“Angles We Have Heard on High”
Rev. Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
3rd Sunday of Advent
December 13, 2009
Luke 1: 26-45

When my family moved to Bethesda in October, we moved in a hurry and had boxes everywhere, so we were a bit concerned about making a decent impression on the neighbors. One evening my wife said, “How can we not make a decent impression, I mean it’s not like we are putting pink flamingos all over our yard or anything.” That was before she knew that our church youth group was doing a fundraiser where people contributed to the youth program and the kids delivered flamingos to people’s yards. So we went away for Thanksgiving and when we returned home, there were pink flamingos all over our front yard. I was concerned. But my wife loved them. My kids really loved them. So when more flamingos returned to our yard just a few days ago we were prepared.

Now this time of year in the church, when I think of flocks, I think of shepherds in the great passage we read on Christmas Eve in which the “shepherds watch over their flocks by night.” When I envision winged creatures I don’t think flamingos, I think of angels. Who watches over the shepherds? Angels. A multitude of the Heavenly host. We think about angels who watch over us. Our “guardian angels.” Angels play a critical role in the book of the Revelation to John. They help us realize that the kingdom of God is not in a galaxy far, far away, but a present reality that we can experience. For God communicates to us through the Holy Spirit. But before and along side the gift of the Spirit, some primary messengers of God were and are angels. One of the most famous and important pieces of divine communications is the visitation of the angel Gabriel to a young girl named Mary, and Gabriel’s annunciation that Mary would give birth to the son of God. As we prepare to celebrate that birth in two weeks, let’s hear that message as recorded in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke. Let us pray. Come o Holy Spirit Come. Open the meaning of your word for us today and empower us to open ourselves to your presence. In Christ name we pray. Amen.

We don’t just deliver flamingos at Bradley Hills, as you can see from the gifts that are gathered here, we provide other alternative giving opportunities, such as the Angel Gift Tree. We honor people by giving a gift in their name to someone or some group that needs support. So we might honor a teacher by supporting an educational project they would care about. We make a contribution in their name for the good of the world.

Our second lesson for today is all about an angel gift. The angel Gabriel comes to the Virgin Mary and tells her that God has chosen to make a contribution to the world in her name. That God would be giving the world an amazing gift of Godself in an alternative way. Rather than just sending Jesus say, as an adult directly to Jerusalem, God sends Jesus as a baby to be born of a human. Gabriel tells Mary that she is to be honored and will give birth to a son who would be the messiah Israel had been looking for and whose kingdom would have no end.

Throughout the history of the church, Mary has indeed been honored, but at first Mary isn’t so sure she wanted to receive the gift. When she is told she would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and would give birth soon, she is understandably perplexed and afraid. What would her parents think? What would her finance do? How would society act? How would she cope and care for the child?

Now Mary isn’t the only pregnant women in this lesson. Gabriel tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, who was beyond child bearing age, was also pregnant and would soon be baring a son, John the Baptist. The angels visited Elizabeth’s family as well to deliver the news.

The unexpected news does not come at a perfect time for Mary or Elizabeth. Both of them had plans and those plans did not involve having children at that time. Mary was thinking about planning her wedding, not giving birth to a baby. Elizabeth was preparing for her husband’s, Zechariah’s, retirement, not chasing a young John the Baptist around the house. For them that first Christmas was all about their having their plans changed.

Now many of us do not do well when Christmas plans change. At my house growing up we had a certain number of seats at the dinner table, the guest of honor seated to the right of the host, and if someone cancelled at the last minute or worse yet brought someone without RSVPing it could make things difficult.

Christmas is a time of heightened sensitivity. Things are often really great or really difficult. I found at my house that the most difficult relationships and the greatest areas of grief are often magnified at Christmas time. People are off of their work and school and routines and they intermingle much more and that can be great and challenging.

So we try and control Christmas. We try and control the schedule and the interactions so that we can stay on top of the activities and the emotions. Christmas is a time when we have traditions. We tend to do some of the same rituals every year and that keeps things under control. We try to make it perfect.

There are lots of Christmas specials on TV now. Everyone has their favorites. I like It’s a Wonderful Life myself and Rudolph of course, both of which were on last night by the way. But I have been watching a lot of a show called Shrek the Halls recently. If you are not familiar with Shrek, he is an animated movie character, a green ogre, and he has adventures with his wife, Fiona, his friends, donkey, a cat, etc. We have Shrek the Halls taped and so my three year old wants to watch it over and over and over again.

The theme of Shrek the Halls is Shrek’s desire for the perfect Christmas. In the show, Shrek has planned what he describes as the “perfect” Christmas with his family at home. He tries to control the plans. Shrek’s friends all come over to visit as he is trying to read his child a book and he explodes in anger banishing his friends from his home and telling them not to come back because they have ruined “his Christmas.” As if Christmas was his or ours alone.

Before he can enjoy Christmas, Shrek has to learn the lesson that Mary and Elizabeth quickly grasped, that feeling good at Christmas has more to do with experiencing the season than planning and executing the perfect Christmas.

Many times we’d like Christmas to be exactly like we remembered it, or like the songs tell us it should be or as we have always envisioned it would be. But what if we are able to be receptive to the experiences as they come?

Mary and Elizabeth let go and put their faith in the angel’s promises and in God’s word. It was not the Christmas they had planned, but they found something special in the Christmas they experienced.

Mary and Elizabeth heard news and experienced events they did not expect. They also experienced an emotion they did not expect either. Joy. Joy is positive feeling when our deepest selves come forward. A feeling that raises our spirits to their highest level. It’s the feeling that is most closely related to God and the Holy Spirit. It’s the feeling we celebrate each third Sunday of Advent with a special rose candle. Joy is not something we can control.

The angel Gabriel helped Mary and Elizabeth learn that we humans are not in control of the world. The more I talk with doctors, scientists and philosophers or specialists and experts in their field, the more often I hear people say, “the more I know about the world, the more questions I have and the more in awe I am.”

One of the most important favors you can do for yourself this season is to be open to the different ways things might unfold this Christmas. We know the routines; we know the activities of Christmas. But knowing the Christmas routine does not guarantee that we will experience Christmas joy. In the words of Frederick Beuchner, “Happiness turns up more or less where you’d expect it to—a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation. Joy, on the other hand, is as notoriously unpredictable as the one who bequeaths it.” No one achieves joy. We just receive it as it breaks into the routine of our lives, surprises us and changes our plans.

I have a good friend from California. On December 24, he and his children will be flying back to Ohio to surprise his parents for Christmas. His parents will get up that morning with their plans in tact for how to spend the night before Christmas. And those plans will be joyfully shattered by the arrival of their son on Christmas Eve.

I have another friend from Colorado whose wife is Swedish. They wanted to help raise their daughters at least part of their lives in Sweden. So last month they moved from Denver to a very rural section of Sweden. My friend doesn’t have a job there and doesn’t speak Swedish. They are planners and put together a tight plan for how they would transition to a new country. But it took longer than expected to sell their home and it delayed their arrival. Then their computer crashed, their main link to America. Most of their stuff was being shipped over by boat, and that was delayed. And so they went into Advent without all the stability of the life they knew in America last year. My friend shared an experience this week of going outside and grilling hot dogs. It started raining really hard and they were wet and not happy. But instead of going inside, they decided to take the hot dogs, go into the woods, and hide the hot dogs in the woods with a note for Santa to find of what the girls wanted for Christmas. This fall was not what they had expected. But the delight of their daughters at hiding the hot dogs with the note was an unexpected joy and made it worthwhile.

Outside, all around us, there are people who are hungry for food or a good word or a gift, and who may receive unexpected joy because someone in this room will offer something special that they did not expect.

Get ready to participate in the unfolding of Christmas. God chose an alternative gift of sending Jesus through Mary to show that humans are to be involved in the Christmas story. We are not just passive receivers of God’s gift. We are active participants.
For when the flamingos stop flapping and the angels we have heard on high stop singing, we, like Mary, are left a Christmas miracle to care for. An unexpected gift to unexpecting people.
The work of Advent and Christ doesn’t end with the news of the annunciation of Christ. The annunciation was the beginning Mary’s work. Work that would take her to a stable to deliver a child. Work that would involve her raising Jesus for most of his adolescence and early adult life. Work that would involve her in his ministry up to his death and beyond.
When I was in Chicago, I heard Rev. John Buchanan share a wonderful poem about the human response to the news of Jesus birth from the poet and minister Howard Thurman in a poem called the “Work of Christmas.”
Thurman wrote, “When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, then the work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, to feed the hungry, to heal the broken, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among brothers and sisters, to make music in the heart.”
So as we prepare for Christmas at Advent, we remember that God’s unexpected gifts can bring joy, and that God has chosen to include you and me in God’s miracle of Christmas.

Thanks be to God. Amen.