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Green Blades Preaching Roundtable

Christmas Eve

Year B
December 24, 2023
Melinda Quivik

Isaiah 9:2–7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11–14
Luke 2:1–14 [15–20]

 

            On Christmas Eve, of course, we hear the story of the angels coming to the shepherds who are with their flocks of sheep. The shepherds are suddenly terrified –– a very strong word but understandable! –– by the sight of first one angel and then a whole lot of angels. It is a "terrific" scene.

            The words terrify (probably something suggesting danger) and terrific (what we normally name something that is good) are linked by their roots in sixteenth and seventeenth century Latin. Experiencing something "terrific," in other words, may be so outside of our normal encounters that it, in fact, frightens us. We behold a new realm of sensibility. We are lifted out of our ordinary expectations and transported to a place that changes us and changes those around us.

            The writer of this story in Luke's Gospel builds up a moment of astonishment so filled with oddness and urgency that it seems natural to us that the story expects the shepherds will indeed go to find the baby in the manger. After all, the angel says: "You will find a child..." (They haven't even yet been told to venture into Bethlehem! The angel makes a huge assumption.)

            We hear this story so often repeated that we assume the angel is appearing only to the shepherds. But the angel appears to "shepherds living in the fields." The fields hold not only shepherds but sheep. The sheep are right there, seeing the heavens aglow right along with the shepherds.

            In an altar painting in a church in Dollar Bay, Michigan, Jesus walks along a path accompanied by sheep. When artists bring the sheep into the picture of Jesus' life, we are invited to think of ourselves as sheep and Jesus as our shepherd, but we might also ponder the relationship between the Risen Lord and nature. One sheep in particular gazes up at the Good Shepherd with an enigmatic expression on its face. What was the artist signaling?

 

 


Jesus the Great Shepherd
Jesus the Great Shepherd


            We can see in the face of the sheep who is looking at Jesus either a creature who is appreciating (even adoring) one who would so gently cradle a lamb or a creature who is uncomprehending in the presence of the Good Shepherd. What exactly is the sheep's relationship with God?

            Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christ the Center (HarperOne, 1960)––in a section entitled "Christ as the Centre Between God and Nature"––tells us that both human beings and other creatures of nature are fallen: "nature stands under the curse which God laid upon Adam's ground..." The sheep, let us say, is fallen through the Fall. (Remember the roles played by that apple and that snake in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden). The natural world, then, "is now dumb, enslaved under the guilt of man. Like history, it suffers from the loss of its meaning and its freedom. It waits expectantly for a new freedom." But Bonhoeffer distinguishes between what that freedom entails for humans and the natural world. "Nature, unlike [humans] and history, will not be reconciled, but it will be set free for a new freedom." (p. 64) Nature will not be reconciled but nature will be redeemed.

            This sounds harsh and may be the result of a science that finds only certain intelligences to be worthy of reconciliation with God. Evolutionary theory (fascinating to me but also beyond my skills, to be sure) seems to indicate that there is more to the story of species differentiation than is commonly believed. The apparent "choices" made by creatures over time in various places under differing climates and changed landscapes attest, in the minds of some scientists, to a greater reach of agency than is easily recognized by most humans.

            So when Bonhoeffer refers to sheep being redeemed but not reconciled (to pick on the creature in the painting) he could be expressing the thinking of his time. We don't know. At any rate, when we think of the need for God's Son to usher mercy and renewal into our world, we can acknowledge nature standing in need just as do humans. After all, we live in a hawk-eats-mouse world; someone suffers so that others may live. And we humans continue the tradition with wars, denial of health care, disregard for the rights of air and water freely to be themselves and clean.  We go along with unequal and unjust living situations for all beings.

            The coming of God's Son is the necessary movement toward the "new freedom" Bonhoeffer points to for both humanity and nature. That new freedom might be release from the tyranny of human life thinking first of its own well-being and concerning itself with the welfare of others (sheep, air, water, plants, etc.) only if pressed hard enough. Global climate change is pressing on us now, but we might get the message of our inadequate attention to the non-human creatures with whom we live on the day when we can no longer grow the crops and tend the livestock we have become accustomed to watching over. When at last the shepherds have to abandon their sheep permanently because the grass they need no longer grows in the hills around Bethlehem and the water for irrigation is gone, people all over the world might finally get the message that redemption can mean human turning toward our living-creature neighbors with mercy.

            This Christmas Eve when outdoor temperatures might stray from what we expect; when whole nations of people are on the move in search of ways to survive; when we hear rumors of viruses that incessantly morph into varieties we humans cannot fend off; and when uncertainty looms over the natural, social, economic, political, and even religious realms, we may take  comfort not only in the angels appearing to shepherds and their sheep. We may take comfort in Isaiah's promise that "a child has been born for us," and Titus pronouncing that God has redeemed us to be "zealous for good deeds." All of life has been redeemed for good. "Christ is truly the centre of human existence, the centre of history and now also the centre of nature." (p.65)

            Christ is love. Christ situates love in the heart of our world. Love is freedom. Love is the new thing. Love is the recognition that we all––humans and the creatures of nature––belong to a web that resonates for the good of all.

________________

Hymns to consider:

 

In ELW:

#280     Midnight Stars Make Bright the Skies

#284     'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime

#292     Love Has Come

 

In All Creation Sings:

#1067   For the Wholeness of the Earth

#1086   O God, Who Gives Us Life 

#1091  Hallelujah! Sing Praise to Your Creator

 

 

 

Melinda Quivik
Melinda Quivik
Twin Cities, Minnesota

Melinda Quivik, an ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.com. Her most recent book, Worship at a Crossroads: Racism and Segregated Sundays, is a response to Lenny Duncan's Dear Church. She calls all churches to learn why worship ways differ in our various traditions as we seek to be more welcoming.

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