A Virgin with Child (Rob Gieselmann, Christmas 2006)

I stand before you tonight in the name of God, because I believe.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, and I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary.

I believe the babe born of Mary is the Incarnation of God, that one night, two millennia ago, the heavens split, light as a star shot across the sky, quaked the earth, and split darkness into two.  Angels followed behind the light, announcing to those who would listen, to the shepherds, Come to Bethlehem and see, Christ the Lord, the Newborn King.

This king, this child, this god-made-flesh, I believe in Him, and I worship Him, I worship him because it is this child this newborn king, who breathed life into this clay shell of mine, who saved me from the inside out.  I’m not talking about heaven/hell here – this Very God of Very God saved me with truth as light, igniting my soul.  I once was lost, but now am found.

Found deeply, as in rivers as deep truth running deeply within, healed within.      To borrow from the Christmas carol, my soul felt its worth.

And tonight, the heavens streak with light, darkness genuflects to light, and angels compel you, like me, Come to Bethlehem and see, Christ the Lord, the Newborn King.

If only for tonight, let your soul feel its worth.  On this night that is as no other.  On this night, when so many generations ago, a virgin gave birth and laid her baby in a manger.

Mary and Joseph found their way to the stables.  The barn was dark, but an old lantern still had some oil left in it.  Joseph sent a lad to buy more oil, because his wife’s water – they were married by now – had broken.  He knew Mary was going to give birth that night.  So he sent the lad for oil, but the boy hadn’t returned – not yet.

As the dim lantern burned its dusty oil, Joseph looked about.  There was no bed, no blanket, no water.  How could they do this?  He wasn’t a midwife.   He was barely a husband.

In the corner, against two walls, and away from the drafty night air, he found a place for Mary, for the birth.  There he piled some loose straw, and gently eased  her  to the ground.

Next, Joseph walked outside, to see if there might be anyone at all about, but there wasn’t.  There was nobody to help, and then she screamed.  He had heard a scream like hers only once before, this blood-curdling scream of a woman in labor, but he was only a child then, when neighbor gave birth.  He and his buddies hung about outside to listen to the event, scared they’d be caught, but how could they not listen?

This time, with responsibility, a lump formed in Joseph’s throat, fear spread to his hands; he held his fear as palpably as a carpenter would hold a tool, this he knew.  He couldn’t do this, he almost spoke.  Which is what she was thinking, also.  So young, so afraid.

She looked at him, the confusion on his face, and her own anxiety, both so evident, and decided then, there, that yes, they could, they would do this.

Joseph took Mary in his arms, held her tight between the pain, and said, Remember, Adonai is with you, you said so, the angel told me so, and with that, he gently prayed.  The silence that followed, with the lantern barely flickering, carried smells he would never forget – Not the smell of the barn, the pungeance of unwashed animals, of goats and donkeys, years of stale air and animal feces emitting from old wood – Not the smell of birth, the blood, the humanity, the wrestling and the pain. 

No, it wasn’t the old barn, or the human birth that Joseph smelled, it was light, the smell of light, Joseph sensed flowing through his nostrils, as oxygen into his lungs.  Light as life entering his own body, strengthening his hands for God’s labor, and Mary’s.

Mary screamed again, in labor and pain and she pushed and pushed and stopped, and then screamed again, and the animals countered with neighing and bleating and rejoiced at the noise that meant their freedom, also, at the liberation of all creation in this one birth. 

How could the animals know?

And how did Joseph know, that the painful and bloody labor this night was the birth of Word into silence, a labor that required pain as its attendant?

Painful birth, obviated by immediate light and life and miracle and cloaked in the aura of the holiness of God. 

Take your shoes off, God told Moses, for this ground is holy.

And so God speaks to us, this silent night, take off your shoes, take off the shoes of casual celebration, of a Frosty the Snowman Christmas, for this birth, this night, is holy. 

A man who worked for the Dalai Lama once told Anne Lamotte when she had lots going wrong in her life, all at once, that means something big and lovely is trying to get itself born –

Birth is an exercise in pain and difficulty, the cosmos is upended, and is trying to right itself, and in the process there is blood and stress, and anger and confusion, but birth takes pain like an artist takes paint and turns it into creation alive, life and joy.

And that is the birth, the life, I have found in believing, in believing in this child who is God made flesh.  In believing in a God who intimately cares enough to part the fabric of eternity to dance as light across a black sky, and for a child to be born so I, too, might not be lost on the inside.

Indeed, on this night, the soul felt its worth.

Your soul.

I thought about all that I could tell you on this differentiated night, but only this seemed to matter.  First, I believe.  I really do believe this miracle story, from start to finish, from virgin birth     to resurrection.  I know the modern, educated world poo-poos the virgin birth – fine, but I don’t.  Because, you see, the meaning of a virgin birth is this simple:  God broke through,

God did not abandon you or me to the dark closet of this world, but opened wide eternity to us.  Now.  Eternity now.

Second, this miracle story holds meaning for me, it has brought peace to me, inside, as I somehow become a character in the story itself, and I touch holy ground, and discover that all is well, after all.  All is well.

And third, this miracle story has meaning for you, too, as you reach deeply within yourself – you must reach deeply within yourself -- for the same birth, of light.

From deep within, you, too, can find the Christmas miracle. 

The irony is this: you already have it.  It is a well, a resource deep within you.  Meister Eckhart, the whacky theologian of several hundred years ago, said each person has a vintage wine cellar but they seldom drink from it. 

In the fifteen hundreds, Fra Giovanni said in his Christmas card, I salute you and there is nothing I can give which you have not, but there is much while I cannot give it, you may take it.  No heaven can come to us unless we find it in our hearts today. So take heaven. . . .  No peace can come to us, unless we find it right now.  Take Peace.

And so, I urge you, take your peace.  Take peace, but first, Come to Bethlehem and see, Christ the Lord, the Newborn King.

Amen.

Copyright 2006.