God Stepped Back

December 20, 2009

Preached by Rev. Trina Zelle

However you might feel about the term evangelism, however twitchy you might get at its mere mention,  that’s really what Christmas is all about.  Glad tidings of great joy.  What better way to say “good news!”  What better event to say it about?  What better example of evangelism?  Better yet, the word angel is even embedded in the word itself – in Greek:  euangelion – one who transmits good news.  In this case, the good news of God-with-us.  The good news that God is not only not giving up on us, God has decided to join us -- become one of us – and show us how we’re supposed to be living.  Written words evidently aren’t doing the trick – time to send the Living Word.  The only one whose opinion really matters thinks we’re worth saving.  Because we’re loveable?  No, because God’s love for us confers infinite value on us.    

But maybe in order to appreciate the intensity of expression surrounding this event – by the angels, the shepherds, Mary, Zechariah; in order to appreciate the immensity of this good news, we need to understand why.  What exactly is it that’s being fixed? Why is this news so good? 

To discover that, we need to go back to the start  -- before whatever went wrong was still right – and then take it from there.  There are a number of descriptions of this start – two in the book of Genesis alone.  I find the version told by Jewish mystics to be particularly helpful.  In it we learn that,  in the beginning, before the beginning, there was nothing that was not God. Nothing existed that was not God.  Every inch of everything was God.  But God wanted more. God desired relationship with something other than Godself – and so God made room for that to happen.  God stepped back – created a space that God did not occupy out of which everything that exists, everything that we know, emerged into being.  Creation, abundant to overflowing, filled the void made by God’s self-denial.   

Of course, we all know the story that follows this beginning – it follows every version of the creation story.  Creation, individually, and in total, started developing a mind of its own; forgot to whom it owed its very existence and, as a result, broke.  Shattered into the millions of shards and fragments that constitute the world as we know it.  

According to this understanding of creation then, when we celebrate the birth of Christ, we celebrate the healing of the universe; the reconciliation of creation to its creator.  No wonder the heavenly host filled the sky proclaiming good news to the startled shepherds!  They were announcing the total restoration of God’s original plan -- full relationship with creation --  accomplished through the pouring of Godself into this one, particular human life, who “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”      

That’s what evangelism is.  That’s all it is. The transmission of the message that God has acted, and that the consequences of this action have rippled out from the original event, across time and miles, into each one of our lives – remaking what has been unmade; restoring what has been broken.  But, until we come face to face with the unmaking of our own worlds, this won’t have much of an impact on us – because evangelism only makes sense to the broken and the once-broken who not only know that they have been healed but know the source of their healing.

Here’s an example.  It’s the story of a family – a mother --  actually a mother and a father who had a beloved and delightful child.  This child, as he grew towards adulthood, became hopelessly addicted to a drug that kills most of its users before the age of thirty.  After years of failed treatment, his options and their hope, were running out.  The long and painful process of detoxification  had been attempted multiple times with short lived success.  There was always a return to the drug, with all of its telltale signs.  There remained the possibility of a “cure” that actually led to life long dependence on another powerful, addictive drug that forced its user to organize their lives around scheduled doses, tightly controlled by the state and, itself, easily abused.  And then there was the last and most likely option.  Scenario really.  Continued use with its accompanying slow deterioration, vein collapse and death.  If ever there was a demon, this drug was it. 

Then someone who knew of their son’s plight gave his parents an article, torn from a newspaper,  about a newly approved but little known medication that made painless withdrawal possible and, once withdrawal was accomplished, would block the effects of the drug, should the user ever be tempted to start again.  But this medication had just been approved and it wasn’t yet available in their part of the country.  Besides, their son wasn’t ready yet it seemed.   The mother carefully tucked the article away in her scarf drawer.  Just in case that day of readiness came.

Life went on.  Every time the ten o’clock news led with the story of some deadly incident or other, the mother would watch until she had made sure that the individual involved was not her son.  She and her husband both knew that unless something changed, it was only a matter of time before they would be planning his funeral. And nothing seemed to be changing.

And then, things started to change.  A family reunion brought the extended family together for the first time in years.  Another family member moved back into the area and renewed their relationship with the son.  A few months later, their son was ready to free himself of the living death that his life had become – but the government agencies that controlled dispensation of more traditional therapies proved unresponsive if not antagonistic.  Then she remembered the article, still tucked away in her scarf drawer.

And so, with no more than a three year old newspaper clipping and the yellow pages, a psychiatrist trained in addiction and credentialed to prescribe this particular medication was found and treatment begun. 

The parents watched as their son returned to life.  His hair grew back, his face filled out.  He began to take an interest in his surroundings and what was happening in the world.  The one who had been dead was now alive.  Hopelessly lost, and now found.  This medication had given him back his life and healed his family.  To this day, his parents feel urgently compelled to inform anyone who seems to be in similar need about its existence.  How could they not?

That’s evangelism.  That is the level at which we should be functioning as followers of Christ – fully cognizant of what we almost lost, filled with something close to hunger, to share the hope that we ourselves have encountered.  Who wouldn’t want to be part of such a faith community?  Not because we are saying, believe and all your problems will be solved, believe and you will be healed in the way that you think you should be healed.  But because we are proclaiming: we are people who often walk in darkness, and yet we have glimpsed a great light.  We are a community of found lives, learning every day what it means to live in the presence of the one who loved us enough to become one of us.  Come join us – we know where you have been and the possibilities that are before you.  We will uphold you as we uphold each other.    

That’s evangelism.  That’s Christmas.  That’s the good news that we need to be sharing.  From death to life; darkness to light.  Otherwise, what are we doing here?  Amen.