Finding the Joy

Luke 2:1-20

Heart of the Matter - A Word from Ken

The angels said it.  “Good news of great joy.”  (Or did they sing it?)  Whichever, the words conveyed the full message. 

There is perhaps, no other time of year that is so predictably filled with clichés and tired debates and endless statistical reports.  (Will the markets think we are spending enough during this critical season for retail sales and reward with a boost on the Dow?)  This week, a high level American delegation arrived in the business hub of the nation with the world’s largest population.  It is a conference designed to improve economic relations.  American corporations will be more eager to invest if the Chinese would be willing make some fundamental changes. One U.S. complaint: the Chinese save too much (average: fifty percent of their paycheck).  If the Chinese want more investment capital, leaders need to encourage average folks to save less and spend more.  Ah – the American way!

So, this time of year, it’s typical for us Christians to complain about consumerism and paganization and materialism and commercialization.  We bemoan excess expectations and overspending and the obscuring of the “reason for the season” and the deflection of “Happy Holidays.” We decry overbooked calendars, oversized trees, outrageous front yards that consume non-renewable resources and set ever more impossible standards in the race toward a neighborhood observable from space.  And when it’s done, we feel smugly righteous in our keen and witty critique.  As though anyone’s listening.

But an emptiness remains.  Something is missing.  Where’s the joy?

We can be grateful, I suppose, that movie makers have discovered the “evangelical market.”  It wasn’t that long ago.  A serious film depicting the first chapter of Matthew and the second chapter of Luke would not possibly make it to the screen; much less be carried along by a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.  But times have changed.  And in “The Nativity Story,” they got some things right. 

Mary is young.  Her father arranges her betrothal to Joseph.  She receives a message from an angel.  That message is life-changing.  Life-threatening.  The turmoil is real.  Joseph does the right thing.  He remains constant in his love for Mary and persistent in his determination to protect her through her ordeal.  An angel speaks to him, too.

And here is the heart of the matter.  In the turmoil and the pain and the fear, there is joy.  Mary and Joseph find it in their pure and undefiled love for each other.  They find it in the journey that takes them far away from home.  They find it in a forgotten stable out back behind an Inn filled to capacity.  They find it in the frightful moments of delivery; and then they find it in the child wrapped up tight in discarded blankets. 

They find joy.  Deep, satisfying, heart-filling joy.

So out there in the fields where shepherds recoil in a wonder that borders on sheer terror, the angels make a bold and timeless announcement.  Good news.  Great joy.  For all people. 

For those of us who look and listen, it’s still there.  Great joy. 

December 17, 2006

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The Wow Factor

John 1:1-14

Heart of the Matter - A Word from Ken

The ancient Greeks and Romans called them the “Seven Wonders of the World.”  They were all the buzz in the living rooms of affluent and sophisticated society leading up to the time of Christ.  Even before what we call the First Century, travel agents highlighted the seven “must see” destination spots in the “civilized world.” 

Each was an architectural and engineering marvel.  Even today, any thoughtful observer would scratch one’s head and say out loud, “How did they do that?”  The pyramids of Egypt.  The hanging gardens of Babylon (near today’s Baghdad).  The magnificent Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.  The monumental statue to the Greek sun god Helios that stood over one hundred feet tall (the Statue of Liberty from heel to head is one hundred eleven feet) at the entrance of the harbor of Rhodes.    The lighthouse of Alexandria, built three hundred years before Christ, stood four-hundred forty feet tall (about the height of a forty story building) guiding Mediterranean seafarers into port.  (Only one of the “Seven Wonders” survives to this day – the Pyramids.)

Little boys would stand at the base of any one of them, mouth agape, eyes open wide.  Wow!  Travelers would return home with stories of amazement and detailed, mind-stretching descriptions.  The wonders became bigger than life.  Story-tellers pressed all the possibilities of human language to somehow replicate the experience of seeing the wonder first hand.

The pursuit of the WOW remains with us to this very day.  The skyscrapers.  The colossal machines.  The ocean-liners.  The jumbo jets.  The bridges.  The stadiums.  They stretch the imagination.  They spark a sense of awe.  How did they do that?

These are man-made wonders.  What about the wonders of nature?  The starry sky.  The gaping canyons.  The majestic peaks.  A sunset lighting a fluffy layer of high clouds in a fiery crimson and auburn glow.  A full moon glittering its reflection on a watery ocean seascape in the dark of night.   The scent of orange blossoms on a cool brisk California spring morning.

If these experiences trigger some degree of astonished wonder in us, what happens when we peer into the manger on Christmas morning?  Look to the opening lines of the Gospel of John for some answers.

And this is the heart of the matter.  The God of the Universe, the God of gods, the Creator, the Sustainer, the All-powerful, the Everywhere-present, the God before time, the God who will ever be, the God who is Holy, the God who Redeems, the God who speaks, the God who is Judge, the God who loves, this God… took on human flesh.  Wow.

“In the beginning was the Word,” says John as he contemplates the arrival of Jesus.  “The Word was with God… the Word was God.”

“The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling place among us… and we have seen his glory.”

Wow.

December 24, 2006

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