What are the dates in history about which we all recall where we were we heard the news? For sure, the assassination of President Kennedy- I was on the playground at recess in third grade at Norway Street School in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Another, for sure, was the first step taken on the moon, in the evening of July 20, 1969. Alas 9-11. Then there are local add-ons: for me game four of the Series in 2004 as the Red Sox team that called themselves ‘the idiots’ run onto the field. I would venture to guess some of you Ranger fans would say November 1, of this year! And with the memory of where we were often goes a vivid word or picture-for the moon landing, ‘one small for man’... in the case of 9-11 there was the sight of the second plane flying into the tower, and shortly thereafter its collapse- with it collapsed an era of our history. But this evening I want you to focus with me on a different picture from that terrible morning in lower Manhattan. It too is emblazoned in our minds. Firefighters, in full regalia, helmets, tanks, bunker gear, running not from, but into the burning building. They knew what they were running into. We humans are wired for self-preservation, but in spite of that, they ran into their doom. Why? Because they wanted to help the captives, save whom they could. But the other reason is that they were firemen. That is what they do, and in doing it they affirm that is who they really are.
Brothers and Sisters, you can see where I am headed. The Christmas story is the God of heaven and earth running into the burning building. I want you to hold that image aside the story, or even as an interpretive overlay on it. The majestic God of heaven and earth runs into the building! You and I suppose such a God belongs high in heaven, and so He is. But He also runs into the burning building, and though we have heard this evening’s story a thousand times, to hear it, saying what it is really saying, is to be pulled up short, surprised.
And not only us. Think for a moment with me about those angels. They surround him, and contemplate his utter beauty and holiness. But that He should bow down to earth, and furthermore run into that building, they too are amazed. They is what they are singing about as they behold it.
Everyone else, here on earth, seemed to be playing their parts. The Roman overlords maintaining control, the poor of the earth going to be counted, the shepherds about their cold and lonely work. Others display grace, Mary in saying yes to God in her fear, Joseph in his misgiving, eventually the wise men, trusting the light they are given. But behind and in all this, what makes the angels break into the heavenly song, here in earth, is the sight of God running into the burning building. Foretold in the prophet Isaiah seven centuries before yes, but breathtaking to angels in its accomplishment nonetheless.
But what does it mean, that we should be confronted with the news that, contrary to our presumption, we have to do with such a God as this? In typical preacher fashion, I have three answers this evening for you. First of all, we can already catch a sense of where the story is going. The story’s beginning and its end are connected. My high school motto was ‘finis origine pendet,’ ‘the end depends on the beginning,’ and so it is here. The entry of God in his mercy enrages and threatens the earthly powers, who go so far as to slaughter innocent children. The apostle Matthew in particular traces all this out, how the holy family then flees as refugees to Egypt. God runs into the building, and in His Son that act goes to the limit of love, to the cross, to the death of the Son of God. Such a phrase as ‘the death of the Son of God’ should draw us up short, in the very same way that the sprint into the burning building does. But they are His children in the building, the endangered dwelling in His own land, and so he can and will do no less. The manger leads straight to the cross, on to the tomb, and seeing how they are bound together is one thing we come here week by week to hear, contemplate, worship.
The story of the birth leads ahead, but it also leads our thinking upward, you might say. Running into burning buildings out of love is who he is, just as much as with those firefighters, who serve in this case as saintly examples. God was just this kind of a God from eternity. We humans, with our faded sense of something-more, knew there was some sort of deity, but that he is this God, whose self-sacrifice is his eternal heart, that we had to be told, to our surprise and to our repentance. The apostle who lays this out most clearly for us is John. He takes the Christmas story and rewinds it, not just to the creation, but back to eternity. ‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and was God.’ If Christmas heads first on to the cross, it also heads upward to the deep and joyful mystery of God as Trinity.
Christmas is the news that the true God is the one who runs into the burning building, where His children are found, and in so doing shows us who he really and eternally is. So what is the third thing that needs saying? We need to say what difference this icon of God the fireman means for us, personally, in the real lives we lead as we leave this building this evening. Here we do well to look ahead, to the end of this the second chapter of Luke, to what happens next. The child Jesus is presented in the Temple, where old Simeon, along with the prophetess Anna, had been awaiting this day. (We will be celebrating this event in a little over a month, in the feast of the Presentation, to which you are all warmly invited!). There Simeon says that the birth of this child is not only the glory of God’s own chosen people, but also a light to all the nations, as Isaiah again had foretold long before. But then Simeon brings the import and impact home to Mary in the following words: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Here Mary is the first follower of her son, our first fellow Christian. God who runs into the building is wonderful news for us sinners, but news that will be unevenly received, to say the least. It will prove to be a sign that that has the stench of death for some, says Paul, but is for others the perfume of life. And to convey this news, and to endure how it will pierce our hearts too- you and I are called just as much as was Mary. Though our human hearts are hard, we are nonetheless summoned, to do what we were made to do, and so to be who we really are, differently, but no less, than those firemen. And for all this resistance, in others, in us, nevertheless, the tidings this evening are mind-bogglingly good, that such a God would run into such a building, for such as you and me. Amen.
