{"id":3445,"date":"2023-01-01T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-01-01T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3445"},"modified":"2023-01-15T10:56:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T15:56:51","slug":"christmas-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2023\/01\/01\/christmas-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 2:13\u201323<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

The dawn is breaking, slowly, over the snow-blanketed city.\u00a0 You have assembled yourself for the morning, with your coat and hat and mittens.\u00a0 You stand like a medieval knight with his standard, you with your broom or shovel in hand, and dawn is breaking slowly, say in upstate NY, say in Buffalo, a week after the great snowfall.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare knew the beauty and terror of the dawn:<\/p>\n

The grey eyed morn smiles on the frowning night<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Form forth days path and Titan\u2019s fiery wheels<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now ere the sun advance his burning eye<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The day to cheer and night\u2019s dank dew to dry<\/em><\/p>\n

The great poet and playwright knew, as was said of our Lord in his earthly ministry, knew the heart of man.\u00a0 He knew the complexity of moral judgment.\u00a0 He knew the ambiguity of corporate and governmental life.\u00a0 He knew the strange subterranean interplay of spirituality and sexuality.\u00a0 He knew the elusive mobility of truth, which, to be spoken, requires a lifetime of rapt attention, and sometimes years of isolated pain and imprisonment. What this country may need to start a new year is neither a chicken in every pot nor a good 5 cent cigar nor a plain, new, fair, or square deal, but, a rivetingly taught course or two in Shakespeare! \u00a0Or Paul of Tarsus.<\/p>\n

As you start, at whatever dawn you face, ponder this Good News:\u00a0 Christmas gives strength to start.\u00a0 A new year?\u00a0 Strength to start.\u00a0 A new path?\u00a0 Strength to start.\u00a0 A new relationship?\u00a0 Strength to start.\u00a0 A new diagnosis?\u00a0 Strength to start.\u00a0 A new commitment?\u00a0 Strength to start.\u00a0 A new situation? Strength to start.\u00a0 Christmas offers strength to start.<\/p>\n

In the first place, we may plainly affirm that together we find a shared strength at Christmas.<\/p>\n

We listen to the words of St Matthew, the story of the Magi, and we hear them as God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 The words of Scripture are \u201choly\u201d in that they stand over against us, they take the measure of our self-deception, they outlast our passions and defeats and very lives.\u00a0 These verses will live longer than we, and rightly so. They will still be heard when we will not be. They will be heard when YOU will not be. So, \u00a0they have the power to help us to begin the service, the day, the week, the year, looking out in Christmastide at a new year.<\/p>\n

The words of Scripture start with the whole of life in view and with the end of life in view.<\/p>\n

We too must make our various beginnings, and so we are not displeased to find here an inspired manner of entry.\u00a0 By example the Kings assert strength to start.<\/p>\n

The passage opens the year with joy, and leads us into a new vocabulary of love and delight. Words of wisdom, that the Kings celebrate, and which will adorn the Gospel as the gospel unfolds.\u00a0 These words are meant to become our living vocabulary, dictionary, glossary.\u00a0 We are to learn them again as the New Year unfolds:<\/p>\n

Grace<\/p>\n

Peace<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving<\/p>\n

Saints together<\/p>\n

Gifts-charismata<\/p>\n

Guiltless<\/p>\n

Fellowship<\/p>\n

In Christ<\/p>\n

God is faithful<\/p>\n

Oh, that we would bathe ourselves at the outset of each day in such a shower of strength!<\/p>\n

For you, all of you, have been found in a new situation.\u00a0 You are \u201cin Christ\u201d. You have been seized, at least for a worship hour, and so maybe for a lifetime, by the confession of faith that is the confession of the church.<\/p>\n

Start the day strong\u2014much will befall to challenge by dusk.<\/p>\n

Start life strong in childhood\u2014much comes later to unsettle.<\/p>\n

Start with laughter and play in summer\u2014much in autumn proves more difficult.<\/p>\n

Start this New Year with strength, and like a skier carried along by gravity, you will pass by and over and around the bumps.<\/p>\n

Start this week and each week with the hearing of the Holy Word\u2014much that is less than holy will greet you later.\u00a0 Go to church on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In the second place, we may plainly affirm that the gifts of Christmas are reliable in time of need, are firm in the face of danger.\u00a0 They make us confident when we need to be and inwardly secure when we have to be.<\/p>\n

Whether we are young or mature or old, whether we are babes in Christ or approved in Christ or wise in Christ\u2014we make our starts with strength, recognizing that, as one author began one famous book, \u2018life is hard and life is a struggle\u2019.<\/p>\n

For the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the people of skill, but time and chance happen to them all.\u00a0 I once said to my father, a graduate of Boston University in 1953:\u00a0 \u2018this is not fair\u2019.\u00a0 He replied as you would have done:\u00a0 \u2018whoever told you life is fair?\u2019<\/p>\n

Life is not fair, not by a country mile.<\/p>\n

Not fair to those who suffer untimely loss<\/p>\n

Not fair to those stricken with unexpected illness<\/p>\n

Not fair to those whose limbs are taken and torn<\/p>\n

Not fair to those who should have been chosen<\/p>\n

Not fair to you<\/p>\n

Time and chance happen to all.<\/p>\n

Not fair to those of whom our south Texas weekly internet congregant, and theological poet, Rev. Milton Jordan, writes:<\/p>\n

Imagine Joseph\u2019s difficult decision. He and Mary have a child less than two weeks old. They do not have any documents to prove they are married. Visitors who have heard rumors of this new heir in David\u2019s line have come to see for themselves, and they report that Herod has also heard these rumors. Joseph knows what this means, and he knows how few options he has.<\/em><\/p>\n

With few resources, perhaps a gift or three from some of the visitors, Joseph takes Mary and their newborn child and strikes out across the country looking for safety in another land. Imagine them now, their few resources long spent, at a crowded border crossing asking for asylum in this foreign land. \u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Is this not fairly the heart of the simple gifts we shall share in a moment at the Lord\u2019s Table, and at the Lord\u2019s behest?\u00a0 It was a borrowed upper room, not a paid for condo, in which the meal was shared.\u00a0 It was a circle tinged with betrayal, not a safe protected team, within which he washed feet and lifted cup.\u00a0 It was an evening before defeat, not a twilight of victory past, during which wine and bread were given.\u00a0 It was lack that gave way at last to hope, treachery that was the doorway to a later hope, suffering, the suffering of the cross, that made way for the hope in which we now stand.\u00a0 It was Jesus giving himself to us in sacrificial love, in a week when we may have known disrespect, betrayal, and insult.<\/p>\n

Whatever harsh word you now have reason to hear and overhear, hold on.\u00a0 It is not the last word.<\/em><\/p>\n

Start with that trust and strength.<\/p>\n

Paul suffered shipwreck and lash and hunger and despond.\u00a0 Yet he could still sing with confidence:<\/p>\n

\u00a0If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He who has begun a good work in you will complete it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have you begun with the Spirit to end with the flesh?\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is the God who said \u2018Let light shine out of darkness\u2019 who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He is the beginning, the first born from the dead that in everything he might be pre eminent\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes.\u00a0 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Resolve to choose and memorize one of these verses of hope wrought in struggle, in 2023.<\/p>\n

Whatever silence and despair now accompany you, hold on.\u00a0 Your lasting friendship is in Christ.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther recounted his many attempts to find peace with God through self-discipline, through religious duty, through acts of contrition, through his own works, until at last he collapsed.<\/p>\n

At last, he found his way out from the harsh word of command from authority to obedience, and out into the meadow of hope in a calling word from wisdom to happiness, from the Kings to the Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this availed me nothing; nor did it free me from a fearful and dreadful conscience\u2026This is God\u2019s Word\u2026 this one thing God asks of you, that you honor him by accepting comfort; believe and know that he forgives your transgressions and has no wrath against you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We learn late or early that without explanation rain falls on the just and unjust alike. In time of trial, though, you may start again with strength.\u00a0 You have the love of God, the Gospel of Christ, the Grace of the Lord, the baptism of the church, the prayers of the church, the Lord\u2019s prayer, the ten commandments, the sacrament of communion, the word of absolution, and the decision of faith.\u00a0 Use them, rely on them, let them buoy you up, in time of trial.\u00a0 What more do you need?<\/p>\n

In the third place, we may plainly affirm the strength that comes from beginning with the end in view.\u00a0 Though they found <\/em>him an infant, one who does not speak, they saw<\/em> him a King, One whose voice rings out to all the world.<\/p>\n

This Christmas Sunday reminds us that the Lord Christ is both Alpha and Omega.\u00a0 When at last we set down our various tools and trades, when at last we have lost our eyes and ears, when at last our final paycheck has come, when at last the various dawns have given way to dusk and dusk and dusk\u2014here too we are in Christ and nowhere else, of Christ and no one else.\u00a0 Somehow all the little subplots and sufferings of this present time are going to find their full place and point in a greater story, the day of God, the life-span of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Today is God\u2019s, and tomorrow is God\u2019s, too. \u00a0Earth is God\u2019s, and heaven is too. Somehow, somehow, somehow\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

So, we need and want to be together, with and for each other, come Sunday, right here, right now.\u00a0 To know one another, to love one another, and then, at last, to remember one another. As our Haines, Alaska internet listener, and obituary composer, State Writer Laureate Heather Lende put it:<\/p>\n

Writing about the dead helps me celebrate the living, my neighbors, friends, husband and five children, and this place, which some would say is on the edge of nowhere, but for me is the center of everywhere (If You Lived Here I\u2019d Know Your Name , p, 9)<\/em><\/p>\n

Only such a hope can sustain travelers like us, who seek wisdom and who seek love, even as that hope has sustained the church for sixty some generations. Such a hope strengthens the Magi:\u00a0 unsung saints and heroines, and those whose names recall a sure Christmas strength.\u00a0 Some are enshrined in Scripture:\u00a0 Matthew, Paul, Mary, John. Some are known in Tradition: Ghandi, Heschel, Sadat, Teresa.\u00a0 Some are from closer experience: John Dempster, Frances Willard, Daniel Marsh, Lawrence Carter. And one, more sung than unsung now, greets us on this plaza every morning, with birds in flight, emblematic of a real Christmas strength. Only such a hope could have strengthened Martin Luther King on August 28 1963 in Washington and all the long bitter way to April 3 1968, his last earthly night: \u201cI just want to do God\u2019s will.\u00a0 And he has allowed me to go to the mountain.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve looked over, and I\u2019ve seen the promised land\u2026So I\u2019m happy tonight, I\u2019m not worried about anything.\u00a0 I\u2019m not fearing any man.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Christmas, you start with confidence about the end. You are strengthened to start in the hope of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Christmas strength.<\/p>\n

Strength in Christ.<\/p>\n

Strength in times of trial.<\/p>\n

Strength with hope for the end.<\/p>\n

Put on the whole clothing of Christ!<\/p>\n

As you stand at the dawn of the rest of life\u2026<\/p>\n

We will put it in terms familiar\u2026<\/p>\n

Put on the whole wardrobe of Christ, as you seize your shovel:<\/p>\n

Put on the sweater of grace<\/p>\n

Put on the boots of peace<\/p>\n

Put on the mittens of thanksgiving<\/p>\n

Put on the tuke of fellowship<\/p>\n

Put on the scarf of faithfulness<\/p>\n

Put on the snowsuit of sanctification<\/p>\n

Pick up the shovel of salvation<\/p>\n

And the ice-pick of hope<\/p>\n

And the salt of happiness<\/p>\n

For today, by grace, you are given a Christmas strength.<\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Matthew 2:13\u201323 Click here to hear just the sermon The dawn is breaking, slowly, over the snow-blanketed city.\u00a0 You have assembled yourself for the morning, with your coat and hat and mittens.\u00a0 You stand like a medieval knight with his standard, you with your broom or shovel in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3446,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions\/3446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}