"A Baby Changes Everything"
December 24, 2009, Luke 2:1-20, Titus 2:11-14
The Reverend Thomas C. Willadsen
It starts earlier every year. I'm not talking about Christmas decorations appearing in stores, or Christmas music on the radio...I'm talking about the complaining about how early Christmas preparations start getting earlier every year!
In the middle of November I tuned the car radio to a local station that began playing Christmas music October 30. My 8 year old son said, "Daddy, it's too early for Christmas music!" I asked him, "Would you rather hear twangy hick music or ear-splitting rock and roll?" David chose rock.
The next day I sent an email to my pal, Chuck Lakefield, sharing the conversation I had with my son.
He wrote right back and said, his station got the idea from the Presbyterians, because we moved Christmas Eve worship earlier this year.
If we think Christmas started too early this year, we can only blame ourselves.
The church's preparation season for Christmas began on Sunday, November 29, the first Sunday of Advent. For me personally the season got off to a good start because I was able to sit in the sanctuary and hear the sermon that Rosangela Berbert preached. That was a great gift to all of us. While I was sitting. Alone. In the front pew. I noticed our Chrismon tree. Most Sundays I have the worst seat in the house for looking at the tree, but that Sunday I could really get a good look. And I noticed something that really caught my attention: some of the dove chrismons are pointing down, and some are pointing up. None of the other chrismons is like that. The Alpha & Omega, or the sheep, or the cups...all the others can only be oriented one way. But the doves, symbols of the Holy Spirit, point both up and down. Or we can imagine them as rising from earth to heaven or descending from heaven to earth.
Throughout the year we have the same symbolism in the sanctuary, though we rarely notice it. In the south window there's a dove descending into an open Bible, which symbolizes that we read scripture guided by the Spirit, scripture is not words alone, but the interpretation of words. And we have this large piece of fabric art on my left, a dove rising.
Christmas is a day when we celebrate something amazing, the day we celebrate what makes Christians unique among all religions in the world. We believe that God came into the world as a baby. That this baby grew into a man whose teaching and example we try to follow. We could look at it this way, "God descended into human form-and this human rose back up." He rose as he grew, as all babies grow, but he also most importantly rose from death. We recognize and celebrate both God's descent into human form and Christ's rising at Christmas. And the Holy Spirit pointing up and pointing down helps us to experience both of these movements.
And we sing these movements too at this time of the year: "Pleased in flesh with us to dwell," we sang in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" and we also sing "Born to raise us from the earth" in the same song. Last week we sang, "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing" in "O Come, All Ye Faithful."
Music is a really important part of the Christmas season. Some of the hymns we sing in church are so familiar that we do not even realize that we are singing theology when we sing songs we have known all our lives.
One song that is new to me this year, and yes, I heard it on Mr. Lakefield's station was "A Baby Changes Everything." It's a simple, beautiful song that expresses profound truth. The title says it all, a baby changes everything.
This is certainly true in my life. Since my older son was born nearly 14 years ago-I have only set an alarm clock 12 times. Less than once a year have I needed an alarm clock! Peter's always been an early riser. And when he was little he would rouse the household to life by shouting from his crib, "Time to get up!" I am a sound sleeper, and I have a hearing loss, but my sleep patterns were altered permanently when Mary and I brought our baby home from the hospital.
A baby changes everything.
When I was new to the ministry baptisms were times of great anxiety-for the congregations I served! I was a 27 year old single guy, I didn't know nothin' about babies. After I did my first prebaptismal visit I felt pretty good. I'd held the tiny, sleeping one month old baby on my lap for nearly an hour.
But when the mother handed him to me on Sunday morning he turned into some kind of possessed, squirming snake-child. How was I supposed to contain this beast, support his little head and baptize him at the same time?
Luckily, I didn't drop him.
Five years later I remember sitting in the rocking chair with my newborn son. Just sitting, rocking, looking at his tiny face and tiny fingers, and I knew, I could feel that someone was praying for my family. I have never felt so embraced and comforted before or since.
A baby changes everything.
You know this story. We hear it every year. Here's what the angel announced to the shepherds: "I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the City of David, a savior who is the Christ! This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."
Here's how the song portrays it
Shepherds all gather ‘round/
Up above the star shines down/
A baby changes everything.
Here's how the Epistle portrays it
The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.
It could just as easily have said, "A baby changes everything."
Salvation! Good news of great joy for all people! A baby really, really can change everything. If we will let the baby lead us, if we will open ourselves to this baby.
If we welcome this baby, into our hearts, everything will change.