Two weeks ago the young people of our church school, under the tutelage of some imaginative and patient parent-thespians, presented a fabulous Christmas drama upstairs in Mary Norton Hall. The drama, a rendition of the Christmas pageant, was entitled, “Such A Lot Like Me.” The play takes place amid the animal world, in a sort of barnyard, where the animals learn of the birth of a new king, their king, and the cows, the birds, the pigs, the donkeys, the dogs and chickens become convinced the new king will be a lot like them. The play is a riot, each animal playing its caricature to the hilt, the cows aggressively munching their cud, the birds fabulously plumed in ostrich feathers and opera clothes, the pigs, acted by three little guys with pillows in their stomachs, rubbing them with pleasure, contemplating more slop to devour, the donkeys brilliantly stupid. At the close of the drama, this menagerie gathers around the cresche in their fantastic costumes recognizing the child in the manger as their new and legitimate sovereign, different in his way, but a lot like them. We witnessed a smash.

And speaking of Christmas pageants, I suppose many of you caught this year’s classic wise-crack—in truth a speculation probably not too far off the mark: “Do you know what would have happened if it had been three Wise women instead of Three Wise Men? They would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, brought practical gifts and there would be peace on earth.”

All of which reminds me of another little Christmas reflection, familiar, no doubt to most of you. Remember “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?” Sure you do. Barbara Robinson wrote it and it tells about the Herdman kids. Talk about dysfunctional families! The book describes the Herdmans as children who, “lie and steal and smoke cigars (even the girls), they talk dirty and hit little kids, cuss their teachers and take the Lord’s name in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken down school house…” You discover six stringy-haired kids all alike, except, as the author says, “for being different sizes and having different black and blue places where they clonked each other.” Their favorite game consists of running in and out of the garage while the door crashes up and down, each attempting to pulverize the other. “Where people had grass in their front yards, the Herdmans had rocks; and where people had hydrangea bushes, the Herdmans had poison ivy.”

The miracle of this story lies in how these Herdman ruffians—described as “the worst in the history of the world”—how they extend their reign of terror and take over the Sunday school through bribes, blackmail, shakedowns, swindling their ways into the primary roles of the church Christmas pageant where, among other things, never having heard the Christmas story, they yearn to confront Herod and beat him up, and leave the first rehearsal wondering whether Joseph should have set fire to the inn, or just chased the innkeeper into the next county. As you might suspect, in the course of the pageant something wonderful happens to these little monsters as they encounter and create what Barbara Robinson calls, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”

I

And, of course, speaking of Christmas pageants, we heard Pam Roberts describe one to us just a few minutes ago as she read from the Gospel of Luke, and what a wonderful occasion she described. We can hardly get enough of it. Matthew tells the story, as well as Luke, and when we combine them, as most of us do, we find ourselves confronted with allusions to angels and virgins, with prophecies, spectacular dreams, irregular conceptions, heavenly light, radiant stars—and some of us in this day and age wonder sometimes what is true and what is not. Did Christmas really happen this way, or not? Do the Gospels give us the facts? Well, my dear friends, please take my word this morning and stop worrying about whether Luke and Matthew convey all the proper facts. They never intend their marvelous narratives to serve as biography. They make no pretension to historical scholarship; their facts make no claim to pinpoint accuracy. The Gospels couch the story of our Lord’s birth in the idiom, the metaphors, the cadences of meaning. The early Christian community finds itself so overwhelmed by the presence of the living Christ, so astonished by the transforming power of the One who died on a Cross as a criminal, and whose life, commitments and vision were vindicated on Easter Day, that when they try to describe him to one another, when they write about him, facts fail to penetrate the whole truth. Luke and Matthew can speak of Jesus only in language transcending facts, images pointing to a more profound reality.

Isn’t that the way with the deepest things in our lives? We search for symbols, poems, images, analogies, metaphors to express what we really want to say. The television advertisement telling us “Love is forever,” and the way we say it best, avers the ad, comes in the language of a “diamond.” Or the American flag, particularly evident these last three months, all over the place: on the arials of Ford pickups, hanging on the eaves of front porches, plastered on bumpers, in grocery store windows, offered as CVS bonuses. What else? A symbol of coherence amid chaos, a transcendent meaning in face of a suicidal nihilism, a sign of solidarity in behalf of democratic, liberal values inherent in a republic— solidarity in face of a violent attack emerging from a source holding those values in contempt, ultimately denying them. The flag: it speaks a language beyond words or facts or data; it captures, “E pluribus unum,” from the many one; it embodies the right to worship, to assemble, to dissent, to trial by jury, to a secure home—rights we will fight for.

Or on a more personal note, there abide with us in the congregation this morning two young people at whose wedding I presided last summer. They happen to be named Stephanie and Benjamin. Benjamin is our youngest of our four children. During the recitation of his wedding vows to Stephanie, Benjamin halted, squared his jaw, bit his lip, failed to get the words out. He found himself so moved, his voice sealed up, and in the eyes of the wedding party I spotted some tears. And I must confess I was not immune to those tears myself. Tears. Do you know what a tear is? In my “Webster’s Unabridged.” I found this definition of a tear: “a drop of clear saline fluid secreted normally in small amounts by the lachrymal gland, diffused between the eye and the eyelids to moisten the parts and facilitate their motion, and passed ordinarily through the nasolachrymal duct into the nose.” Hello? That’s a tear? A saline fluid flowing from the lachrymal gland passing through the nasolachrymal duct? That’s what fogged my eyes last summer, blurring Linda’s face in the front row? That’s what we daub away when a wounded child drops into our arms? That’s what filled the eyes of the grizzled “hard-hat” at Ground Zero, as he explained in a cracked voice why he shoveled dust, dirt, and grit 14 hours a day for the last hundred days? That’s what trickles down our cheeks in our loneliness, or our joy, our heartbreak, our ecstasy? Come on! The poet knows better:

“There are those who measure their ages not
by days, months or years.
They measure them by tears.”

Or again, speaking of Christmas pageants, in the wonderful drama we saw two weeks ago in Mary Norton Hall, as we said, the majority of the children dressed as animals, cows, donkeys, chickens and the like—a gamut of parts. And some of them, little ones and bigger ones, wore angel costumes. Angel costumes! Are you kidding? Those kids angels? Ask their parents. Ask their Sunday school teachers. Oh, to be sure, we have the facts on most of them: their ages, their addresses, the names of their parents. We have the facts. But the facts do not tell the whole truth. Sometimes an angel costume points to it. We know those kids are not angels; there is no such thing! BUT THERE REALLY IS! Truth comes packaged differently, in imaginative images, in metaphor, because facts do not tell the whole truth.

Just so with the child Jesus we encounter in the Gospels at Christmas time. We make a stab at the facts; birthplace: Bethlehem. residence: Nazareth. occupation: carpenter. mid-career vocational change: teacher, preacher, rabbi; executed by the Romans as a criminal at age 30. There stand the facts, and we are not even sure about some of them. But do they in any real way account for Jesus? How tell the world that in this Bethlehem child a new kind of history rooted in justice, issuing in peace begins right here amidst the brokenness, the violence and war of our human pilgrimage. How celebrate this most decisive and singular event, inaugurating the first glimpse of a new age, a new era, a realm where the divisions of race and clan, religion and gender, nation and culture now tearing us apart will ultimately dissolve and our human race become in truth a human family? How declare the one overriding fact of this Christmas child’s life: that from the very beginning—the very beginning—the child, weak, vulnerable, frail—that from the very beginning this child bore the human face of the unfathomable God? I do not know how you might convey that conviction, but Luke and Matthew say it with metaphor, a poetic image, an aesthetic tableau: “. . .conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.” What other language to illustrate the meaning of that birth in Judah’s outback at Christmastime? Indeed, speaking of Christmas pageants, might that not be “the best Christmas pageant ever”?

II

So then, we find glorious poetry necessary to express the full dimensions of Christmas. But behind the poetry, beneath it, grounding it there lies another emphasis: poetry, yes, but just as much: participation in the stress of human life, immersion in the tumult of your life and mine. The Gospels make that clear too. Jesus, they say, Jesus, born of woman, born of Mary, born under all the restrictions of time, of family culture and geography, the same stuff shaping you and me; the Word of God as John would have it, but even so, the “Word made Flesh.”

Don’t you and I see this tension between the poetry of Christmas and the tumult of human life all the time? For instance: the wondrous window directly in front of you depicting in one vast spectacle the Gospel nativity saga from annunciation to birth. You see the star, the shepherds lost in wonder, the roofs of Bethlehem, the angelic chorus, the cherubim celebrating the Holy Family. Speaking of Christmas Pageants! Through stained glass, week after week, this window sheds light and grace as we gather for worship here. And the humanity of it all! Two days after worshipping in the light of this window, the church Council met on December 11 and dealt with money management; it estimated the price of oil and electricity, it pondered the price of music for worship and inspiration, it wrestled with the salaries of ministers, it brooded over the cost of paper, the price of janitors’ supplies, the invoices from Verizon, the needs of those who administer this building and sustain its operations; it set aside money to provide support for agencies and individuals in this city and across the world through outreach, service and social action. The Council sought to get a bead on what this congregation—you through your pledges—might contribute to support and encourage this frail attempt to make the Word made flesh available to our world, to incarnate the sublime message of this window and the glorious pageant it illustrates in our ministry and mission. Of course, different members emphasized different priorities; and do you know what? We discovered as usual, that among the most spiritual, the most vital and truly religious conversations carried on in the bowels of the church, the conversation making tangible, with force, direction and purpose the pageantry and promise of that window before you is the conversation taking place at our Council budget meeting and the presentation of one of your most deeply committed, reverent, mission oriented, yet money-savvy brothers in Christ, David Vogan.

Or cut from the same cloth, a friend of mine took a poll of church members gathered for a retreat, and asked them what portion of the Sunday morning service of worship they considered least important and most troublesome. He guessed they would answer, “The Offering.” Wrong! The announcements! The announcements! Of course. They grind the service to halt; stop everything, take our minds off the spiritual; get in the way of our religious quest. Heaven knows I hate announcements, too. Get the service rolling, and whack! a greeting, and then a catalog of urgent invitations to study, to fellowship and service; needed: your time, your talent, your money, with dates and times, names, subjects and titles.’ Hey! It’s making the “Word” Flesh; turning the grace and light of that window’s pageantry into a contemporary incarnation.

Or again, I take a little walk at this time of year down to see what Christmas time brings to the Boston Common. The lights, the cresche, the elegantly decorated trees provide a delicate beauty on a dreary winter‘s night. But more. That makeshift shed housing the Holy Family, next to the Park Street Station, with the citizenry spreading out on their ways to work, to home, to eat, to shop, that makeshift shed in that bustling location reminds us the pageant becomes incarnate in a city bleeding now and again from racial wounds and religious gulfs, a city short on housing and food enough for its residents, a city sometimes caught between its suburbs and its inner city neighborhoods. That shed on the Common, to be sure, may inspire and console us, but its truth can be hammered out only amid the clamor of votes and taxes, petitions and referenda. In addition, you will see a lovely lighted tree there. And from a particular location you can see the State House through the Star crowning that tree. What a fascinating perspective! The Massachusetts Legislature through the star of Bethlehem! One wants almost to say, “Heaven forbid!” But wait minute. Where else does that star belong? In those legislative chambers men and women wrestle with the very marrow of our social contract; they grapple with the ambiguities of money and power; they tackle prison policy, aid to dependent families, school subsidies, mental health facilities. There Jane Swift and Thomas Finneran decide the very meaning of “Commonwealth.” I want the Word made flesh there, the currency of the Christmas pageant played out in the corridors and caucus rooms, the Governor’s office and Senate Chambers of Beacon Hill. And yes, your life and mine, too. Phillips Brooks says it best: O Holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;

Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels, The great glad tidings tell;
O Come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

Of course. The Christmas pageant becomes decisive for us. Emmanuel: God with us—for us, for you, for me, for our families. For those of us lonely; God with us. For the broke-hearted; God with you. For the spiritually empty, the AIDS sufferer, the Cancer stricken, the Stroke threatened, the hungry, the homeless, the hospitalized, the chronically ill; God with you. As one wise, faithful commentator writes, “Emmanuel, God going through the darkness with us; God saying, friend, you need not carry your trouble alone; cast it down at my feet. Let me take it. Let me carry it; I will bear the hardest part. Emmanuel means that where we with all our poor words of comfort break down utterly; there God begins. Emmanuel means that when we feel nobody wants us, God does. Emmanuel means that when our hearts cry to every would-be comforter, ‘Ah, you can’t understand; you don’t know how I weep inside,’ Emmanuel means God with us, beside us, beneath us, surrounding us, transforming pain into a sacrament, conflict to a courageous resolution, our broken dreams into a wreath mended by grace.”

“O Holy Child of Bethlehem, be born in us today.”

So friends, this Advent-Christmas season we anticipate again the decisive event behind this radiant window, animating that smashing pageant of our young people two weeks ago, inspiring every Christmas pageant of each church in Christendom. Yet the Pageant we wait for today, is truly “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” I pray you, be ready to receive it. It cannot help but change your life. How describe its full dimensions? Luke, Matthew—the Gospels—speak of vision and dreams, angels and magi, a star, a virgin. Another poet, one familiar to us all, envisions it this way:

Light looked down and beheld darkness;
“Thither will I go,” said light.
Peace looked down and beheld war.
“Thither will I go,” said Peace.
Love looked down and beheld hatred.
“Thither will I go,” said love.
So came light and shone.
So came peace and gave rest.
So came love and brought life.

SCRIPTURE READING
Luke 2:1-20

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock 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.