A few years ago, a
clergy colleague was sitting in his living room on a late December afternoon,
snow was gently falling, he was enjoying a football game on the television, I
am guessing it was probably not the Bills, when he heard the creak of the front
door. Not wanting to miss the play he
was watching he didn't get up right away up to see what was going on.
A few moments later, he opened his front door
and noticed a large box sitting on the
stoop nicely wrapped, a beautiful silver bow on top- –there
were fresh tracks in the snow,
but the person had dropped off the box
had vanished into thin air. He carried the box back
into his living room, gently dusting the snow off- he noticed that there wasn't a label on the box. Curiosity struck my
friend – this present wasn't going under the tree to wait for Christmas- he
told me that he just had to see what was inside right away-He untied the bow,
pealed off the paper and opened the box- as he removed some of the tissue paper
– he noticed a one block inside.
The block had an “I” on
it. He looked at the block- mulling this
over in his mind- thinking “what could this possibly mean?” -the light-bulb
went off – it registered – the “I” –
it must all be about me.
As he was about to throw
the box away, my friend noticed that there two more blocks nestled in the tissue
paper on those blocks the letters L
and E. He played with his three blocks for a moment
and realized the blocks spelled “LIE.”
Immediately my friend
thought- does the person who left this for me think I am living a lie. Upset he was about to throw the box and the
blocks in the garbage when he noticed “V”
nestled in the tissue paper. Quickly he
realized that the word wasn’t lie it spelled- EVIL even more upset- he wondered have I done something that
someone thinks is EVIL.
Again ready to throw
the box away- he notice a few more letter in the corner of the box underneath
all of the tissue. For a few moments, he
fooled around with the letters trying to figure out just was this meant- he
arrange them into BE EVIL, was this some sick kind of joke ---but that
didn’t work -
Finally after 10 or so
minutes of arranging and rearranging the blocks my friend realized the gift of
the blocks were meant to spell the word “believe” “Believe.”
According to Merriam
Webster’s online dictionary the word believe means --- to accept something as true, genuine, or real as well as to have a firm religious faith.[1]
Tonight [today] is about
believing- not in Santa Claus- even though the last time my kids checked NORAD
radar was tracking Santa delivering presents in Greenland.
Tonight [today] is
about believing, believing in something
greater than Santa Claus.
Tonight [today] is
about believing in something that so was important that people long ago-
reoriented time around the event. Every once and a while there are events that
change the face of history—events that we say we will always remember where we
were when- when John F Kennedy was shot- or when the planes flew into the towers on September
11th but there has been only one event so important that humankind
decided to reorient time around it. The birth of Jesus Christ (BC became AD)
Tonight- today we believe
in the words that the Gospel writer John spoke in his opening prologue – that
the word [Jesus] became flesh and dwelt among us.
Tonight- Today- is
about believing that God is in the game- that God is no longer a distant and
far off being, sitting on throne in some remote corner of the universe, but
that God has stepped into flesh in the person of Jesus
Christ and dwelt among us.
And because we believe
that God is in flesh- because we believe in Jesus as savior —we can take hold
of the many promises that prophets speak at this time of year. Promises like the one the
prophet Isaiah spoke about-[a few moments ago]
that because God is in the game- people no longer live in a land of deep
darkness, but instead, a light has shined upon. Or from the words of
Titus-- “for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”
There is another word
that can be made with the blocks that spells believe--- that is the word is “live”. The invitation of
Christmas, the invitation of Christ to his followers is not only to believe
that God is in the game, but that we might live a life that shows we believe
that God is game, that God has stepped into our world. That God became flesh and dwelt among us.
Do we believe? - Do we
live as if we believe? AMEN
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