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Whew. Snow come and gone. Advent come and gone. Christmas Day come and gone. If I know you at all (and I think I do) many of us are a little tired around the edges. And I wonder this morning if it is at all possible that we got all the family gatherings organized, all the Christmas cards mailed off, all the right presents for the right people, all the office and neighborhood parties checked off…and didn’t actually hear the Story. And if we didn’t hear the Story to start with, then surely we’ll never get “the story after the story.”
John Betram Phillips was born in England in 1906, and died in 1982. He was ordained as an Anglican minister in 1930, and pastored a church in London called Church of the Good Shepherd. He was disappointed to find that most of the young people in his Youth Club at church had no interest in, nor understanding of, the Bible.
And so it happened that during World War II, when he and much of London spent many hours in underground air raid shelters during Nazi bomber attacks, Phillips began to translate the New Testament into more common English than the Authorized Version of his day. And to his surprise, he found his teenage students began to get interested in the gospel. Eventually he published the entire New Testament, and became well known for the Phillips New Testament in modern english.
J.B. Phillips also wrote a short story in the late 1950’s that called “The Angel’s Point of View.” In a fashion that reminds you a bit of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, Phillips imagines a conversation between two angels, one who is very young and one who is quite senior and experienced.
I want to read several paragraphs for you. The older angel was showing the younger one around the splendors and glories of the universes, whirling galaxies and blazing sons and infinite spaces. “Finally he was shown the galaxy of which our planetary system is but a small part. As the two of them drew near to the star which we call our sun and to its circling planets, the senior angel pointed to a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis-ball to the little angel, whose mind was filled with the size and glory of what he had seen.
“I want you to watch that one particularly,” said the senior angel, pointing with his finger.
“Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me,” said the little angel. “What’s special about that one?”
“That,” replied his senior solemnly, “is the Visited Planet.”
“Visited?” said the little one. “you don’t mean visited by------?”
“Indeed I do. That ball, which I have no doubt looks to you small and insignificant and not perhaps overclean, has been visited by our young Prince of Glory.” And at these words he bowed his head reverently.
“Do you mean that our great and glorious Prince…went down in person to this fifth-rate little ball? Why should He do a thing like that?”
…“As to why he became one of them- how else do you suppose could He visit them?”
The little angel’s face wrinkled in disgust.
“Do you mean to tell me, “ he said, “ that he stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?”
“I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them “creeping, crawling creatures” in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him.”
The little angel looked blank. Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension.
There’s a slightly different look at The Story. The coming of Christ. In one form or another, it grabs us. Maybe we sat in a darkened church with candles. Maybe we lit Advent wreaths with our kids. Maybe we took a walk, and somehow in the midst of all the craziness, we realized (again) that we are Visited People. Maybe God broke through and grabbed us, and every time that happens we think “I’m a different person now.”
Even when that happens, it is a very natural thing to shortly after say “Well, that was really great. God really showed up. But now it’s time to get back to my daily world.” The story was great, it moved us, but now it’s over and we very quickly have to get back to life. There’s bills to pay, jobs to work at, parenting to do. And I wonder if this same thing could have happened to Mary and Joseph.
Reading: Luke 2:25-38 [JB Phillips version]
In Jerusalem was a man by the name of Simeon. He was an upright man, devoted to the service of God, living in expectation of the "salvation of Israel". His heart was open to the Holy Spirit, and it had been revealed to him that he would not die before he saw the Lord's Christ. He had been led by the Spirit to go into the Temple, and when Jesus' parents brought the child in to have done to him what the Law required, he took him up in his arms, blessed God, and said - "At last, Lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised! For with my own eyes I have seen your salvation which you have made ready for every people - a light to show truth to the Gentiles and bring glory to your people Israel."
The child's father and mother were still amazed at what was said about him, when Simeon gave them his blessing. He said to Mary, the child's mother, "This child is destined to make many fall and many rise in Israel and to set up a standard which many will attack - for he will expose the secret thoughts of many hearts. And for you ... your very soul will be pierced by a sword."
There was also present, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, who was a prophetess. She was a very old woman, having had seven years' married life and was now a widow of eighty-four. She spent her whole life in the Temple and worshipped God night and day with fastings and prayers. She came up at this very moment, praised God and spoke about Jesus to all those in Jerusalem who were expecting redemption.
I love watching Christmas movies…do you? One reason I think I love to watch them is that they are stories which often include pictures of transformation. Think about it:
How the Grinch stole Christmas. The mean and evil Grinch has a conversion, doesn’t he? When he realizes that all the Who’s care about something beyond just their stuff, when he is reached out to by little Cindy Loo Who, his heart grows three sizes.
That’s the transformation, that’s the story. But the story after the story…is of course that the Grinch loads all of the toys and Christmas things back onto the sleigh and sleds back down the hill and returns them all to the people of Who-ville. His internal transformation brings an equally distinct action on the outside.
Or how about my favorite story, Charles Dicken’s ? Nobody is as mean and unfeeling and odius as Ebeneezer Scrooge. No friends, no family, no compassion. Dickens’ said he was “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner…hard and sharp as flint…he carried his own low temperature always about with him.”
It takes a whole night’s worth of visitations by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to melt his ice-cold heart. But melt it finally does. That’s the story. But the story after the story?
“Scrooge was better than his word…to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the old city knew.”
“The Story” brings our touched hearts, our converted souls, our renewed minds to God and then ushers in the story after the story…how that transformation is actually lived out in life. How the spark is fanned. The idea that we might be touched by God and then not have it evidenced in our lives is unlike any good story, and it is certainly unlike the gospel story.
In Mary and Joseph’s case, God meets them in a very surprising way that is going to keep in front of them what The Story was about in the first place. It wasn’t just to end with a birth. It would change their life.
Mary and Joseph have this amazing experience. Angels, announcements, God’s Spirit, a miracle pregnancy, a journey, the birth, shepherds, stars. What a story! Beyond comprehension. Then…life returns. The shepherds are back in the hills with the sheep, the star is nowhere to be seen, the baby has to be fed and changed, and there’s a carpenter’s shop waiting for Joseph in Nazareth. It fades. Life happens. They pack up their boy and go to Jerusalem to have him dedicated at the temple, as was the custom.
For us, perhaps, The Story happened this week. The build-up came, we waited through Advent, we loved on people, we sang and lit candles and welcomed Christ again into our world. Now it’s December 28.
What will keep the Story from just stopping in 2009? What will fan the flame, what will keep us so busy paying attention to what God is doing next that perhaps without realizing it we become different people over the course of a year?
Simeon and Anna’s stories have three words of advice on living the story after the story:
Simply gathering together, like this, of God’s people, to pray and sing and listen and sit still and praise and ask, to enjoy God together.
Simeon especially gives us a good picture of this. Simeon, we’re told is a godly man, a righteous man. He is sensitive to the Holy Spirit, made so over years of following God. He looks for the salvation of his people, longs for it, longs for God to come, to set things right. Simeon comes to the main worship place, the temple in Jerusalem, prompted by God. And Simeon takes the child Jesus into his arms, sings his praises to God:
“God, I’m ready to go home now and be with you.
You’ve been faithful to your promise. I’m at peace.
I’ve seen what you told me would happen.
I’ve held the Savior in my arms,
I understand that you care not just for OUR people but for ALL people. Glory, Lord, Glory, I’m ready to go.”
Intermingled in there are his thanks, his recalling God’s promises, his trust for the future, his glimmer of recognition that God is doing big things, his singing. Simeon comes to worship God, it flows off his tongue, rolls out of his heart.
Worship is one way we open the door for the story after the story. Jesus Christ has come! Jesus Christ has visited. Yes! Now what will God do in me, and around me and through me?
Worship keeps us regularly in God’s presence. It keeps us together. It helps us look for how God is showing up. It moves us to a place far beyond merely our own thoughts and lives and needs.
You know, with all this snow and ice, I kept getting these funny questions the last week or two. People kept asking if we were going to cancel worship services, or asking if I was personally disappointed to put a lot of work into things that people wouldn’t be able to come to.
Maybe I’m strange. I don’t think that way about what we do here. It’s much simpler. We gather here, whoever can gather and wants to because we are a community. And whether 10 come or 700, we come and worship. It’s not my thing, it’s not my stage, it’s not some event. This is just a place, a time where people come together to worship, to point to God together…just like Simeon was doing.
I don’t know what Mary and Joseph were thinking, we’re only told that they were amazed, absolutely amazed. I think they were reminded in worship of what God had done, and it called them forward into what He would do. It didn’t end with the birth of Jesus, it just started. A way to keep open to the story after the story.
This is a much harder word that Simeon has for Mary. “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many…and to be a sign that will be opposed.”
These rising and falling words are the language of construction, of stones for building. Jesus will be, as Isaiah (8:14) says in the OT…and both Paul and Peter say in the NT, “ a rock over which people stumble.” But for others, he will be a “precious cornerstone for a sure foundation.”
Jesus himself acknowledged the division he would bring, between followers of light and darkness, even sometimes amongst people in the same family, or people who wanted to follow him yet placed other things first in their lives.
He is destined for the falling and the rising of many and to be a sign that WILL be opposed. Following Jesus will change things. Testifying to Jesus will change things.
Most of us live in mortal fear that we will offend someone by talking about Jesus, or using his name, or living to please Him. Of course we will! It is inevitable. It doesn’t mean we should look for quarrels or try to antagonize people. It doesn’t excuse us from living with grace and compassion. But I wonder what would happen if we were more willing to let those chips fall where they may. To simply, hopefully winsomely, naturally talk more with our friends and family and strangers about Jesus, or about our following of him?
It surprises me sometimes that we won’t. In our culture, tolerance is the word of the decade. People jump up and down about their political affiliations, their sexual preferences, their feelings about hot issues, just throw them right out there and demand that other people tolerate them. Yet we are so hesitant sometimes to simply name the name of Jesus, because it might offend or divide. Well…it will! Simeon promised it to Mary. Many will stumble and fall. But others will be drawn.
People who have experienced Jesus will not close the book after the story, but will look for what else God is doing…even risking rejection. What if we were more that kind of people in 2009. What would we see happen?
. Anna, this prophetess (only woman in NT referred to by this word) is a fascinating character. She is old, somewhere between 84 and 103 depending on the translation, and she is just always hanging around church (temple)! Never leaves. Fasts. Prays. Polishes the communion silver. Fixes things. Washes tablecloths. A church lady! She’s eccentric!
If we met Anna, we would probably really wonder about her stability. But Anna shows up, takes a quick glance at what is going on, and starts to tell about Jesus. What Simeon is praying to God, Anna is telling to others. She can’t help herself. And I suspect that as Anna told people the Story, the doors opened and God did new things in her life. I suspect that if we are busy telling the story, doors are going to open. God will call us into ministry, into jobs, into relationships we never would have dreamed of.
Christ’s birth- in the world, and in our hearts…is a beginning. In 2009, what will help us to be people who not only understand the Story that we are a people visited by God…but will help us live the Story after the Story? Anna and Simeon give us a picture: The regular practice of worship. The understanding that following Jesus is not always popular. The willingness to tell Jesus’ story.
Let’s get a head start on practicing all three of those…if the ensemble will come now to lead us in enthusiastically singing “Go Tell it on a Mountain.”
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BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
