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I am not proficient in any
foreign languages. I’m not necessarily proud of that, but it’s
true. However, tonight I can speak three languages other than
English—or at least one word in three different languages. For
instance, I know the word logos, which in Greek means
word. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was
with God, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” I can
also speak the word Hallelujah, which in Hebrew was a
shout of acclamation to God. I also know one word in Aramaic.
It is the word Maranatha. It means, “Come, O Lord” or,
roughly translated, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Maranatha is not a
familiar word to most of you. You may have seen a sign
referring to a particular church as the “Maranatha” Church.
But the word doesn’t appear very much in contemporary
language.
However, Maranatha was
the cry of the New Testament community. The people of that era
may have spoken Greek or Hebrew or some other language. But
they cried out in Aramaic, “Maranatha!”
Maranatha is the next to the
last word in the New Testament. The last word is a
benediction, but the next to the last word is, “Amen. Come,
Lord Jesus.”
Theologian Lewis Smedes died
about a year ago at the age of 82. Just before he died, he
tells of a memory from his childhood church. He writes this:
“When I was young I hoped
with all my heart that Christ would never come… I was scared
half to death by a biblical prayer on the front wall of the
church which said, ‘Maranatha: Even So Come Quickly, Lord
Jesus.’ I countered that prayer each Sunday with a prayer of
my own, ‘Oh Jesus, please take your time.’”
“Maranatha! Even so, come,
Lord Jesus.” Is that not what this night is about? We have
sung the Advent carol, “Come, thou long expected Jesus,” or “O
come, O come Emmanuel.” We have sung the Christmas carol, “O
holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our
sin and enter in, be born in us today." And right after
Christmas we will sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
The New Testament is full of
rich images around this idea. James 5:8 reads, “Strengthen
your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.” The New
Testament community held a high anticipation and belief in a
literal second coming of Jesus.
When time passed and Jesus did
not yet return, the expression “Maranatha” became a prayer
that said, “Come into our midst once again.” It was often used
with communion. Many churches observe Christmas Eve communion
this night.
Tonight is a “Maranatha” night!
Imagine yourself in a good seat
at Heinz Hall or the Benedum Center downtown. You have come
for a musical. You have high expectations. You’ve waited a
long time to see this one. The appointed hour comes. The
lights go down. The spotlight forms on the conductor as he
comes through the doors. There is applause. Suddenly the room
becomes very quiet. The baton is raised for the overture. This
is the moment which prepares us for the drama itself.
Tonight—Christmas Eve—is like
that moment. The stage is set. The baton is raised. The drama
is about to begin.
“Come, Lord Jesus.” It’s a
simple prayer, really. But it’s not like a table grace, a
memorized prayer, or even like the Lord’s Prayer. There is an
intensity in this prayer. There is an intense focus. Maranatha.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus. It’s the prayer of Christmas Eve.
Some of you will recall the
Advent prayer of Henri Nouwen.
We who have so much to do
seek quiet spaces to hear Your voice. We who are anxious about
many things look forward to Your coming. We whose hearts are
heavy seek the joy of Your presence. We who are your people,
walking in darkness, seek the light. To you we say, “Come,
Lord Jesus.”
Maranatha! What does this prayer
do for you? What does it do for me?
BRINGS PAGEANTRY
First of all, the prayer brings
pageantry. We have lots of pageantry at Christmas. There are
lots of Christmas pageants. Sometimes the words get a bit
confused. I am remembering one tonight where Mary and Joseph
come to the Inn. Joseph asks for a room. The innkeeper says,
“I’m sorry, we have no room.”
“Please, sir, my wife is nine
months pregnant and about to deliver.”
Replied the Innkeeper, “I’m
sorry, but that’s not my fault.”
To which Joseph replied, “It’s
not my fault either.”
The New Testament story is full
of pageantry. It’s God’s way in the world.
Seasonally, here we observe the
pageantry without apology. We have the White Gifts service
early in Advent, with our Sunday School children reenacting
the parts of the Christmas story. The staff provides the
“Journey to Bethlehem” for 350 children in our Child Care
Center and many of their parents for two consecutive days. The
children and parents move through a sequence of events that
surround Christmas. There is abundant music this time of the
year. More music has been written around the Christmas event
than any other event in human history. Tonight’s candlelight
service is a form of pageantry.
This is a truly remarkable
story. A child born in poverty is destined to become the most
widely recognized name in much of the world. Christmas is
about pageantry. Tonight is about pageantry.
There is a clergy household in
the North Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church
that provides a Christmas gift to their small community each
year. They connect all the churches in town with luminaria.
Several years ago, 600 luminaria connected all those churches.
You could follow the luminaria path of all the lights shining
in the darkness. That’s pageantry. That’s drama.
At the beginning of the
Christmas holidays one year, Paul Tillich was teaching in New
York City. Tillich is a renowned lecturer and theologian of an
earlier part of the century. On that occasion, he went down to
worship with a small congregation in a storefront church. The
pastor was one of Tillich’s students.
Tillich listened with dismay as
the young preacher related the Christmas story to a
beleaguered group of uneducated people, using the language of
the lecture hall. He spoke eloquently of how the divine
transcendent had become imminent.
After the service ended, the
brilliant teacher, with tears in his eyes, approached his
student. Tillich said, “Son, just tell them that God became
man in Jesus of Nazareth.”
Tonight is about pageantry.
Maranatha! Tonight dreams become possibilities. The drama
begins to unfold, and we sit in rapt attention.
MYSTERY
But tonight is also about
mystery. Mystery is a part of Christmas. Even Santa is a part
of the mystery. I remember hearing a story told by Shirley
Temple (now Shirley Temple Black), who said, “I stopped
believing in Santa Claus when I was six years old. Mother took
me to see him in a department store and he asked for my
autograph.”
An element of mystery is
integral to the Christmas story. One of our retired bishops
tells of an earlier day in his ministry. He was driving his
family to the church for the Christmas Eve service when his
son said from the back seat, “Dad, are you going to tell us
the Christmas story tonight, or are you going to try to
explain it again?”
You don’t explain Christmas.
Christmas is mystery. Christmas is a time when the shivers in
the spine have nothing to do with the temperature. Mystery is
reflected in Charles Wesley’s great Christmas hymn, where he
says, “Veiled in flesh the godhead see; hail the incarnate
Deity.”
Pablo Casals, the great cellist
tells of attending Christmas Eve worship with his father at
the age of five. They lived in a small village in Spain. His
father was the church organist. As the young Casals walked
with his father, he shivered—not from cold, but from mystery.
He writes this:
I felt that something
wonderful was about to happen. High overhead, the heavens were
full of stars, and as we walked in silence I held my father’s
hand…In the dark narrow streets, there were moving figures,
shadowy and spectral and silent, moving into the church, very
quietly…My father played the organ, and when I sang, it was my
heart that was singing, and I poured out everything that was
in me.
Christmas is about mystery. I
recently read an article from the new leader of the Unitarian
Universalist Church. That church is noted for its liberal
viewpoints and its intellectual stimulation. However, this new
leader was saying something very unusual. He said, “We have
lost the vocabulary of reverence for mystery. We have no
official ‘hint’ of the holy.”
Not so here tonight! We have the
vocabulary of reverence. We have more than a hint of the
holy.
This evening, Christmas Eve
services abound everywhere. More people attend church on
Christmas Eve than at any other time of the year. Why is that?
In part it’s because we have a hunger for mystery. We know
that much of life is too busy and too scheduled for mystery.
Yet we desperately need it. And mystery is what God offers. So
we worship on Christmas Eve.
In a few moments you will hear a
hauntingly beautiful song very appropriate to Christmas Eve.
Listen to the words: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and in fear and trembling stand. Ponder nothing earthly
minded, for with blessing in His hand, Christ our God to earth
descended, our full homage to demand.”
We have pageantry tonight! We
have mystery! We need both in our lives. In Christmas, the
pageantry and the mystery of life take hold of us. In
Christmas, the dreams of the livability of life and wholeness
become possible.
And so we say again
tonight—Christmas Eve, 2003, with reverence and awe—“Amen.
Even so, come now, Lord Jesus. Maranatha!” |
