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.
