The
birth of this baby, this new king, became a sign of hope for his people. Their
prophet, Isaiah, pronounced a loud “Yes” of hope in God’s name, when this child
was born. Isaiah took God up on God’s Covenant promises of old. Holding up this
child, he committed God to shine light into the darkness of this land, to
infuse life into this land of death. Isaiah anchored God to the people’s hope
in a name that recalled to them--and to God--who God really is: “Planner of
wonders, mighty, victorious God, Father for all the future, ruler of peace and
well-being.” It was a name that fit neither the tiny baby nor the desolate,
abandoned situation in which he was born. Instead, this was a name that made
everyone dance and sing the delight and joy of victory. It was a name born of
hope, a name that demands wholeness, justice, righteousness, and peace without
end.
Some
seven hundred years later, another tiny baby was born in a dank, dark stable
room in nearby Bethlehem. Upon these newborn shoulders lay the salvation
of the world. This baby was put down to sleep in a stone feeding trough for
animals, filled with insect-infested hay. He was born to a poor father and a
teenage mother. His parents had been summoned by the occupying powers to a
strange city, at a time when the heavy boots of soldiers could be heard
pounding back and forth across the country, with men hung on crosses in their
wake. He was born in a land in which God’s people had lost hope; wherever they
looked it was as if they saw only “distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish.”
They felt themselves “thrust into thick darkness.”[2]
The
birth of this baby was a sign of hope for all God’s people. Hearing of his
birth, the neighboring shepherds danced with delight and wonder, “praising God
for all they had heard and seen.”[3] These shepherds pronounced a loud
“Yes” of hope in God’s name, when this child was born. They took God up on
God’s Covenant promises of old and, holding up this child, they committed God
to shine light into the darkness of this land. They called on God to infuse
life into this land of death. Later Christians anchored God to the shepherds’
hope, in a name that recalled to them--and to God--who God really is: “Planner
of wonders, Mighty God, Father for all the future, ruler of peace and
well-being.” It is a name born of hope, a name that demands wholeness, justice,
righteousness, and peace without end.
You
see, our Christmas hope is not a weak, fragile shrug. It’s not a syrupy pep
talk proclaiming, “Oh well, things aren’t so bad.” It cannot be frantically
conjured up with gifts and lights and carols. It is not a vague and sentimental
“nice feeling.” Our Christmas hope is a desperately powerful thing
that brings true rejoicing in the midst of darkness. French writer Jacques
Ellul calls hope the “passion for the impossible.”[4] Hope looks out with open eyes
into a darkness where God seems absent or silent at best and demands
that God speak again. Ellul writes, “Hope means to be invited, to find the
doors shut, to be offended by that, to put in a claim that God operate in
accordance with what [God] had said.”[6]
Hope
is indeed like the birth of a child into a dark world: the powerful, living
insistence upon future and love where those things seem impossible, brought
into the world with determination and great cries, celebrated with great joy.
Indeed, true hope cannot be manufactured; it can only be born, born because of
and in spite of the circumstances surrounding it. W. H. Auden describes this
kind of obstinate hope in his Christmas Oratorio, as the
people in darkness cry, “We who must die demand a miracle./ How could the
Eternal do a temporal act,/ The Infinite become a finite fact?/ Nothing can
save us that is possible:/ We who must die demand a miracle.”[7] By bravely calling God to account, by
speaking for a God who seems silent, hope gives birth to hope. Isaiah’s hope
becomes the hope of the shepherds; the shepherd’s hope becomes the hope of the
early Church; the hope of the early Church becomes the hope of our ancestors;
the hope of our ancestors becomes our hope on this day--if we decide to
proclaim it.
Last
month, a baby boy was pulled from an incision in the womb of his intubated
mother. He was surrounded by exhausted medical personnel in plastic gowns,
masks, and face shields. Bright lights and the hiss of machinery surrounded him
on all sides. Small and premature, he was rushed to the isolation of the NICU.
This baby was born in a land of isolation and contagion, a land of Pandemic and
death. His people were tired, so tired of the struggle, and afraid, so afraid
of death. He was born in a land in which many people had lost hope; wherever
they looked it was as if they saw only “distress and darkness, the gloom of
anguish,” and they felt themselves “thrust into thick darkness.”[8]
Last
week, however, this baby’s mother was able to hold her child for the first
time.[9] She tested negative for the virus, and the tubes were pulled from her
throat. Still in the ICU, this mother held her baby boy tight and praised God for
the miracle of his birth. This mother proclaimed a loud “Yes!” of hope in God’s
name, as she committed herself to the long struggle toward health and
wholeness.
Tonight,
will we pronounce a loud “Yes” to the birth of hope and salvation? Will we take
God up on God’s Covenant promises of old and commit God to shine light into the
darkness of this world, to infuse life into this land of death? Will we anchor
God to the people’s hope, in a name that recalls to us--and to God--who God
really is: “Planner of wonders, mighty, victorious God, Father for all the
future, ruler of peace and well-being?” It is a name that can make us
dance and sing with the delight and joy of victory. It is a name born of hope,
a name born from God’s passion for the impossible, a name that leads us to live
in expectation, to pray with determination, and to act courageously
for wholeness, justice, righteousness, and peace without
end. Amen.
[1] Isaiah 8:22
[2] Isaiah 8:22
[3] Luke 2:20
[4] Jacques Ellul, trans. C. E.
Hopkin, Hope in Time of Abandonment (New York: The Seabury Press,
1973), 197.
[5] Ibid., 201.
[6] Ibid., 184.
[7] W. H. Auden, “For the Time Being: A
Christmas Oratorio,” in Collected Longer Poems, 138.
[8] Isaiah 8:22
[9] https://MyJoyOnline.com/mother-sees-baby-for-the-first-time-after-waking-from-Covid-19-coma/
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