Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Sunday, December 25, 2016

The Babe Wakes Us up

Christmas Day       December 25, 2016          
Isaiah 9:2-4,6-7    Psalm 96:1-4,11-12
Titus 2:11-14       Luke 2:1-14

  Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, there was great, great, sadness.  Why the sadness you say?  Well the Good King and Queen of the kingdom were very sad about the health of their only son.  This son was very important to them because he was supposed to become the next king of the kingdom.
  The boy's  name was Jubal and he had a real problem.  He was almost 10 years old and he didn't speak to anyone.  He just sat around with a blank stare on his face.  He seemed to be lost in the dream space of his own mind.  He would not respond to anyone. 
  The King and the Queen did everything possible to try to cure their son.  They hired the best doctors from all around the world.....but none of the doctors had any success with the silent boy.  They just couldn't get him to speak.
  Finally, the king and the queen became impatient with the doctors.  They became desperate, so they
decided to offer a great reward to anyone who could get the little crown prince to speak.  The king and queen published their plan.  They offered a big, big, bag of  gold to the person who could make the boy speak.
  Many, many people were interested to help the king and queen, but they also wanted to try to win the money.
  The first person to try was the court jester.  This clown thought, "If I can get the boy to laugh then he will surely begin to talk."  So the court jester came into the boy's room and he start acting like a real stooge.  He did all of his funny things.  But the boy just stood there staring blankly.  The court jester left the room, a sad failure.
  Next came the wizard.  He was going to trying to cure the boy.  He brought some smoking incense that he spread around the boy.  He got out an old black book, and started to read some magical prayers in a strange language.  He made the boy drink some foul smelling potion.  But the boy did not respond.  He didn't even say, "Yuk," when he drank the potion.
  After the wizard, there came a bold knight.  The knight knew that all boys liked stories about heroes and adventures.  He told Jubal about fighting monsters and dragons.  And then he showed the boy his shiny sword and his suit of armor.  But...no.  Jubal didn't even yawn.
  So next came the Wiseman.  He was going to use logic on the boy.  He told Jubal about his disease, its causes, and its cure.  He told Jubal that he must have been frightened when he was a baby, and because of that scary experience, he wouldn't talk.  But the Wiseman talked and talked, and soon he was successful at only putting Jubal to sleep.
  One by one, tens and hundreds of people came to try their cure on the speechless boy.  One made Jubal wear a string of garlic around his neck...Another tried to scare him...one stuck him with a needle to see if pain would cause him to speak...Some of the weirdest methods were tried on Jubal, but none of them worked.  And the King and Queen were becoming impatient but finally there was only one person left.  There was a little old peasant woman.  She told the king that she had a magic box that would cure the boy.  The Queen tried to find out more about the box, but the old woman said, "It's a secret box, I can't tell you about it."  The Queen said, "OK, you can try, but don't hurt my son."
  The little old women took the box into the Crown prince's room, and soon she returned without the box.  The king asked, "Are you finished?"  She said, "Oh no, now we must wait for the box to work its magic."  So the woman, the King and the Queen, sat and waited... waited... waited... one hour, two hours.. The King was about to get angry and dismiss the old woman, when suddenly the Crown Prince burst out of his room shout, "Father, Mother, come quickly, there a baby crying in my room.  We need to go help the baby!"
  The old woman went into the room to help the baby, and the King and Queen hugged their boy who had found his speech.
  What is Christmas?  It is God's magic to get our attention and cure us from being locked up inside our own worlds of selfishness.
  We have sophisticated theology, we have big churches, we have fancy sermons, and no end of answers and cures.... but in the end it is the story about the babe in Bethlehem that cures us.  It make the perfect ending of our year.  It brings us hope and renewal because we know that our hearts and lives are the stables and the mangers of the life of God that has been born into each of us.
  Let the Story of the Christ child renew our hope and cure us from all of our fears and make us joyful to be together in the company of our family and friends.  Amen.

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