(Christmas Eve) -- Holding a Baby

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
December 24, 2008; Christmas Eve, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 2:1-20) -- In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
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A couple of weeks ago Suzanne Stoner and I went down to Little Rock to visit several people who were ill. Among our stops was a visit in the Children's Hospital neo-natal ICU to see Mandy Bunch and Melissa Evans' little newborn baby Nicholas. As we were on our way, driving down I-40, Suzanne began to opine about the feel of a sleeping infant your arms.

What a joy it is to hold a baby as it sleeps, lying there, surrendered to you in complete trust and deep peace. Children seem to feel heavier when they are asleep, don't they? When you are holding a baby, you feel both a sense of thrill and of responsibility. How awesome it is, to hold this mysterious life in your arms -- protecting, nurturing, comforting. You always have a heightened degree of awareness when you hold an infant, don't you? You are alert to its presence and attentive to any need.

Some moments, when your focus is entirely upon the baby in your arms, time seems to stand still. You look, and marvel at this mysterious life. You want to ask the child, "Who are you? What are you thinking? What future awaits you? How can I love and cherish you adequately?" And then the words in your imagination seem to slide away, and you simply look. Enthralled. Thankful. Sometimes the stillness of deep peace descends. We were thinking about that in the car on the way to Little Rock.

Later that day in the hospital Suzanne held little Nicholas in her arms. He slept, at peace even in the presence of tubes and wires and monitors, the technical professional bustle of the neo-natal unit. She sent such love and hope to him. Quiet words of care and encouragement. The claim of belonging to this little child who is both the child of God and our child as well. Glistening tears; beaming smiles; the nurturing back-and-forth looks of a loving family. Nicholas slept; held in trust, this vulnerable life.

I watched, and I joined my prayers to theirs. Silently I asked God's blessing upon Nicholas and upon this devoted couple who willingly brought this life into the world, knowing from the womb that he would be a child of "special needs." Nicholas is not unlike the child of Mary – conceived under awkward circumstances, Jesus brought his own constellation of special needs, including a darkness that the old man Simeon foresaw, a sword that would pierce through a mother's soul. I asked God's strength to be with this family in their darkness and in their light. I felt deep thanksgiving and wonder. And then I just gazed, enveloped in this communion of faith and hope and love.

In Archbishop Anthony Bloom's little book Beginning to Pray, he relates an episode from the life of Father Silouan, a Russian artisan who came to the monastery, and was put in charge of a workshop where young peasants from distant villages would come to work for a year or two as indentured assistants to raise cash they could get in no other way. One of these peasant-assistants was also named Nicholas. Part of Father Silouan's management of these assistants was to pray secretly for them.

In the beginning I prayed with tears of compassion for Nicholas, for his young wife, for the little child, but as I was praying the sense of the divine presence began to grow on me and at a certain moment it grew so powerful that I lost sight of Nicholas, his wife, his child, his needs, their village, and I could be aware only of God, and I was drawn by the sense of the divine presence deeper and deeper, until of a sudden, at the heart of this presence, I met the divine love holding Nicholas, his wife, and his child, and now it was with the love of God that I began to pray for them again, but again I was drawn into the deep and in the depths of this I again found the divine love. (Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray, p. 113, 1988)

I think I felt some of that, standing, watching Suzanne hold another Nicholas within the arc of the love of his parents' adoration.

One of the most startling things we Christians say about God is that God comes to us this way. God comes to us as a child. On Christmas we celebrate a God who pours out the divine nature into the life of a newborn infant. This is one of our core, foundational pictures of God.

We worship a God who comes to us with such complete humble vulnerability, that God trusts the divine life entirely into our arms like a baby. God invites us to embrace and hold tenderly God's very Being as we would hold an infant – an intimate mystery, alive as though sleeping in our arms. There is a certain heaviness to it, but what joy. You hold within you the absolute love of divine life. Feel the presence. Be aware. Look. Listen. God is with us. Immanuel, we sing: the Name that means, "God with us."

Like holding a child, there is a certain thrill and responsibility that comes with holding God's life in your arms. There is joy and thankfulness, there is also a necessary awareness and alert attention.

When each of our children was tiny, we had a front pack that we used to bind the little one close to us while we went about our daily business – getting the groceries, fixing dinner, talking on the phone, typing, even going to church. Regardless of what the task at hand might be, there was always a certain part of our awareness that was conscious and awake to the presence and needs of the child, bound closely to our heart.

Life in God's presence is like that. It is like carrying and alertly caring for the loving mystery of the divine presence at the center of our being. God yields the divine life into our hands, silently alive, but ready to awaken with needs for our attention and love for our receiving.

Sometimes I talk to people who say they don't know how to pray. Have you ever held an infant in your hands? Well then, you know how to pray. Hold the life from life tenderly and intimately in the center of your being. Speak thankful words of hope and love. Be alert to whatever need draws your attention. And, from time to time, just sit, and look, in silent adoration.

Do you want to pray for someone else? Let the same loving arms with which you hold the divine child embrace the one you wish to pray for, bestowing love and recognition, asking for the blessing of choice and the glimpse of possibility for that one's emerging life.

Jesus taught us to pray with childlike trust. He prayed to Abba, a child's name for God – like Dada or Mama or Papa. Tonight we join the conversation between Jesus and Abba in the communion of love that flows between the Father and the Son, whom we know as God's Spirit, the breath that breathes life into us all.

Make a picture in your mind's eye. See a picture of the manger on that Christmas night so long ago. The star beaming its light from heaven; the hovering protective care of Joseph; the maternal arms of Mary, gently, lovingly holding the child who surrenders divine life into her keeping.

That same picture dwells within your heart. The divine light shines upon you, bringing life to your inmost being, where you hover with protective care and gently hold the love of God surrendered into your keeping.

Have you ever held a baby in your arms? You know what God's life feels like. We celebrate that life coming to us this night. Let us rejoice and sing happy songs; let us nurture and care for the love that is entrusted to us; and let us live alert, thankful lives, filled with the goodness that is entrusted to us, this night and forever.

"Shhh Papa! Be quiet and still!" my friend's three year old granddaughter said to him as they sat together on the living room floor while she arranged and re-arranged the little creche with her tiny fingers. "Shhh Papa! Be quiet and still! The baby Jesus is asleep and if you are still, you can hear the angels singing."

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