each letter of the word star. But the children got a bit confused, and the congregation got quite a laugh when the children stood in reverse order and spelled out R-A-T-S (Insights, 12-25-93).

Maybe that was a divine sort of mix-up. Christmas isn’t so much about the loftiness of a star, but about Jesus coming into the jumble and confusion, yes, the sins and the hurts of the world. “The Word became flesh,” John writes, “and lived among us.” We have in Jesus A PRESENCE IN THE MANGER. For a few minutes let’s look at how Jesus is God’s presence, not in the shining perfection of a “star” but the real life issues of “rats.”

Look at the merriment we tend to drape over an otherwise sad and dreary world. Please understand, I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t sing “Joy to the World” and other favorites, but there is a sadness in our world too. There’s the sadness of tears for a variety of reasons, of lives ruined by alcohol or drugs, of broken homes, or time spent in a hospital waiting room.

Jesus gives us a presence, not just to give us a blanket to hide under for a few days, but he comes to live under that blanket with us. He came to be where there is grief and sadness and fear and sorrow, and emptiness. He comes with his divine presence to fulfill the promise of Isaiah, “a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity” (Isaiah 53:3).

Look at the gestures of good will. This is the time of year, we say, for “peace, good will toward men.” Sometimes we feel like Charlie Brown wistfully wondering, “Why can’t be have that all year ‘round?” “There are a lot of things that ‘dwell among us’ today,” one writer suggests. “Few of them are ‘full of grace and truth’” (Insights, 1-2-94). A lot of things “dwell among us” – pornography, abuse of one another in homes, violence in movies, video games, and in daily headlines, the threat of terrorism and the mind-numbing violence and death in Iraq.

Jesus gives us a presence, not just as a seasonal relief, but to live among us. He is God’s presence with us “with grace and truth.” Jesus gives us a healing presence in our relationships, a healing presence in the midst of our grief and guilt and fear. Jesus gives us his continuing presence to bring restoration and renewal where we have tortured and twisted and broken our lives. He gives us his continuing presence to show us the glory of the meaning of love in our everyday lives. He comes with his presence to illustrate day after day the truth that God loves us.

Look also at the trappings of the holidays that can get a bit stale and predictable. Jesus gives us a divine presence in a way that should really shock us to the core. The presence of God… in a baby… in a manger… born to two peasant parents. Maybe we’ve gotten too accustomed to the Christmas story that the shock of God’s presence doesn’t hit us any more. One writer suggests that too much exposure to anything can lead us to take it for granted. “If,” he suggests, “Moses had encountered a burning bush on every other hillside, chances are good that he might have started thinking about toasting marshmallows rather than bowing to God’s majesty” (Insights, ’94). As shocking as the thought of “toasting marshmallows” might be, I wonder how shocked God must be if we have “done Christmas” so many times that we start to focus on all sorts of other things rather than bowing to God’s majesty. Let the wonder of God’s gift to us, his presence in Jesus, fill your heart. Let the wonder of God’s gift still surprise and amaze you as it did Isaiah who invited even the ruins of Jerusalem to break forth into singing because “your God reigns.”

Amen.