Lullaby

December 24, 2009

The Nativity of Our Lord
The Reverend Stephen P. Bauman

Listen to this sermon.

For each of the last 28 years, the season leading to this night’s candlelit celebration has conjured the same memory for me. The alchemy of sentiment, nostalgia and things-that-matter-most stirred by the story of the birth of a baby boy takes me back to the birth of my own baby boy. It’s not that I’m especially sentimental, mind you – people that know me well would surely tell you that – or that Luke’s birth was dramatically unusual. But like the inevitability of the recurring winter solstice, each year I return to the night Melissa’s long agony gave way to the miracle that every first-time parent experiences – when the breath of life inflates a new set of lungs and then whooshes back through virgin vocal cords for a trial run.

I have an indelible memory of holding Luke in my arms in stupefied wonderment staring wide-eyed into his startled, newly focusing eyes before laying him down on his mother’s breast in the messy, earthy, pungent, human, aftermath of life begetting life. Drilling my gaze into his eyes, as though seeking for his soul, I whispered, “You are mine and I am yours, so be it, come what may.” And of course, a lot of adventures have indeed come over the decades following an unpredictable path and momentum.

But what a wonder it was! An incredible, indelible moment of recognition of new life with all of its potential, tiny, like a living, squirming sprout, held in my hands. The recognition that this young life had come to us, been given, as it were, to us. An instant and awesome responsibility appearing where none existed just moments before. A spectacular joy but yes, also profound responsibility that would change our lives in a dramatic rearrangement of time, of Before and After – before Luke and after Luke. BL and AL. Year zero, the night everything changed. If you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about here.

Which is why, I suppose, this winter night each year prompts my memory. For indeed, the world’s calendar has been keeping time by the birth of Bethlehem’s child for over two thousand years. Envisioning God’s good purposes for humanity, Isaiah announced, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” And from the moment Jesus’ lungs first inflated time started over, BC and AD. And the child was not someone else’s, but our own. To us a child is born; to us a son is given. Us. Our own.

That tonight I recover my own physical experience in the birthing room seems fitting given the messy circumstances of childbirth, even, surely, Jesus’ birth. That he was born we know for certain given that we know he lived and died for certain. And since he was born we know he was given to specific parents for whom life surely began anew like it does for every set of startled first-timers. And it would be miracle enough if a healthy child was given to star-struck parents, but the astounding claim for this child is that he is ours as well and every year we have the opportunity to receive him as our own.

As our story is told, Mary and Joseph had initial physical responsibility for him. That he enters the world like everyone else in such a vulnerable state suggests how we might receive him as well. As he has been given to each one of us I’m wondering if we could imagine holding him tenderly in our arms like new parents receiving the most astonishing undeserved gift, staring into his eyes and intently saying something like, “I am yours and you are mine, so be it, come what may.”

If we were able to imagine such a thing, we would experience both the joy and responsibility that accompanies our receiving the gift. Joy for certain erupting from the miraculous elixir that produces a brand new life; as the angel announced to the shepherds: “I bring you good news of great joy!” But with this great and joyful good news comes profound responsibility to assure his emergence as a fully formed individual; our nurture that he may grow into his fullest potential.

There’s a double-portioned gift in our receiving this child as our own. For one thing, it focuses our care in specific and tangible form, in earthy, mundane but nevertheless powerful, life-altering ways. We’re inclined to think that deep and robust faith requires grand gestures and rigorous dogmatic belief, but the wisdom of this night teaches that faith, hope and love are more likely found in the tender mercies we extend to one another, most especially to those who are most vulnerable, most in need of our care and support, not unlike the care of the infant who has now been glorified as in our golden mosaics. These mercies begin with those closest to us, but then swirl outward into an ever widening arc encompassing the whole world, for in the angel’s words, the joy is for all the people.

Parents know that it’s the infant’s very vulnerability that teaches what’s required of them, that forces them to grow up, that instructs them in the way they should go and what they should do. In this way, the child is always, always, the bringer of wisdom, ready or not. In receiving the astonishing gift of a new life there is no option but to care for him. An infant is utterly dependent upon adult care. Without it his life shrivels and dies. Jesus’ life is like that tonight.

Which leads me to say something quite simple and homely: giving our attention to the old/new story we discover we’ve been assigned a role very much akin to that of parents of a new born. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. We’re asked to receive him. Nothing more really. Just receive him. Take him up. Hold him. Care for him. Nurture him. Perhaps it could begin with a lullaby:

Rock-a-bye, my dear little boy, dear little boy,
wonder of wonders, my blessing and joy;
slumber as I gently hold you,
let my tender love enfold you;
gift of God to me and the world,
here in my arms lies so peacefully curled.