December 23, 2012 | 4:00 p.m. | Fourth Sunday of Advent

“Jazz at Four” Sermon

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 2:1–20

I heard a story on the news this week that started with a disclaimer: the reporter said, “The following story can be classified under the category of first world problems.” You know what I mean by first world problems, right? We’re talking about things that are not all that important, just petty nuisances that occupy the attention of privileged people in rich countries who, maybe, have lost some of our perspective on what’s really important. The news story I ended up listening to was about whether or not it’s really important for the airline to make you turn off your e-reader during takeoff and landing. I found a website that makes fun of first world problems in real-time as people post them on Twitter. Here are some other examples quoted directly from the posts:

They updated the ESPN app again and I can’t find any of my teams.
There isn’t anything to eat in this fridge full of food.
Using Crest Whitestrips is so annoying.
Can’t believe there’s no cell phone service in the place where I’m getting my nails done.

I have a confession to make. For the better part of the last month, I have been caught in a bunch of my own first world problems. I worry about all kinds of little details of getting ready for Christmas in this place: Will the candle sleeves for the little tapers arrive in the mail on time? Is the amount of greenery we hung in the Sanctuary too much or is it not enough? It’s not all about Christmas either. I’ve spent the last month being mildly annoyed that I have to wear this funny surgical shoe around most of the time because of a jogging injury. I spent a good part of this last week disappointed that my assistant was taking time off the week before Christmas.

I imagine that I am not alone in this, that many of you have been having your own hard times making space for what the Christmas season is truly all about. It’s easy to forget when we’re traveling for the holidays, contending with snowy roads, heavy traffic, long lines at airport security—the unreasonable demand to turn off your e-reader. There are so many in our community whose problems are so much more serious and significant than that, but still, we allow our own first world issues to crowd out the coming of Christ, the preparing of ourselves and the building up of community, that is so desperately needed at this time of year and all throughout the year.

My first world problems are convicting to me because they demonstrate loud and clear the things that are keeping me from being ready for the coming of Christ. In the world in which we live, it may be necessary for me to be attentive to some of these things, but when they occupy too much of my attention, they obscure what is important about Christmas: That God is coming to redeem the world. That in the midst of things that are really wrong—hunger in a world of plenty, the gun violence we saw in Newtown last week, the uncontrolled proliferation of war—God comes in a completely unexpected way in order to startle us out of our habits and remind us to get back to the essential truth that we are called to serve God and love one another.

There is a question that many of us are asked repeatedly at this time of the year. I’m sure you’ve heard it: the question is “Are you ready for Christmas?” I get asked that question enough that I have a stock answer for it. I usually say, “Whether I’m ready for it or not, Christmas will come.” I’m not sure how I came up with that answer the first time I said it, but I am convinced that not only is it true, but it has a lot more to do with the season than the things I’ve spent the last month worrying about. It occurred to me last week that the statement is true because it may show us something we have in common with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds—Christ comes, and lucky for us, Christ doesn’t wait for us to be ready.

There they were, Mary and Joseph, a young couple, she probably just a teenager, recently engaged. The pregnancy comes as a surprise. The Gospel of Matthew tells Joseph’s side of the story: Joseph discovers that Mary, the woman to whom he is engaged, is going to have a baby, and he knows it isn’t his. This certainly wasn’t the news he expected or wanted to hear. And just like any man in any time, he is faced with a choice about what to do next. He is stuck between his feelings of shame and embarrassment and confusion on one hand, and on the other hand, the knowledge that if he chooses not to go through with marrying her, her life and the life of that child will be ruined; the scandal will follow her all the days of her life. That’s what it was like in those days. In the midst of his uncertainty, Joseph has a dream—not a miraculous visit from an angel, but just a very vivid dream—telling him he should not turn away Mary. And so even though he isn’t ready, he makes his choice, and Joseph and Mary prepare to continue the journey into their unknown future together. Joseph wasn’t ready for Christmas.

Mary has her own story, told in the Gospel of Luke. This story is a little more mysterious. It starts the same way—Mary is pregnant—but even she can’t figure out how it happened aside from this strange visit she had from an angel announcing that she would give birth to a son. Mary eventually warms up to this strange turn of events in her life, but her own comfort with the situation doesn’t make it any easier to explain it to Joseph. After they talk, he goes away to agonize about what to do, and Mary is left to wait and wonder what he will decide. Thanks be to God, Joseph decides in her favor. We can’t imagine it happening any other way—we’ve heard it so many times—but living through the story, Mary didn’t have that luxury. She wasn’t ready for Christmas either.

So things are rocky from the start with this couple, and as if things aren’t already difficult enough, some complications emerge. They were more serious than first world problems, but they weren’t earth shattering. Mostly they were distractions the couple didn’t need at a time when so much in their lives was already uncertain, at a time when they were already unprepared for Christmas.

A census is called by the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, and there are two things worth noting about that. First of all, just like today, a census meant taxes. The emperor wanted an accurate count of his subjects because he wanted to institute some “revenue enhancements.” So in the midst of all the other things they are facing and the expenses of having a child, Mary and Joseph brace themselves for a tax increase. That’s one thing. On the other hand, the way a census was different in the ancient world was that, if you didn’t live at home, it required travel. There was no such thing as registering online or voting absentee when a census was called; you went home to register. So Joseph and his very pregnant wife, Mary, set out on the road from their home in Nazareth to his hometown of Bethlehem. It’s not a long journey by car today, but in those days it wasn’t so simple. Burglars were on the road at night; there weren’t many good places to stay. But they went—she rode the donkey, he walked—and they arrived in Bethlehem at night, after the spare rooms had all been occupied. We will never know what kind of mood they were in; we will never know if they felt thankful or inconvenienced when they finally found a place to lie down and rest on a bed of straw. We know that, ready or not, Mary gave birth. And exhausted from the labor, she wrapped the child in bands of cloth and laid him to rest in the manger where the animals had been feeding.

There is something quite unique about the birth of a child, a uniqueness common to so many places and times: childbirth seems to cause everything else to stop. Particularly for the parents, all of the details, all of the first world problems, seem to melt away in contrast to this new little person who has come into the world and suspended time and reality. I’m sure it was no different for Mary and Joseph, except that Jesus’ birth had the same impact on other people, even complete strangers. A group of shepherds left their work, having been told that something extraordinary had happened. Wise men, astrologers from the east, went to Bethlehem having seen a sign in the heavens. Not only had Mary and Joseph’s lives been slowed down, not only the lives of the shepherds and the wise men, but a star stood still over that manger in Bethlehem, so that we emphatically know that everything slowed down. On that night at the end of a busy and confusing season, Mary and Joseph slowed down. And along with them the fast pace of the world slowed down. The noisy world suddenly was hushed.

The miracle of Christmas is that in coming to the world in the form of an innocent child, God defies all of our expectations about what can change the world and our lives. God defies our expectations about power and control, lays bare all of our anxieties about little things that are not just right; God embarrasses the wasted energy we apply to the impossible task of finishing or fixing everything in the world. Every year, Christmas comes, and it comes whether we are ready or not.

There is a story that sums it up about as well as any. It is about an unforeseen technological failure and a Christmas miracle that took place about 200 years ago.

It was December 24, 1818, in the small down of Oberndorf, Austria, near Salzburg. Franz Gruber, the priest at the parish church, was finishing a predictably busy Advent season but was excited for the busyness of the Christmas Eve services that would be held this year in the newly completed chapel. And then a snag—a first world problem: the organ was discovered to be broken and would not be repaired in time for services that evening. Can you believe it? Of all of the days, how could the organ be broken on Christmas Eve? Once he had finished being angry, once he had finished pleading with the organ repairman about a job that was impossible, once he had stopped pacing the floor, Franz Gruber collected himself. He sat down and began to write the words to a simple Christmas song. When he had finished, he took the lines to his friend, the church musician, Joseph Mohr, and asked if he would set the poem to a simple song for two solo voices to be accompanied by guitar. They played the song that night in church, and the busy world was hushed. The damaged organ somehow seemed not such a concern. Their problems suddenly seemed smaller. The story of the unexpected coming of the Christ child inspired that night. It was the breaking in of that holy infant, so tender and mild, who came into the world with the dawn of redeeming grace. Not at all what they expected, but exactly what they needed, it was a silent night and a holy night.

In whatever worries you may carry this season and this day, may there be for you a silent night and a holy night. May the busy world be hushed as love comes down at Christmas. May you, like Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men, find that Christmas arrives whether you are ready or not, and may you sleep in heavenly peace, for Christ the Savior is born. Amen.