God’s way of making the world safe for children is to risk becoming a child and leading us into the way of peace.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Christmas, year A
Texts: Matthew 2:13-23

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

This is a brutal story. A violent, paranoid king murders children to calm his fear.

It doesn’t help to say “at least Jesus survived.” It’s still a terrible story that’s not very welcome just days after celebrating Christmas. But every three years we hear this story on the First Sunday of Christmas. And this year, this Sunday falls on December 28, which actually is the feast of the Holy Innocents on the calendar.

This story hits far too close to home. The death of the children at Annunciation this past year was in our neighborhood. But there are so many massacres of children and adults all over this country on such a regular basis it’s hard to keep them straight. And in these days, to see a particular population targeted mercilessly by a ruler, well, that hits pretty close to home, too.

So why do we have to hear this now, at this time of year? Who cares if the tradition is that we do – can’t we just focus on “all is calm, all is bright” and have a respite?

We could. Except that misses the whole point of Christmas.

This world isn’t safe for children, or for the vulnerable. It’s incredibly dangerous.

And that’s why God came to us this way. God risked the salvation of the entire world on becoming one of us as a child in a world dangerous for children. God came to live with us, to grow as we grow, to bring about a healed world. Not to take over the world and fix it by force. But to lead the world back into love of God and love of neighbor. Even if the world killed the Son of God.

God cannot force us to be good. All the power to create a universe can’t do that. God can only lead us to be good. Lead us to be loving. Invite us to be our true selves, as God made us. Reveal the true power of self-giving love.

And the stakes are enormous. It’s entirely possible that this plan will fail, that people will go on being evil and the world will never get better. The last 2,000 years haven’t been promising.

But what if we’re missing the truth the good news, right in front of our ears?

You know when a baby or a young child has a meltdown, full volume?

It’s nearly impossible to hear yourself think. You can’t talk them through it, they’re screaming too loud. You can’t reason with a young child in such a state, either.

That’s God’s problem with us. Our noise, our conflict, our unwillingness to be changed, make it nearly impossible to hear what God is doing. Nearly impossible for God to get through to us.

There’s a stanza in “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” that mostly gets omitted from hymn books. But that stanza, the one usually omitted, speaks as none of the others do to the pain and suffering of a world that is dangerous for children, a world full of oppression and wickedness. It says:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And warring humankind hears not the tidings which they bring.

For 2,000 years the world has suffered in spite of the angels’ song of peace on earth, good will to all. The noise of our chaos, our fighting, our self-centeredness, our fear, overwhelms the song of the angels. Our need for God to be what we want God to be instead of who God really is closes our ears.

To be fair, from our point of view this plan isn’t a good one.

It’s inefficient, it’s risky, it makes little sense. It would have been neater and cleaner for God to take over the world and bring peace by force. And some days we wish God would do that. That’s our noise, too, our yelling – we can see only the way we would make things right. Anything else seems weak and ineffective.

But what if we actually stopped our complaints long enough to hear what God is doing, and has done? To understand that God has come to be in our hearts, to live with us and to change us. To bring peace to our lives and world through you. Through me. Through all who listen.

Love that is forced is not love. But love that is given, love that is willing to lose everything, that love has the strength to face the suffering and evil of this world and transform it into the peace on earth the angels promised. The peace on earth God always intended.

This is how God will make this world safe for children. And for you.

By putting you and me in front of them with our love. By changing our hearts so we work to make this world safe for them. By leading you, and me, and all people by the hand, until all are living in love of God and neighbor. That’s always the plan. And if you listen deeply, you’ll hear that in fact this love and peace has spread around the world in spite of all the evil and pain. It has touched you. It has touched others through you.

And if you can’t hear that, well, here’s the last line of that omitted stanza:

“Oh, hush the noise and cease your strife, and hear the angels sing.”

That’s where you can start today. Hush the noise of your complaining that God doesn’t come like you want and listen to the joy that God is already here. Hush the noise of your struggles with yourself and with others, the noise of self-centeredness, the noise of shouting at each other, the noise of hatred, the noise of wars, the noise of your fears, the noise of your mind overwhelmed by so much.

Hush all that noise and listen to the peace God is actually giving you. And all people. Listen to how this will actually work. Listen to the angels sing. They’ve got something very important to say.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

If you want to see what the Triune God is really like, look at Jesus. If you want to know what you could really look like, start there, too.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day
Texts: Hebrews 1:1-4, John 1:1-14 (adding v. 18) (also referring to Luke 2:1-20 and other Scriptures)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

We assume God is in disguise on this day.

The almighty and eternal Triune God hides all that glory and God-ness inside a little baby, born to a poor refugee family in the Middle East. The Trinity hides in a human infant, with human DNA, vulnerable, weak, threatened. As Martin Luther taught us to sing and to wonder: “O Lord, you have created all! How did you come to be so small, to sweetly sleep in manger-bed where lowing cattle lately fed?”[1]

But today the writer to the Hebrews declares a different wonder: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory,” they write, “and the exact imprint of God’s very being.”

The Triune God isn’t in disguise in Jesus at all. In Jesus everything true about God is known.

It isn’t how we’ve usually understood Christmas, for good reasons.

One is John’s proclamation: the Word of God from before all time, through whom all things were made, without whom not one thing was created, took on human flesh, lived among us. Isn’t that God hiding all God’s glory in that little baby?

And Paul has told us that Christ did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but took on our human flesh, became obedient even to death. (Philippians 2) Isn’t that God setting aside all God-things to become one of us?

Hebrews doesn’t quarrel with either John or Paul. What Hebrews declares is that being born among us is not God changing, or hiding God’s true essence. It is God revealing the exact truth about God. “Not regarding equality with God as something to be grasped” is actually God’s deepest nature, not a new thing. God taking on human flesh, living among us, is the only way to truly know and see God. John tells us that himself today.

Because the Son is the exact imprint, literally the exact engraving, of God’s very being.

If you want to see what God looks like, Hebrews says, look at Jesus. Look at this vulnerable, weak, poor, oppressed baby – it’s the exact imprint of God. It’s who God is. Follow this vulnerable baby to adulthood and see Jesus, the one who guides all to the heart of God. Who continues to be vulnerable, and apparently weak. Who reveals God’s deepest love in dying on the cross. All this is God’s true identity.

And, Hebrews says, the Son is – is – the reflection of God’s glory. Not a hiding of it. Not something we have to wait till Transfiguration to see. Risky, vulnerable, self-giving love, willing to die for another, willing to trust us enough to be a fragile baby in our midst, that is – is – the reflection of God’s glory, not a disguise covering God’s glory.

This completely changes our talk of God.

Everything that we wonder about God, ask about God, fear about God, are confused about God, is answered in Jesus, the Son, Hebrews says.

So, is God just? Look at Jesus and you find the answer: yes. Does God care for and identify with those who are on the margins, those who hunger and thirst both physically and spiritually? Look at Jesus and you find the answer: yes. Can God forgive and love those who hurt and harm, who sin, even greatly? Look at Jesus and you find the answer: yes.

Does God believe power and force and violence are the way to heal the creation, make things right? Look at the baby Jesus and you find the answer: no. Look at the adult Jesus, the life he taught, the path he walked, and you find the answer: no. Can God overcome evil and death without power and force and violence? Look at the crucified and risen Christ and you find the answer: yes.

The Son reveals the truth of the Trinity.

This completely changes how you can see yourself, too.

In Genesis 1, God says, “let us create humanity in our image, according to our very being.”

You are, I am, all people are, made in the very image of God, too, created according to God’s very being. When you see Jesus, you see the completion of that image, God in God’s fullness. The exact imprint, the reflection of God’s glory.

But you, and I, and all people, are created according to that same divine blueprint, that same divine Logos as John calls it. And God said, “it is good,” when God made us, remember?

We certainly live in ways that debase that image, that aren’t good. The evil humans have done grieves us and grieves God. It builds up and corrupts over time to the point where this world is overrun by systems and structures that perpetuate evil and oppression. And each of us is capable of doing our own harm, our own evil. Living against our true nature.

But never forget: you are made in God’s image. Your true nature cannot be denied.

And if you’ve covered up that image, or marred it, or need to remember what God really looks like and what you could really look like, well, start today.

In the manger. Here you see the exact imprint of God’s very being. The reflection of God’s glory. All you need to know about the Triune God is shown here. And in the love and path Jesus taught and walked all the way to the cross, all you need to know about your love and path are shown. In rising from the dead, the Son revealed God’s vulnerable, self-giving love can never be overcome. Not even by death. Not even by you.

God’s not in disguise today. Neither does your God-image need to be hidden. Look to the manger and see God’s glory. See God’s truth and yours. And rejoice, because God only can be known in someone small and fragile and weak like you. Like me.

It’s who God really is. And who you really are. And it will change the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

[1] From ELW 268, “From Heaven Above,” stanza 9, Martin Luther, 1483-1546; tr. Lutheran Book of Worship, copyright 1978.