The Old South Church in Boston

Finis Origine Pendet

Sermon by Elizabeth R. Goodman

Luke 2: 8-20

December 31, 2000

The characteristics of a good story are, first, that, as you are reading, you cannot guess where it will take you and, second, that, when you have finished, it’s clear that it couldn’t have gone any other way, it couldn’t have reached any other ending but this. So advised my creative writing professor in college, that a story sets its own rules and then is obligated to follow them. It creates its own universe and then must never step outside of it. Beginning with certain elements of origin – setting, circumstance, and a cast of characters – the writer, like a scientist conducting a chemical experiment, must hold these elements constant in order to discover how they react to one another. To its characters the story must stay true. Of its setting the writer must never lie. And the ability to do this is what separates the students from the masters of the craft.

Consider Robert Penn Warren, as he begins his novel All the King’s Men, “To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.” The paragraph continues, though now in warning, that the road is so straight it could hypnotize you as you drive, and your wheels could catch on the curb as you swerve to where your car will fall into the ditch by the side of the road. And you won’t make it, of course. But no one will notice that anything has gone wrong until the black column of smoke rises above the field of green cotton rows. What a perfect way to begin a novel about a well-intentioned lawyer from the back-water South who heads north to Washington to serve as a politician. And he is a good politician, and new, but the straight path he takes in a quest for influence seems to hypnotize him, and of course, in the end, it is this will to power that destroys him, of course because this combination of elements could not have reached any other ending but this. Such a beginning could only lead to such an end.

My professor in graduate school took it one step further. She claimed that good writing tells the whole story in the first sentence. Consider these words, she would say: “Call me Ishmael,” these words of Herman Melville, perhaps the most recognized opening sentence in all of American literature, these words that open up to the reader a universe populated by characters of biblical proportion and situations to match, a universe seen through the eyes of an outsider, whose real name we perhaps never learn, but whose nickname reveals all we need to know. He is Ishmael, one of society’s castaways who makes his home in the wilderness and makes friends of foreigners. And following a seemingly cosmic battle between good and evil, between the whale Moby Dick and the ship captain Ahab, he is the only human left alive, though still cast off amidst the wreck of the ship, still alone in the wilderness, kept afloat by the coffin of his only friend. Indeed, he may as well be dead.

And we might have known it would end this way. Given the elements of origin—a socially exiled stranger setting out into the wilderness of the sea, there fallen captive to his captain who was hell-bent on destruction—we might have known it would end this way, because the end of a good story depends upon the beginning. Be it the first sentence or the first scene, the end of a good story depends upon the beginning, where the writer has planted a seed that will only become what it is to become. Be it the first sentence or the first scene, in a story well told, told in truth, told as if to testify, the end depends upon the beginning, in Latin, finis origine pendet.

And so this morning we go back to the beginning in order to find out where our story may take us, in order to find out where our story may end. This morning we go back to the beginning, as every year the church calendar brings us back, to that first Christmas eve, to that barn in Bethlehem, in the region where shepherds were living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. So we go back to the beginning in the words of a writer who was truly a master of the craft, to the time when an angel of the Lord came to those fields, and the glory of the Lord shone around those shepherds, and they were terrified. So we go back to our beginning as a people of faith, as told by the most masterful of gospel craftsmen, the Evangelist behind the book of Luke, who, like that angel so long ago brings us this morning good news of great joy for all the people. So we go back to this scene that has inspired so many retellings, in Sunday School pageants and Christmas carols and overwrought sermons written in the hope of improving upon perfection, back to this beginning that is perhaps, in and of itself, our favorite story of all.

I know it is for me. Even still it raises bumps on my skin. Even still, after so many times hearing it, I can only respond in the words of the Christmas carol, In Dulci Jubilo, “Would that we were there. Would that we were there.”

And yet for our writer it was an afterthought. The nativity narratives, far from being the focus of the gospel message, were in fact an afterthought. The conception and birth of Jesus, far from carrying the festival weight they do today – rivaling if not surpassing Easter – in the first century were the last aspects of Jesus’ life to be considered. In the case of Luke’s writing, the birth narratives were the last to be included in the larger work of Luke and Acts. These were a late entry, for it was not originally the nativity of Jesus, but his resurrection, that revealed him as the Christ. It was not the birth, but the re-birth, of Christ that set the gospel message into motion.

Such is the focus of Paul’s letters and preaching, the earliest Christian teachings we have in evidence. But at the time of the writing of the gospels, later in the first century, it was not only Jesus’ death and resurrection that inspired a Christian faith; it was his life as well, as it led up to this dramatic ending and radical new beginning. And so the gospel of Mark, the first of the four, tells the story of his baptism, prefiguring his death and re-birth, when the Spirit of the Lord descends upon Jesus like a dove and a voice speaks, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Indeed, it is commonly believed that Luke’s gospel originally began with this same story, the same image prefiguring the Christian revelation, this baptism when Jesus’ identity is made known even as his purpose remained a mystery. But something called our Evangelist Luke further back in time. Something stirred in him to make a change, calling him further back to the beginning, bringing as witnesses his readers to that barn in Bethlehem, in the region where shepherds were living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Something inspired him, and, in the words of one scholar, “On the implicit principle that the child is the father of the man, the miraculous aspects of Jesus’ public life were read back into his origins.” On the implicit principle that the child is the father of the man, our Evangelist brings us back to meet the child, back still more to witness the infant through the watchful praise of the shepherds, back to the moment when he was first conceived by the Spirit, back to the moment when he was first imagined by Mary, his mother, the handmaid of the Lord.

On the implicit principle that the child is the father of the man, on the implicit principle that the end depends upon the beginning, Luke brings us to Bethlehem. On the principle that finis origine pendet, Luke introduces to us the elements of this miraculous universe, a barn, a manger, shepherds and flocks of sheep, this universe of ordinary things into which God comes to dwell, this universe of flesh and blood and dirt and laboring pain into which has come an incarnation of the divine, revealed in history to reign in eternity. On the principle that the end depends upon the beginning, Luke brings us back in order to witness God, ushered into the world by a multitude of the heavenly host, praising and singing , “Glory to God in the highest heaven,” even as God was here in the midst of humanity, in all its humility and poverty and need.

And all who witnessed were, as now, full of wonder. And all who heard it were amazed, but Mary.

When the shepherds, hearing the announcement from the angel of the Lord that there would be a sign for them, a child wrapped to be swaddled in bands of cloth, they went with haste to find Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. And when they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary.

In that region, where there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and, lo, the angel of Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid, and the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in manger;”

In that region, where suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favors;”

In that region, when the angels had left them, and gone into heaven, and the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us,” and they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger, and they made known to them what they had been told about this child;

In that region, all who heard this were amazed at what the shepherds told them, but Mary, but Mary, who, instead of praising as before, confessing, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord,” silently treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

The shepherds returned to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. But Mary, keeping silent, treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. In another translation, Mary kept with concern all these events, interpreting them in her heart.

Mary kept with concern all these events: an angelic proclamation that this is the day of salvation, when has been born a Savior, the Messiah, who is the Lord; and a sign given that this promise of salvation has been fulfilled, the swaddled infant in the manger; and the heavenly hosts appearing as if the two realms, the earthly and the divine, have come together as one.

Mary kept with concern all these events, interpreting them in her heart. But not just these events, others as well, the events that took place further back toward the beginning, when this child, born to her, a virgin, was conceived by the Holy Spirit who came upon her, as the power of the Most High overshadowed her, in order to beget through her a holy child, the Son of God.

She kept with concern all these events, interpreting them in her heart. She is the only witness to these events of Jesus’ nativity who also plays a part in the later narratives of his ministry, and she stays silent about what she knows, keeping with concern all these events, interpreting them in her heart. She is the only one who can testify to the true identity of Jesus, who is the Christ, and she keeps this testimony to herself. She is the only one who knows, as the shepherds have gone from this scene and the night has enveloped the young family as if keeping them secret, and she holds this revelation silent, interpreting it in her heart. She is the bridge between the narratives of Jesus’ birth and those of his ministry, and she never identifies herself, as God’s handmaid, or her son, as God’s son.

For in spite of what the angel, in words intended to comfort, has said, “Be not afraid,” Mary must certainly be afraid. For what young mother doesn’t fear for her child? What young mother doesn’t fear for the fate of her first-born? I knew a woman once whose fear was so great that in discerning whether or not to become a mother at all, she explained it like this: Some think that children are just small people. But to her, they were like paper boats, created for an environment in which they will all too soon disintegrate, made for a world in which they will eventually die.

But Mary’s fear is not just for herself, and not just for her son. As well she must certainly fear for the promise that has been made to the world through her, the promise that was prophesied by God through Isaiah: that this child given to her is the great light for those who have walked in darkness; that her son is the Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace, on whose shoulders shall be built the government of God, a reign of justice and righteousness for all people; that her son is the Lord in whom the spirit of wisdom and understanding finds rest, in whom faithfulness shall dwell; that her son is the Lord who shall serve as a stronghold to the poor, to the needy, to those in distress, as a shelter from storms and a shade from the heat; that her son is the one who God has anointed to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to open the prisons of those who are bound, to comfort all who mourn, to wipe away the tears of those who weep, and to swallow up death for ever; that her son is the Savior who has come to smite the earth, to destroy its kingdoms and empires, and to establish the rule of the Love of God as everlasting to everlasting.

Truly, Mary’s fear is not just for herself, and not just for her son, who, if he is indeed the Messiah, will no doubt incite many enemies during his life. Her fear is as well for the promise of God that has been made to the world through her, a promise that humanity needs greatly to be fulfilled, but that we may reject with violence and force. For this is a promise that threatens our will to power and our lust for control. This is a promise that threatens our material greed and our mean-spirited ways, as we prefer to own rather than to share, as we choose privacy over community, deprivation over communion, as we wage war for the sake of our gain instead of living in love for the sake of Emmanuel, God with us.

Truly, Mary’s fear is not only that Jesus will incite the enmity of empires like Babylon and Rome, but that he will as well incite the enmity of the empire of his own people, the enmity of the empire of God’s own people, these empires that each of us builds within, out of our frailty and folly, out of our fear and lack of faith, empires that each of us builds in order to protect ourselves from the truth: that we are none of us “self-made men,” that our existence is not independent and of our own will, but that we depend on God our Creator, whose will and word brought us into being; but that we depend on God for life and sustenance and then at last for salvation; but that we depend on God as an infant depends on his mother, as on that first Christmas Eve Jesus depended on Mary, as on that first Christmas Eve God depended on humanity, to receive that which God had to be revealed.

Truly, Mary’s fear is that Jesus will incite the enmity of the people to whom he was given, for he reveals to the world the ultimate threat, that in God nothing will be the same, that through God everything we know will be changed, every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low, the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places made plain.

Truly, Mary’s fear was foresight. We know this now, even as we revel in our Christmas joy and resolve ourselves for a happy new year. We know this now, for casting a shadow on Christmas is as ever the looming cross. Lurking behind this glorious birth we know awaits a gruesome death.

And yet we also know that this is not the end of our story. We also know that Jesus’ death, the death of Christ, the death of God, is not our end even as it seems to dwell in this beginning. Jesus’ death is not God’s final word, now nailed to a cross ever to remain silent. Even as it lies dormant in his nativity, in the secret concern of his mother, whose silence aims to keep him safe, the crucifixion of our God is not our end.

It is not our end because the nativity is not our beginning.

Our beginning as a people of faith, as the people of Christ, as the people of God, begins not with Jesus’ birth. Ours is a story that begins, “In the beginning.” Truly ours is a story that begins, in the words of another translation, “When God began to create.” Our story begins with these elements of origin: the character, an eternally and infinitely creative God; the setting, a universe once void, the surface of a deep, now formed of light and darkness, day and night, dry ground and water, earth and sea and sky, fruit and vegetation, swarms of creatures to swim and to fly, animals of all sorts to roam the dry land, and humanity to name all that has been made, to reform in language what has originated in word, all in divine order, made good, very good, a whole and perfect expression of God; and the situation, the creation taking part in creation, God’s creatures creating in part, as God continues to create the whole.

And we might have known it would follow this course. Given the elements of origin, we might have known that our story, human history, would follow this course. Given that humanity has been created with the will to create, we might have known that we would use this will as often for our gain as for the glory of God. We might have known that, as often as we use our creativity to create, we would also use it, frustrated, to destroy.

And yet, given that finis origine pendet, given that the end depends upon the beginning, we also know that God’s creating through God’s word is eternal, effecting the whole as humanity can effect only in part. We know that God’s saving word is eternal, and just as the gift of the word made law revealed to the children of Israel the way out of the wilderness, leading them into the promised land, so the gift of the word made flesh in Jesus Christ reveals the salvation of the whole creation from a wilderness of sin.

This is what was born in that barn, this good news of the great joy that is for all people. This is what was begotten in the beginning, this promise fulfilled, that we will be reformed into the perfect creatures of God’s creating. This is the harvest of the seeds of our beginning. This is the end that was first told when we began, this revelation of the salvation that awaits us all in God, the Author of History, the Author of Life itself.

This is what was born in that barn, in the region where there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, when, lo, an angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and the angel said, “Be not afraid.”

Would that we were there.

Thanks be to God.

SCRIPTURE READING

Luke 2: 8-20

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.