Sermon 12/31/06
Overwhelmed with Joy - Matthew 2:1-12
(view lectionary notes for this text)
The more you get to know me, and the more comfortable I feel with you, the more you’ll know that my sense of humor is pretty sarcastic. My whole family functions with this kind of humor. I ran into a bit of trouble my freshman year of college, because two of my suitemates were from China. Humor is very cultural and it doesn’t translate very well. Sarcasm, I found, especially doesn’t translate well, and my roommates often thought I was just being mean. We actually had to sit down and talk about where I was coming from and what they were hearing from me. I tried to curb my sarcasm with my roommates, and they also learned more about my sense of humor, and eventually, things worked out pretty well. But we were on some shaky ground for a while. Really though, I must confess I like my sarcastic sense of humor. And it seem to be my gut reaction, with my sarcastic response sometimes out of my mouth before I can stop myself.
The problem with my sarcastic outlook, though, is that sometimes it can serve as a wall between me and something I might more fully experience if I didn’t have my gut reaction of sarcasm. I’ve occasionally found myself unable to enjoy an experience that others might find moving, because I just can’t take it seriously – a performance, or a movie, or a story. And while I’m sharing insights on my personality with you, let me also tell you that I’m a skeptic. If I was one of the twelve disciples, I would probably be the one called doubting Thomas – not because I don’t have faith – but because I’m a realist and a skeptic and I’d definitely want to see something with my own eyes before relying on the testimony of my friends. I’m a skeptic – skeptical if you tell me you’ve witnessed a supernatural event, skeptical if you tell me you’ve seen a ghost, skeptical even if you give me statistics or facts about something that sound off-base to me. I’m a skeptic unless you’ve got some proof for me, unless you let me see it with my own eyes. With these insights about my personality, you may wonder how I ended up a pastor at all! But actually, my skepticism has usually served me well, pushing me to do my own soul-searching, my own faith-digging, because I always have wanted my own answers.
Thinking about this, about sarcasm and skepticism, I was caught up in this week’s gospel lesson when I stumbled on the phrase, “overwhelmed with joy.” Today we’re celebrating the Epiphany. Epiphany is technically on January 6th, but we celebrate the Epiphany in churches on the preceding Sunday closest to the 6th. So, today is technically only the 6th day of Christmas, but we’re jumping ahead a bit in our focus. Epiphany is the day we celebrate the arrival of the Wisemen from the East, special visitors to baby Jesus. Epiphany is a festival of light, a day when we celebrating the revealing of Jesus as the Christ to the whole world, as the Wisemen represent Christ being shared even with those who were outside of the Jewish faith tradition. We don’t know very much about the Wisemen, except that they studied the stars, and their studies led them to King Herod in Jerusalem. They tell Herod that their studies of stars have led them to believe that a new king of the Jews has been born and that they want to pay him homage. Of course, this doesn’t sit well with Herod, the reigning king, so he schemes to manipulate these Wisemen, and sends them to Bethlehem to find the child, so that they can report back to him. They travel to Bethlehem, still following the star, and when the star guides them to Mary and Joseph’s home and to the baby Jesus, we read that they were overwhelmed with joy. The Wisemen bow down and worship Jesus, and offer him precious gifts, and then return home, having seen what they set out to see, and having been warned in a dream not to go back Herod’s way.
When is the last time you were overwhelmed with joy? The downside of being a skeptic is that it is sometimes hard to be overwhelmed with joy. It is sometimes easier to go through the motions, to be busy with the details, to be worrying about what comes next. But if Christmas comes and goes, and we miss out on the joy, if we forgot to be moved by the story, or if we never stopped to appreciate the magnitude of the gift being given to us, then we’ve missed out on Christmas altogether, missed as much as those who believe Christmas is just a day to exchange gifts and get presents. God, our Creator, has become one of us, so that we might know God and be known by God in the most intimate ways, the most personal ways possible. God, our Creator, has given God’s very self to us as a gift, so that we might fully experience God’s love for us. The star has stopped, and we are meant to be overwhelmed with joy.
Christmas is certainly the season of giving, but our giving always comes as a response, an answer to what God has first given to us. God gives us the Christ child, gives us God’s own self, and because of that, we respond, overwhelmed with joy. Because of God’s gift to us, we too are moved to give back to God, moved to give to one another. The Wisemen bring gifts to the child Jesus as a response to their joy, a response to God’s leading them to this kind of the Jews. They are so overwhelmed by this gift from God that they invest an awful lot in finding this child. To take a trip from the East, to first go to Jerusalem and present themselves to Herod, to travel and find the star, find the child, and to bring with them precious gifts like gold, frankincense, and myrrh, to do all this would have required a great investment of time and money and resources. (1) They made a great commitment in finding this child, something they would do only because they knew, were convinced, of the preciousness of this gift from God.
I hope that our celebration of Christmas evokes a response in us too, that we can let ourselves really experience the joy that the gift from God is meant to bring to us. I hope that we can really let go of whatever walls we usually build up around ourselves, between us and God, so that we can fully receive, be totally overwhelmed, by what God offers to us. And because of what we experience, I hope we are moved to respond, to give back, to invest all of our resources in God, like the Wisemen did.
Tomorrow we begin a New Year, 2007. A new year represents for us a fresh start, a new beginning, another chance at getting things right. Many of us will make resolutions for our new year. We’ll commit to giving up bad habits, or taking on new good habits, or trying something different, or staying a course we know we should have been on all along. Some people don’t like the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, and I understand. It seems our resolutions can set us up for failure, because we know that we aren’t going to be as perfect as we set out to be on January 1st. So some people think that it’s better not to make resolutions at all, rather than making them and breaking them, feeling guilty and disappointed. Personally though, I like making resolutions. I like the hope and optimism in thinking I might turn over a new leaf. I like having goals and trying to reach them, even if they are challenging. Some resolutions haven’t worked out, for sure – I was trying to read a book a week this past year, and only reached that goal if you count the books I listened to on CD. But I think I read a lot more than I might have otherwise, and so I’m glad I made my resolution.
But this year, I’m trying to think of my resolutions in a different way. Instead of trying to make a fresh start, saying goodbye to 2006 and hello to 2007, I’m trying to tie the two together, and trying to tie this Christmas more clearly to what comes after. I feel like too often we pack away our experience of the Christ-child right along with our ornaments. But our Christmas experience is meant to stay with us, inspire us, teach us, even when the dates on the calendar change. If I am overwhelmed with joy at the gift God gives in Christmas, then I think there should be some sort of response from me, some reaction, some action. The Wisemen responded by bringing gifts to Jesus. And I think they set a good example. So this year, I’m going to think not of New Year’s Resolutions, exactly, but of gifts that I can make, gifts that I can offer to God this year in light of the gifts God has given to me. What can give to God this year? What can I give that I haven’t been willing to give to God before? What can I offer to God as a symbol of the change that God brought about in me this Christmas? What can I offer that shows I recognize the treasure of Christmas?
As we turn a page and head into a new year, I wish for all of us that we may carry with us the overwhelming joy of Christmas, that we may keep with us the gift of God with us, God one of us, long beyond the time when we un-decorate, beyond when new toys have lost their luster, beyond when our thoughts have turned to spring and summer again. Because God is with us, in us, one of us always, and God’s gift is freely given to us always. Let us give thanks to God, and give to God what we haven’t wanted to give before. Let us give thanks to God, and challenge ourselves to do with God what we know we can’t do on our own. Let us give thanks to God, and offer ourselves, our time, our gifts to God and see what God can do in us. This year, still overjoyed, overwhelmed with Christmas, let us open our treasure chests, and offer to God our finest gifts.
Amen.
(1) See J. Ellsworth Kalas’ Christmas from the Backside, “Christmas and the Impossible Dream.”