“Dear Max,
Your
mother and I don’t yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the
future. Your new life is full of promise…
Like
all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today.”
These
words begin a letter written earlier this month by the parents of a baby girl named
Max, a child who has already changed them. The letter goes on to describe how
life is different today than it was for her parents when it comes to health,
poverty, technology and knowledge. Max’s parents then make a vow to play a vital
role in improving life – not just for Max – but for children around the world.
The
parents then write, “As you begin the next generation of (our) family, we also
begin the Chan Zuckerberg initiative to join people across the world to advance
human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation…We
will give away 99% of our Facebook shares – currently about $45 billion –
during our lives to advance this mission…We want to do what we can, working
alongside many others.
Love,
Mom and Dad”
The
birth of Max is a game changer.
Max had been in this world barely
long enough to catch her own breath when her parents realized they were called
to play a role in helping a world of people keep their breath. Max’s birth birthed
fresh hope, bold visions, extraordinary generosity, and deep retrospection in
two parents whose gifts can now touch and transform the lives of thousands of
people.
A tiny baby his father swaddled in
a brown robe, dressing her up as a Star Wars Jedi last week has made a profound
impact.
“Your
mother and I don’t yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the
future. Your new life is full of promise.”
I cannot help but wonder if the
same words may have been pondered, penned or prayed in a borrowed barn in
Bethlehem some 2000 years ago as the child who provides more hope than any child
ever born on earth came to a young, unwed, poor mother, part of God’s plan to
transform the world in ways that even $45 billion cannot buy.
We’ve gathered tonight as people
who may not be expecting to see or hear anything new. People flock to churches
all over the world on Christmas Eve in hopes of singing the same songs we sung
last year, lighting the same small candles, and hearing the same words of
scripture about a young family making a journey to pay their taxes only to find
there is no room at the inn. Many of us know this story by heart. There are
images of it in some of the Christmas cards currently stacked on our kitchen
tables and in manger scenes we remove from their boxes every December, placing
the Marys, Josephs, and baby Jesus’ on a shelf with a couple of cattle nearby
if we purchased a deluxe set.
And while we may not expect
anything unusual to happen this night, I’m convinced that God has another plan.
The parent of this child wants everything to be different – changed – touched –
transformed because of his Son named Jesus. This child is meant to be a game
changer.
While some of you here may be able
to recall moments in our nation’s history where people were acutely aware of
the power of war, racism or a downward economy, I cannot recall a time when I
proclaimed the good news on Christmas Eve while feeling the heavy, nearly
paralyzing weight of our collective fear as a nation and world.
Uncertainty lingers in the form of
unbridled gun violence.
“Black Lives Matter” is now a
mantra that is not spoken because of one particular incident but because of
numerous incidents that tragically keep on occurring in cities across our
nation.
Darkness fills a tiny country in
the Middle East where archaeologists and scholars once flocked to see
incredible ruins while pilgrims went to walk down a Damascus street where God
caught up with Saul and transformed him into Paul, but where Syrians now flee in
hopes of finding light and life in another land.
And you and I live with the reality
that even a holiday party at a center for people with developmental
disabilities is no longer off limits when it comes to terrorists and their
tricks.
The rod of oppression is real
whether it’s the awareness of how many people in our city have no place to call
home or how the family who sat behind me at a downtown Cosi is no longer
welcome by everyone since the mother and two of her daughters were wearing a
hijab, making them known as Muslims in the same way the crosses around our
necks mark us as Christians. But we are not the target of a presidential
candidate who believe anyone professing faith in Allah may be a terrorist who
must have every aspect of their background checked before they enter our
country.
Is there anything we can do to stop
the violence, the racism, the oppression, the terrorism, the madness?
A clergy colleague has felt a
tugging on her heart recently, a sign that indicates God may be calling her to
new places. She can articulate a call to do something about gun violence, and
she keeps talking to different people about what role she might play. But she
came into my office earlier this week to share how people are not sure there’s
anything she can really do. We may be past the point of no return.
But what if the child whose birth
we celebrate tonight assures us that nothing is past the point of no return –
no person, no amount of violence, no amount of darkness, no amount of sadness,
no amount of oppression, no amount of terrorism, no amount of burden no matter
how heavy the burden might be because one has come who has increased our joy. A
child has been born for us, a son given to us, and his name is Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Jesus was brought into the world by
a Father who knew his son could provide hope for the future. This child’s life was full of promise!
Prophets foretold how he would advance human potential and promote equality in
a way that none of us can, no matter how gifted or resourced we might be.
What would it mean for us to lay
our eyes on this child tonight as though we were seeing him for the very first
time?
Imagine taking him into your arms,
and allowing his beauty to take your breath away, getting a hold of your heart.
Imagine being convinced that he has
been born into your life – a gift of
God given to you.
A child disrupts every sense of
order or schedule a family may hold.
What if this child is to do the
same for us – to awaken us in the night – anytime we see pain that we can actually
play a role in alleviating; to force us to feed someone who cannot feed him or
herself; to push us to embrace someone who can experience healing by the power
of being held by another; to tell someone we’re not going anywhere – that we’ll
sit with them through the night until everything is okay again, until the scary
thing that has entered our room is finally gone.
One of the greatest gifts offered
by a child is that a child helps us see that life is no longer about us. Our
priorities have to be placed aside as we care for a tiny person in our midst.
But that’s also the greatest gift
of this child whose birth we celebrate tonight. Jesus teaches us how to give
ourselves away more than any other person or thing can while helping us learn
that the more we give ourselves to others, the more we experience life and light
in the midst of darkness.
We may even hear the rod of
oppression being broken with our own ears!
Will you allow his birth to change
you, perhaps even transform you?
Will you allow a child to push you
to give away some of what you’ve worked hard to amass – your time, your talent
and your resources – because you now see how you are called to be a part of
healing the brokenness of the world around you?
Truly
he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace.
Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother and in his name all
oppression shall cease.
Let it be so.
Amen.
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