Christmas Day, Proper 1: Building the cross with the wood from the manger

Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

I should probably have posted this one yesterday, so that I could have gotten something in for Christmas Eve as well, but that's ok. My original intent was to post this just after midnight so that I could have written a meditation for "Midnight Mass" or whatever. But then after I left the noche buena party last night, I was exhausted, mainly from having been trounced in Monopoly by a little girl who had never played before...more on that in the next entry. So I will try to post something after I get home from the faculty luncheon today for Proper 2, then this evening for the Proper 3, so that I can get in all the Christmas texts in the Revised Common Lectionary.

Today, I notice an odd contrast in Isa 9:3. The people, in giving thanks to the deliverance of Yahweh, "rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder." On the one hand, this crams together domestic and military imagery. Now, unlike a good number of my friends in the scholarly circles, I am certainly no pacifist, but this juxtaposition strikes me as very odd indeed. This is not to mention that other peoples "not from around here" can rejoice along with us in a bountiful harvest, though probably not in our dividing of plunder--most likely since their having been defeated by us is the reason why we can divide plunder in the first place. On the other hand, however, this confluence of argicultural and military metaphors reminds me of ways in which the Christmas and the Easter stories have been merged in quite powerful ways in reflecting on the life of Jesus. Though Jesus was all human, crying even at the last possible moment for his Father to take away the cup of punishment from him, it seems that throughout his life he was always living with a view toward his death. "Didn't you know that I had to be about the things of my Father," said the twelve-year-old Jesus to Mary. This little bit of pre-teen backsass is probably a later insertion of the post-Easter community, but it gives an important insight into what they believed about Jesus, that he knew what he was doing all along.

I really want to talk about the passage from Titus. The most relevant verse for what I'm talking about is v 14: "He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds." Back before my understanding of my calling changed away from parish ministry and toward teaching, I always loved to preach from obscure passages like this one. Actually, I still do like to preach from obscure passages, like the chapel message I delivered last month on the entrance of Elihu into the dialogues of Job (Job 32:1-5). But really, this little verse in Titus has a lot of punch. It really packs the entirety of the Christian message all together: Jesus gave himself in order to deliver us from sin. Once delivered from sin, we were purified to live a holy life before him (this has great relevance for holiness theology). Having had these two works of grace, we become zealous for doing the good deeds that are the proper response to the grace that has come to our lives. Never, never, never, never should anyone ever say that we earn God's favor, that there is something God requires of us before he is graceful and merciful. God's action is always first. But there is a response of faith required. But, further, the command of God is not something that we are unable to maintain or fulfill--which would make God a tyrant. Instead, God's grace is even given to empower us to respond properly in faith for what he has done for us. Amen.