Christmas Eve
I’d like to begin this evening by talking not about Jesus, not about the angels, nor about the shepherds. I’d like to begin this evening by talking about everyone’s favorite Christmas movie, “The Wizard of Oz”. We all know the story already, perhaps a little too well. The scarecrow, the tin man, the cowardly lion, Dorothy and Toto travel through great peril to arrive at the Emerald City, requesting an audience with Oz, The Great and Powerful; a wizard of legendary status.
Their requests are simple: A brain for the scarecrow, a heart for the tin man, courage for the cowardly lion. And Dorothy? Dorothy just wants to get back to Kansas. Surely someone as impressive as Oz, The Great and Powerful, can grant such humble requests with a wave of his hand, or wand, or whatever. He’s a wizard, after all. One who wields incalculable awe-inspiring magical powers.
The Beneficent Oz has every intention of granting [their] requests...but first [they] must prove [themselves] worthy by performing a very small task. They must retrieve the broom stick of the Wicked Witch of the West. They journey through a place of great darkness and after enduring peril after peril, they retrieve the broomstick. They return triumphantly to Oz, who is then revealed to be nothing more than an ordinary man. He has no magic for them. Instead, he gives them outward signs of what they’ve demonstrated that they already possessed. A diploma for the scarecrow, a heart shaped clock for the tin man, and a medal of valor for the cowardly lion. And for Dorothy, a hot-air balloon for the trip back to Kansas. I will conveniently ignore Glinda the Good, because she ruins the whole illustration for the purposes of this sermon. I always found her kind of annoying, anyway.
Why do I mention this at all on Christmas Eve? I do so, because one of our tendencies is to adopt a wizard-like attitude when it comes to God. We see God as a great and powerful wizard, a wish-granter. And we can experience profound disappointment, or even a crisis or loss of faith, when God doesn’t perform according to our expectations. In a case like that the problem isn’t with God, but rather with our expectations. We often have a hard time accepting God on God’s own terms. “6For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” You’ll notice that “Wizard Extraordinaire” is not among that list of descriptive titles.
The man who is the Wizard of Oz gives to the four supplicants four very ordinary objects. God came into the world by very ordinary means. What could be more ordinary, after all, than a baby? An infant.
“2The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined.”
I’m probably not alone when I say that the part of the Wizard of Oz that I always found to be the scariest was not when Dorothy was trapped in the castle. It wasn’t during any of the times when they encountered the Wicked Witch of the West as they traveled the Yellow Brick Road. No, the scariest part for me was, of course, (can anyone guess?) the Flying Monkeys.
By that time the atmosphere of the film is very murky indeed. With eerie bird cries and gargoyle-faced gnarled trees, a sign states: "Haunted Forest, Witches Castle, 1 mile" and "I'd Turn Back If I Were You." The quartet carry their weapons: a gun, a giant wrench, a net, and a spray gun of Witch Remover. The Lion reads the sign and turns around, ready to comply, but the others grab him firmly and turn him around. After the Tin Man has been mysteriously lifted into the air and dropped with a loud clanging noise to the ground, the Lion wrings his tail and says, “I do believe in Spooks, I do believe in Spooks, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do believe in Spooks, I do believe in Spooks, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I DO!”
The Witch watches them from her crystal ball. She turns to the captain of her squadron of Winged Monkeys and issues commands for an assault: “Take your army to the Haunted Forest and bring me that girl and her dog. Do what you want with the others, but I want her alive and unharmed. They'll give you no trouble, I promise you that.” Suddenly, Dorothy and her friends are set upon by the army of bluish, terrifying winged monkeys sent by the Witch. The attackers swoop down, tear apart the Scarecrow, and snatch Dorothy and Toto. They kidnap Dorothy and Toto and carry them off to the mountaintop castle. In a place of great darkness, the four main characters are assaulted by an inhuman force that has no regard for their general well-being. There only concern is for Dorothy; and that only because she is the one who possesses something of great value.
The world can be a dark place. This is nothing new. Isaiah refers to the world as a place of darkness and he wrote about 2,600 years ago. We’re all well aware of the ongoing destruction in Ukraine. And there are the other conflicts that no longer garner headlines and demand our attention, which nevertheless continue to grind on in places like Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Yemen. The economy of not just our own country, but the entire world, is struggling to get a handle on inflation, which makes itself known in every aspect of our lives. Peoples’ retirements are affected. Peoples’ jobs are affected. Our cities and neighborhoods are affected. Our families are affected. And, of course, there’s been the total redefining of ourselves, our lives, our families, our culture, really, by a disease that three years ago none of us had ever heard of. The flying monkeys would appear to be everywhere, given free rein to do what they wish, snatching away anything that is of value.
A number of people have said to me, “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas”. But isn’t this just another example of this same kind of “magical thinking”? Just because its Christmas, we think everything should be better; That somehow the magic of Christmas should dim our awareness of what’s going on around us.
But that’s not what God promises us. God does not promise that all the ills of the world will be magically resolved in time for Christmas. God doesn’t promise that ever, for that matter. God doesn’t promise an end to the flying monkeys or the wicked witches. God doesn’t even promise to dispel the darkness.
What God does promise is that, in the midst of darkness, light will shine. There’s a story about the author, Robert Louis Stevenson. The author of Treasure Island, lived in Scotland in the nineteenth century. As a boy, his family lived on a hillside overlooking a small town. Robert loved to watch the lamplighters who went about with a ladder and a torch, lighting the gas lights for the night. One evening his parents asked him, “What in the world are you looking at out there?" With great excitement he exclaimed: "Look at that man! He's punching holes in the darkness!"
The birth of Christ is a hole in the darkness. A bursting forth of brilliant light that illuminates all that which is around us. “2The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined.” “[The] angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’”
We will always have the darkness of the world with us. But the light of Christ continues still to burn brightly. It burns and shines within each and every one of us. It gives us the strength and the courage we need to stand up in spite of the darkness and to say, “Yes, but…” Yes, the world is a dark place, but God is with us. Yes, the world can be frightening, but God is with us. Yes, the world is full of flying monkeys, but God is with us.
God is not magic. God is wonderful counsel. God is strength. God is everlasting love. God is peace. God is with us.
Usually when we leave here, having lit our candles for a few minutes while singing “Silent Night”, we blow them out and throw them in the trash can on the way out the door. I’d like to ask you not to do that this year. Take your candle home with you. But don’t throw it out there, either. And don’t allow it to end up in your junk drawer. Don’t take it home with you just to make me happy. Take it home with you as a physical reminder of the light of Christ. Take it home with you, place it in a candle holder, and light it again. Allow that light to burn and to shine. All the light to fill your home. Allow the light to fill your heart. Allow that light to be the light of the world.
AMEN