{"id":390,"date":"2011-12-25T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-12-25T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=390"},"modified":"2020-02-18T17:12:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T22:12:47","slug":"christmas-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2011\/12\/25\/christmas-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear full service.
\n<\/a>Click here to hear the sermon only.
\n<\/a>Luke 2: 1-20<\/a><\/p>\n

Christmas is a time for stories because we begin again, at this time, to make the saving connection between our one story and the eternal story of Jesus Christ, our Christmas Presence.\u00a0 You spell that presence.<\/p>\n

When we were little, Jan and I lived out in the west, together under the Big Sky, though we did not know each other, she near Denver and I in Las Vegas, we were not to hold hands for another 15 Christmas Eves, nor to become engaged for another 20, nor for another 25 to construct a child\u2019s play kitchen at 2am, opening the box marked, a frightful warning, \u201csome assembly required\u201d.\u00a0 She was a toddler while her dad read Paul Tillich for a PhD dissertation in Denver, at the Illiff School of Theology.\u00a0 He commuted from school to church on the train, reading a book with each eye as you do in graduate school. He went there, after a master\u2019s degree in electrical engineering, on the strength of a Life magazine article titled, \u201cThey\u2019re training a new kind of preacher in Denver.\u201d\u00a0 At the same time, I was a toddler in the desert sands of Las Vegas while my dad was a chaplain at the Nellis Air Force Base.\u00a0 He went there, after undergraduate pre-medical study and divinity school in Boston.\u00a0 They were leaders.\u00a0 One the captain of the football team, the other the President of the senior class.\u00a0 They came of age when leaders who wanted to make a difference headed away from engineering and medicine, and toward the ministry. All this was 55 years ago:\u00a0 the cold war, Joe McCarthy, Elvis, the Mickey Mouse Club, Patti Page, and the hoola hoop.\u00a0 And Tillich.<\/p>\n

Paul Tillich is probably the last and only name of a modern theologian that more than 10% of contestants on a game show in our nation could recognize.\u00a0 Maybe 5%.\u00a0 His was one of the last great theological attempts, in simple yet systematic language, to connect the story of life with the story of Christ, and to do so in a way that would work, as Luke says, \u201cfor all the people\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I smiled last week when I read again his forward to the 1957 volume:\u00a0 \u201cI hope to receive much valuable criticism of the substance of my thought, as I did with the first volume\u2026But I cannot accept criticism as valuable which merely insinuates that I have surrendered the substance of the Christian message because I have used a terminology which consciously deviates from the biblical or ecclesiastical language.\u00a0 Without such deviation, I would not have deemed it worthwhile to develop a theological system for our period.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Jan, at age 3, fingered the bulbs and lights of a tree in the parsonage of Onega, Kansas, her dad read Tillich, on the train home from Denver.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He read, I know he must have, how Tillich translated the old words about faith to words more current and true.\u00a0 They are still true, and hearing them this morning can mean lasting health, real salvation.\u00a0 Said he, we receive the Christmas Presence in three modes.\u00a0 By participation.\u00a0 By acceptance.\u00a0 By transformation.<\/p>\n

First, the story of Christ grasps and embraces your story by causing you to participate in his.\u00a0 This is the whole substance of Christmas, the reason for the season, and the reason you are here this morning, or listening on the radio this morning\u2014and by the way, a special, personal Merry Christmas greeting to our faithful radio congregation today.\u00a0 You are participating.\u00a0 It is the reason the musician frets over carols, the ushers welcome you, the preacher offers a sermon, and in the beauty, the silence, the majesty of this one beautiful day within the great Day of God, you participate.\u00a0 Christ has surrounded your hurt and desire, with his healing and love.<\/p>\n

Second, the story of Christ grasps and embraces your story, somewhere along the tough road of life, by whispering to you:\u00a0 \u201cyou are accepted.\u201d\u00a0 If only you will accept the fact that deep in the heart of the universe, call it the Ground of all Being if you will, there is a happy acceptance of just who you are, the real you, the authentic only you, your one story.\u00a0 God loves you.\u00a0 God accepts you.\u00a0\u00a0 You have things you regret. Welcome to the human race.\u00a0 God accepts all that.\u00a0 You are not perfect.\u00a0 Welcome to the human race.\u00a0 God accepts that too.\u00a0 You are prone to error and certain to die.\u00a0 Welcome to the human race.\u00a0 God accepts your error and mortality.\u00a0 Because: God accepts you.\u00a0 Someday you are going to feel, believe, trust, know, understand and ACCEPT your acceptance by God.\u00a0 May it be this Christmas morning 2011.\u00a0 You are in the region, first trodden by shepherds and lowly folk, near Bethlehem of Judea, when the news broke:\u00a0 God accepts, God loves.<\/p>\n

Today, we might say, you are connected.\u00a0 I ordered a computer by phone one fall. Mistake one. \u201cWhatever else, please make sure the machine has a modem in it.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, yes, it arrived–without the modem.\u00a0 We spent fumbling days installing the wrong, then the right little piece, to connect.\u00a0 We were connected, but we had to connect with our connection, to see what condition our condition was in.\u00a0 You are connected, so connect with your connection.<\/p>\n

Third, the story of Christ grasps and embraces your story, over time, by transforming your life from one of self-centered striving, to one of centered selfhood, that frees others and loves others and gives to others.\u00a0 From self centered to centered self. You will be surprised how steadily this transformation develops, which has occurred in potential by virtue of your simple participation this morning, and whose power is felt in your own acceptance, and your accepting your acceptance, and may that be this Christmas morning, too.<\/p>\n

There is something new, loose in the universe, a Christmas Presence Who saves us by causing us to participate, by freeing us to accept, by changing us into loving people.<\/p>\n

And maybe, after he assembled the tricycle at Christmas in the mid-50\u2019s, Jan\u2019s dad made a sermon note:\u00a0 joy of participation!\u00a0 Joy of acceptance!\u00a0 Joy of transformation!\u00a0 Peace, good will to all.<\/p>\n

That same Christmas, a few hundred miles to the southwest, the midnight communion service on the Air Force base in Las Vegas was ending early on Christmas Day.\u00a0 After the last candles were dosed, a humbler, perhaps truer, quiet ritual of Christmas Presence began.\u00a0 It was the determined habit of the provost marshal on that base to spend Christmas eve and the wee hours of Christmas morning visiting those lonely airmen who walked the perimeter guard, around Nellis Air Force base.\u00a0 This particular night was a crisp, starlit Christmas eve, but very cold out in the desert.\u00a0\u00a0 Robert Redford\u2019s Desert Bloom beautifully depicts the location.\u00a0 The provost marshal asked the chaplain to go along.\u00a0 They took with them in the VW van canisters of coffee and cocoa and cookies baked by the major\u2019s wife.\u00a0 Interestingly, someone left two such canisters and four tubs of casserole in the chapel yesterday, an anonymous gift from an anonymous giver to an anonymous recipient. Through the night they drove, all around that base, a site then for nuclear testing during those early cold war years.\u00a0 They were still at it, when dawn came on Christmas Day, as it has this morning.<\/p>\n

They visited 18 posts.\u00a0 At each the routine was the same.\u00a0 The major offered the refreshments to the men (only men then) and then shouldered the man\u2019s weapon and walked off into the desert to take the man\u2019s turn at walking the half mile along the perimeter.\u00a0 The provost marshal walked each man\u2019s post, while the chaplain talked to the airmen.<\/p>\n

You know, the old English root of the word \u201cbelieve\u201d is \u201cto be near to.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had heard this story many times growing up, but I had forgotten it until a few summers, when my Dad and I were talking about the North Star, a sign of promise, and our experience with the night sky.<\/p>\n

That night was a beautiful night.\u00a0 The stars beckoned from horizon to horizon. \u00a0And cold!\u00a0 You forget how cold it gets out on the desert after the sun goes down.\u00a0 Finally the base marshal and the chaplain, my Dad, came to the flight line.\u00a0 Well past midnight, they drove on by acres of airplanes worth millions of dollars.\u00a0 Jets, prop planes, all.<\/p>\n

Along the fence, guarding these millions of dollars worth of government machinery, there stood a 19 year old airman second class.\u00a0 The major repeated the procedure\u2014offering refreshment, shouldering the weapon, and walking off into the cold desert, leaving the chaplain alone with the young man.<\/p>\n

It did not take long for the chaplain to discover that this particular 19 year old was not going to be easy to talk to. The chaplain tried everything\u2014a joke, a question, a comment, a verse of scripture, everything he could think of to draw him out.\u00a0 Nothing worked.\u00a0 Probably the chaplain in a First Lieutenant\u2019s uniform, and being a little older, was intimidating to the boy.\u00a0 So, they just stood there.\u00a0 In the silence.\u00a0 In the cold.\u00a0 In the silent still cold.\u00a0 The chaplain shivered, the airman second class drank his cocoa, and there was black, dark quiet.\u00a0 They gazed at that remarkable sky, as the dawn was coming up, and shivered and sipped\u2026.<\/p>\n

Until, at last, the boy began to talk.\u00a0 First a little information.\u00a0 Then a little more about his family.\u00a0 They some of his dreams for the future.\u00a0 Then a word about his mom and his dad and his younger brother and his baby sister.\u00a0 And there was moment of communion, I and Thou.\u00a0 A hand on the shoulder, a word of prayer, a moment of participation and a little acceptance, and the beginnings of transformation, out in the desert.<\/p>\n

What a blessing that lovely starry sky, the warm beverage, the cookies, the two older men and airman second class!<\/p>\n

Now, 55 years later, I know that what Jan\u2019s dad read in Denver is the gospel truth.\u00a0 I have seen it with my own eyes.\u00a0 The Christmas Presence changes people beginning with participation, continuing into acceptance, and completing us by transforming us.\u00a0 Now 55 years later, I know the meaning of that Nevada story, and I know its truth.\u00a0 The Christmas Presence heals us, beginning with participation, continuing into acceptance, and completing us in transformation.<\/p>\n

I just have to ask you, here in the joy of Christmas morning:\u00a0 can you accept your own acceptance?\u00a0 Can you connect with your connection?<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Mild he lays his glory by<\/em><\/p>\n

Born that we no more may die<\/em><\/p>\n

Born to raise us from the earth<\/em><\/p>\n

Born to give us second birth<\/em><\/p>\n

Hark the Herald Angels Sing<\/em><\/p>\n

Glory to the New born King<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Click here to hear full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. Luke 2: 1-20 Christmas is a time for stories because we begin again, at this time, to make the saving connection between our one story and the eternal story of Jesus Christ, our Christmas Presence.\u00a0 You spell that presence. When we were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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\/390"}],"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=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}