December 26, 1999 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

What Child Is This:
Reflections on the Gift of Christmas

John Wilkinson
Executive Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

(read “God in the Doorway” from Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard)

Prayers of the People

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Love stands in the doorway.

Perhaps you read the Time magazine article naming Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, as person of the year. Amazon.com, Time reckons, and enterprises like it, are changing the way we live, not just shop, but live and interact. In the early, heady days of Amazon.com, Bezos and his wife constructed their first office desk using doors bought at Home Depot.

Now, when they could afford to log-on to Amazon.com and buy really nice desks, still all Amazon.com employees are issued doors as desks. It is quaint and charming, I think, and symbolic, and we will hold on to every symbol we can in these moments.

Love stands in the doorway, Annie Dillard tells us, and we were all afraid.

The burning bush appears to Moses and fear overcomes him. The announcing angel appears to Mary—do not be afraid, the young woman is told. The choir of angels announce good news to the shepherds, and they are scared to death.

Do not be afraid. Fear woven deeply into the fabric of our faith.

I remember visiting a church member in another place, her body dying from cancer.

She wanted to ask me about a Bible verse that had vexed her for decades—“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” I offered a rather stumbling answer, about fear equaling awe.We both knew the inadequacy of my words. Fear might be awe but fear is fear as well.

Love stands in the doorway and we were all afraid.

I am not sure what that fear is for you. The hopes AND fears of all the years, that most gracious Christmas carol reminds us, as if hope and fear are engaged in some mystical, eternal waltz.

And yet. And yet love stands in the doorway.

At the time of the Exodus the Israelites put blood on their doorways and the spirit of death passed over their homes. In the book of Revelation, which will receive considerable play in these next few days, God’s voice speaks: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in to you. . . .”

Love stands in the doorway. And so I have been thinking about doors.

The doors of grandparents’ houses that opened widely and warmly to welcome us home for Christmas. Church doors, here and elsewhere, that often need refinishing or new lock work but that, in their best moments, stand wide open as physical invitations to good news.

The doors of a doll house I assembled just a day ago. The door of our own home, blessed decades before by a Jewish family, a blessing we still enjoy. The doorways marked by pencil lines that chart the progress of physical growth; and those interior doorways of our spirits marking other kinds of growth, events, setbacks and triumphs, hopes and fears.

And another doorway, of course, where love stands.

Might we linger at the stable doorway for a moment? Linger and look around at the carpentry of Christmas, the architecture of Christmas, with animals and shepherds, three kings eventually, curious passer-by, all lingering at the doorway, straining their necks to get a peek.

Love stands in the doorway, love in the flesh, flesh and blood, stands in the doorway.

Open the door. Linger, stand in the doorway for a moment.

Open the door to your heart and let love’s gentleness enter.

Open the door to your soul and let hope’s promise enter.

Open the door to your faith this day, hearing the old story once again, singing the familiar songs once again, and let the dawn of redeeming grace enter.

Listen to the voice of the man this baby will become—“knock and the door will be opened.” Open, and be opened.

And then together let us open the door to the city, to the world, and allow the Christmas promise to come in holy contact with words like terrorism and flood and neglect and injustice. Let us follow those who have opened the doors to peace, Mr. Adams and Mr. Trimble, Israeli and Syrian, and march gratefully through.

Let us open the door to the past, but for a brief moment, look around with gratitude, learning what we should learn, discarding what we should discard. And then let us open the door to the future, to whatever millennium awaits, filled with promise, our eternal home.

The manger doorway leads to other doorways, for Jesus, for us. Remember that it leads, finally, to another open door, where death will be no more.

Once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid. And yet. And yet.

Be not afraid. I bring you glad tidings.

Receive the gift. Open the door. The babe, the son of Mary.

Merry Christmas. Amen.

 

Prayers of the People
December 26, 1999

Dear God, our hearts are full to overflowing this morning.

Once again we have celebrated the birth, and once again we have been reminded of the mystery of your love for the whole creation and for each one of us. Once again we have been startled by the simplicity of the incarnation, the birth of your love, your power, your grace, into our history. And once again, in quiet moments we have asked with Mary, his mother, “How can this be?”

We thank you, O God, for deciding to come to us in this way; that out of all the infinite possibilities you chose the one experience every single one of us has shared - the mystery and primal power of human birth.

Our hearts overflow with hope this morning. As some mark the end of the millenium with dread and expectation of catastrophe, our hearts are full of hope, for once again we have been reminded that you love what you have made, that you rejoice in the well being and progress of your creation, as a parent rejoices with the growth and accomplishment of a child.

And, with you, we rejoice that in our time your children have come to value and honor your creation and have begun to act responsibly to protect and preserve the beauty and balance and amazing resources you have hidden in earth and sky and ocean depths.

With you we rejoice that in the midst of ancient hatred, peace has emerged - in Northern Ireland, in the near East, and we pray, O God, for your continued blessing of efforts everywhere to bring to fruition your dream that all of your children live together in contentment and security and peace.

Our hearts are full, O God, with intent this morning, to care more and to do more and to give more that our neighbors might live. We have experienced your love and heard your mandate to love our neighbor and so we ask you to help us. Make us uncomfortable with injustice in our world and in our city. Make us uncomfortable with poverty and unemployment in this time of prosperity. Stab our consciences with the existence of hungry, cold and homeless children in this extraordinary nation and city. Bless those who work to alleviate need. Bless politicians with a proper sense of discomfort and a determination to lead us to heal and feed and teach and stand together as members of one family.

And, O God, our hearts are full in this season with gratitude for our dearest ones with whom we have shared the celebration, and for those with whom we have shared the feast in years past and who taught us to love and rejoice and give and receive, and whose blessed memory graces this Christmas.

Bless, O God, those whose pain and fear and loneliness is accentuated by the festivities of the season. Draw close to those who are ill and those who have lost hope and those who grieve. Hold them close in your everlasting arms.

And because we have been to his manger, once again, bless us each with new trust in you. Reknew within us our faith, our hopes, our confidence in your providential care, and our commitment to live in the future as your obedient and joyful people.

All this we pray in the name of him who came to us in Bethlehem, and who comes to us in the daily routine, and who will welcome us home at the end of the day, even Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us to pray saying. . .

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church