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Christmas
Eve 2003 The
story of the birth of Jesus has everything, doesn’t it?
It has a young mother-to-be far from home, with her husband, looking for
a place to stay and finding only a stable—a cave filled with animals.
There are sheep, cows, maybe a few chickens and the donkey that they
traveled on. Then there are
shepherds out under a starry sky, absolutely awed by a multitude of angels
lighting up the sky with their wings and song.
So we have the dusty earth and the limitless sky, and in the center of it
all is a food box for the animals. And
in that manger a newborn baby is placed carefully and lovingly by his parents. Like
all good parents, they promise to their child and to God that they will take
care of this baby and help him grow up to be who God intends for him to be.
But we know, don’t we, that this is no ordinary baby.
What’s this baby’s name? Jesus!
The long expected savior of the people. The
center of the universe is lying there on a pile of straw, helpless, dependent
upon his parents, just as each and every child is, just as each of us was.
It is an awesome thing when God gives a baby to anyone, but to have the
care of this special child was indeed a great honor.
And his mother Mary was a special woman that God chose to do a job that
would often be hard, as all parenting is, and would sometimes be harder than any
mother should have to bear. But that
part comes later. Tonight,
all we need think about is the tiny baby embodying the biggest promise
ever—that God is with us, that God loves us so much that God chose to be born
as one of us. The
gifts of this night are many—we have the promise of peace on earth, the light
that overcomes darkness, the love of God living in and among us.
The gift that means the most to me this year, however, is the gift of
hope. Hope
is what helps us go on even when we don’t have peace on earth, even when the
darkness seems stronger than the light, and even when we don’t feel or see
much love. We still have hope that
things will get better, because God has promised peace, light and love to us. The
other night Oprah Winfrey, the talented African American actress and talk show
host, was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on a program called “Oprah in Oprah
and her helpers gave each girl a doll and each boy a soccer ball, and each child
was given clothes and sneakers. Their
faces lit up like the angel-filled sky when they saw their simple gifts.
It was very touching, and it was had to watch the commercials that
interrupted this very tender program. The
commercials were filled with things that people who have money can buy but
don’t need. Oprah
was asked why she did this. What did
she hope to accomplish giving children this one Christmas party?
She told how when she was a little girl she was very poor.
One year just before Christmas her mother told her there would be nothing
for Christmas—no presents and very little food.
They all felt sad and disappointed. But
the day before Christmas there was a knock at the door and someone was there
with a turkey and some presents for the family.
Oprah never forgot that Christmas and how much hope that gave her and her
life did matter and things would get better. Oprah
went to a Catholic school and the nuns were very good to her.
They gave her hope in herself and in God.
And so now when she is rich and famous she remembers that it is her
chance to be good to others. She
wanted the children in This
is just what God was saying to us when Jesus was born: “I’m thinking of you.
I’ll remember you. I came
all this way to say I love you.” God
hopes that we remember this and that we remember to give what we can to others,
to keep hope alive. In
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Headmaster Dumbledore and Harry have a
conversation about how Harry has some of the villain Valdemort in him as well as
a lot of good qualities and real talent. He
had asked the Sorting Hat not to put him in Slytherin Hall wher the villains
were housed, but in Gyffindor, where goodness was prized.
Dumbledore beams at Harry and tells him, “It’s our choices, Harry,
that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” We
all make choices every day about how to use our abilities and our resources.
I think God must be very happy that the shy and not terribly attractive
girl named Oprah grew up to be so beautiful and generous.
It is God’s hope that we will all remember to use our gifts to make the
world a place of hope, where all children can live in peace, love and joy. One
last story: We live in a world that
is full of war this Christmas. Perhaps
the world has always been a place of conflict, yet our hope is always for peace.
The story I am about to tell happened in Bosnia about ten years ago in
the middle of a war that was tearing that country apart.
On a day in May while hungry people were standing in front of a bakery,
the only bakery in Sarajevo that still had enough flour to make bread, planes
shelled the people and twenty-two people in the bread line were killed. A
man named Vedran Smailovic saw this happen from the window of his apartment a
hundred yards away. Vedran was a
cello player, the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera Theater, which had
been destroyed in the fighting. The
day after these twenty-two people were killed, he entered the square, where
people were once again lined up for bread. What
choice did starving people have? He
was dressed in his black suit and tie which he had worn to play at the opera
every night. He carried his cello
and a chair, and he sat down and played Albinoni’s mournful “Adagio” right
there, as a sign of hope for these people. And
he came back for twenty-one days after that and did the same thing.
Today on that spot there is a statue of a man in a chair playing a cello.
But the real monument is not to his music but to “the hope that beauty
could be reborn in the midst of a living hell.”
(Joan Chittister) He
was not going to live without hope, and he was determined to share this hope
with those who had no choice but to put themselves in harm’s way. There
are many people tonight who are vulnerable, just like these people in the bread
line, just like the children raising themselves in As
a sign of this hope, I have a small gift for each child—a red rope of hope.
It is a bit like a cello string. It
is also like “tying a string around your finger to help you remember
something.” I hope that you will
take this red rope and tie it on your Christmas tree as a reminder to always be
a person of hope—and to give a life-line to all, according to your abilities
and our resources. I
have composed a little poem—a piece of doggerel—to go with the red rope of
hope. My husband said, “You’re
not really going to use that are you,” but yes, I am.
It is so bad it will help you remember! Remember, Amen! |
