sermon: Live In Joy
St. Paul's L'Amoreaux, December 30, 2007
After my grandfather retired from working in his autobody shop in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he took up a number of hobbies - picture framing, rock collecting and polishing, and, a little later, the construction of grandfather clocks. Among the many tools that my grandfather had downstairs in his workshop was a little wood lathe.
Well, one time I wanted to make a candlestick. Grandpa and I found a piece of wood, fastened it to the plate of the lathe, and then turned on the motor and began to carve.
At first the piece was rough and of an uneven shape. But gradually, as the sawdust sprayed up and around us, we were able to round off this rough old piece of wood and begin developing the shape we wanted. Once the general shape was reached, different tools, and even files and sandpaper were applied to make it shiny and smooth.
It was exhilarating to watch. First, we carved out a cone at the top to hold the candle, then a long, narrow stem. Then that was widened out at the bottom into a smooth base.
However, when we had almost completed the entire candlestick, I chipped the base. Either I had tried to carve too deeply, or it chipped when we tried to saw it off from the stock of wood.
It was very disappointing. I wanted to try and glue the broken piece back on, or just leave it as it was, because it had taken so long, and so much work. But my grandfather insisted on something else.
He took the candle-stick which I had broken and cut the base right off. Then he found another piece of wood of a completely different kind but with markings which matched the broken piece. He applied glue, clamped the two pieces together and told me to come back in a couple days. When I returned, we fastened the repaired wood to the lathe and began again. The outcome was more spectacular than the original. In fact, the two different pieces came to look as if they were one, with a lovely colour and design.
The tension at Christmas, in light of the great darkness that we experience in the world, begins with the fact that so much of Christmas is achingly beautiful:
. . . the Magi moving solemnly toward Bethlehem under the guidance of a brilliant star;
. . . the deep and majestic rhythm in the background as the history of Israel itself is remembered - a Son of David, promised by the prophets, enroute in and out of Egypt;
. . . and the discovery of a child, before whom, in great joy, the travellers would bow.
In his Christmas address, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams[1], reminded us of the poetry of St. John of the Cross. St. John of the Cross is best known for his description of hard times in discipleship and his description of the 'dark night of the soul'. But he also composed a series of poems on the topic of Christmas joy.
In them, St. John imagines the happiness of the persons of the Trinity bubbling over in the loving desire to extend the joy they experience to others who would know it and respond in kind. If you can imagine the three persons of the Trinity, God is seeking to create a bride for his Son. And so God does so by creating humanity and the world, with all its beauty and variety. And that world waits. Waits for the coming of the groom. Waits to be reunited. And when the groom finally arrives on Christmas, tears pour out.
The Archbishop notices two things.
First, the tears are tears of joy - first and foremost, because God came into the world not to save, but to be united with creatures who love and share his joy. As he puts it:
We are right to think about the seriousness of sin . . . but we see it properly and in perspective only when we have our eyes firmly on the greatness and unchanging purpose of God=s eternal plan for the marriage of heaven and earth.
It is a perspective that is necessary when our own sins or those of a failing and suffering world fill the horizon for us, so that we can hardly believe the situation can be transformed.
For if God's purpose is what it is, and if God has the power and freedom to enter our world and meet us face to face, there is nothing that can destroy that initial divine vision of what the world is for and what we human beings are for.
Nothing changes, however far we fall; if we decide to settle down with our failures and give way to cynicism and despair, that is indeed dreadful ‑ but God remains the same God who has decided that the world should exist so that it may enter into his joy.
Secondly, the variety of the world, its great vistas and its narrow ledges, what St. John of the Cross called the 'composed world of infinite differences', is deliberate. Or, as the Archbishop puts it more simply, God has made this world as it is for us to grow and mature and become more like what God intends. And before all else, this varied world, and the infinitely mysterious people we come upon, should summon from us reverence and thanksgiving.
There is a great scene in the third volume of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien - and it is almost completely missing from the movie. After all their adventures and the danger they faced, the little hobbits can finally come home. But upon arriving home, their land is still dominated by gangsters who were part of the reason they had originally been sent out on their great mission. But, now, in comparison to all they had just come through, it was relatively easy work to face the bullies and bring the same peace to the shire that was now extending throughout the land.
Returning home, the hobbits are different. They are mature, brave and strong in ways they had never been before.
Why is the world the way it is? To begin with, and simply, that is for God. And we would have to be greater and wiser than God to propose a different one. But what we know in this world of both tears and beauty, is that the pieces and the people are intended to come together. And in that great movement, the world is the place where we become what God intends. As Archbishop Williams puts it:
The whole point of creation is that there should be persons, made up of spirit and body, in God's image and likeness, to use the language of Genesis and of the New Testament, who are capable of intimacy with God ‑ not so that God can gain something but so that these created beings may live in joy.
And Gods way of making sure that this joy is fully available is to join humanity on earth so that human beings may recognise what they are and what they are for.
On this day, as we celebrate the baptism of Nyree, we can think of the challenges and the difficulties and the dangers ahead. But let us begin with - and may we never forget - the beauty of this little child and her life, the shards of glory in our world which surround us all, and God's overflowing joy into which he desires us to enter and share.
[1]www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2007/12/25/ACNS4357.