CHRISTMAS EVE 2007 - Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20 - A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

Not Alone and Not Fearful - God Is With Us

 

INTRODUCTION - Cross-country Skiing

The last ten years of my life I have done some downhill skiing. I grew up in the southeastern United States, and I wanted my children to learn how to ski, so they weren’t trying to learn as an adult, as I did. I picked up cross-country skiing when I came out to attend CU in the mid-1970's, and I loved that. Have you ever taken young children cross-country skiing? Oh, my... No, I realized after doing that once or twice that we needed some gravity working for us. They needed to feel the thrill of a little breeze whipping past their faces, and get that adrenaline rush going. So I have basically learned how to downhill ski with Zach and Hannah. A few years ago Zach switched to snowboarding. I even took a lesson with him, and did that a few times. I’ve had some really fun times with them over the years. But the truth is, I’m not a great downhill skier. I’m not a black-diamond or back bowl kind of guy. You know what I am? I’m a guy who enjoys getting out in the woods by myself, or with one or two other people. I don’t want to pay a lot of money to wait in lift lines. I don’t want to have to be looking over my shoulder all the time to see what moron is about to crash into me because he’s trying to impress his buddies or his girlfriend in the slow zone. The truth is, I am a cross-country skier at heart. If I can get away from it all for a few hours, and maybe get far enough up a trail so that I can be making fresh tracks in new snow, well... that is my skiing heaven. That may not be you, but that’s me.

 

Our children are teenagers now. They are wonderful, responsible kids, and they don’t need as much supervision. Four days ago I dropped Zach and his friend, Tim, off at the Breckenridge ski area. I was quite excited as I put my skis into the car earlier that morning. The long, skinny skis were back. They are over 30 years old now. They were my father’s, in fact. And the low, light boots, that you can even walk in or drive in - those are over thirty years old, too. (Man, I must be getting old!) Sometime said to me a couple days before I left, “Are you going with anyone?” And I replied, almost too eagerly, “Not this time. I am looking forward to some time alone.” An introvert who is with people all the time... sometimes the only way sanity returns is to have some alone time.

 

So I found the Breckenridge Nordic Center, just a few minutes away from where I dropped Zach and Tim off. I paid my trail fee, threw my little backpack over my shoulders, and off I went. It was the first time I had been cross-country skiing in two or three years. I played around in the lower meadows for a half and hour or so, and then I studied the trail map that they gave me, and I figured out which trails went up. How far up might I be able to get before I had to turn around and go pick up the boys? (It’s sort of the opposite mind-set of downhill skiing, I’ll admit.) Over the next four hours or so, I took two short breaks for some food. But mainly, I went up. I was following other folks’ tracks for a while. It started to snow - that light, just-barely-falling-down kind of snow where it feels like you’re in the middle of a children’s picture book or something. It didn’t quite feel real. It felt like I really had left the world behind. The trail markers that I had been seeing regularly finally ended, and I caught up to three people whose tracks I had been following, and suddenly there I was, making fresh tracks in the snow, going up, and up, and up.

 

My muscles were starting to feel it, but I couldn’t stop just yet. I wanted to find the highest point that they had marked on the map. I wanted to get to the points marked “Elk Dance” and “Heaven’s Gate”, and maybe even reach a hut marked as “Kathy’s Viewpoint Sauna”. Sounded intriguing.

 

Did I mention that I hadn’t seen any trail markers for a while? I was clearly on a trail, but there were no more markers. And I had passed up any people who might know where I was. I was started to feel a little bit lost - not a lot lost, just a little lost. It was my first time in this area, and it was snowing a little harder, visibility was down, and the sky and the ground were all starting to look like the same thing. I was supposedly on a high loop trail that led to one last higher loop trail, but the junction for the higher loop trail was nowhere in sight. Was I losing my bearings? When I reached a wide open area that was steeper and desolate, with the wind whipping across it, I decided to turned around.

 

I came back to an unmarked shortcut that I had seen on the way up. It seemed to be the shortcut marked on the map. I was getting tired. A shortcut sounded nice. I took it. I was suddenly skiing at a decent clip, going downhill. What if this goes the wrong way? I’m going to have to re-climb all of this, that’s what! I stopped. Should I just start re-climbing it now, and re-trace my tracks back? I know that way will get me back down to the right place. There was no one to consult with. I was all alone. I had gotten my wish. What I had been hoping for for the last several days had come true. I was all alone in the mountains, with nobody around. It had been absolutely wonderful up to this point. Now I was starting to feel a little anxious. You know when your mind starts to race, and you get way ahead of yourself? “Well, I know which way is down, but what if I end up in Dillon or something, and have to hitchhike back to Breckenridge? I’m going to be really late picking up the boys!”

 

I decided to stay with the shortcut for a little while longer. I said a little prayer. “Lord, I need a little sign that I am still where I think I am, and not totally turned around.” I skied around a bend. The shortcut suddenly connected with a more established trail. “Hmmm, now where am I?” I looked downhill. Do I keep going that way? I wasn’t sure. I turned and looked uphill. About fifty yards up the hill was a little hut, with smoke coming out of a little vent in the roof, and three sets of skis and poles leaning against it. I bopped up the trail and knocked on the door. A man arrived first. “ Hi. Can you tell me which hut this is?” He replied, “This is the Kathy’s Viewpoint Hut. There is another one just down the trail from here, the Hallelujah Hut. If you keep going past that, you’ll loop around and catch the trail you came up on.” In another ten or fifteen minutes I reached the Hallelujah Hut. I didn’t go inside. But I was praising God that I had found it. The rest of my trip down was anxiety-free.

 

NOT ALONE

 

You and I sometimes feel very alone. That aloneness is sometimes accompanied by fear, anxiety, frustration, or even anger.

 

We get laid off from a job and we don’t find a new job right away. We don’t know when the next job offer will come. We feel very alone.

 

A family member is not doing well, or we ourselves notice that our own health is beginning to fail. We don’t know the diagnosis yet, or we do - and it’s not good. Or perhaps the mental health of a loved one is really slipping, and we feel quite helpless as to what to do, because it feels like we can’t really do a whole lot. We feel alone.

 

A parent dies, and suddenly our world is very different. We feel more alone. Or maybe both of our parents have died, and there are times when we feel like we have become orphans, even if we are adults.

 

We thought we had found the right person to spend the rest of our lives with. We thought the relationship was off to a good start, and that we were going to have a special family for many years to come - the children, my spouse, and I. And suddenly you are heading for a divorce, or you’ve gotten divorced, and you feel very, very alone.

 

This is the night when we are reminded that we are not alone. No matter how alone we might feel in any given moment, we are not alone.

 

“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

 

This is the night we hear anew, what the shepherds heard from the angel: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth, and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12)

 

THE GREATEST NEWS

 

This is not just good news. This is the greatest news of all time!

 

Jesus is born for us. For all of us. Jesus - God in the flesh - comes to all of us, and God says to each and every one of us: You are not alone! And God says something else, too. Don’t be afraid! These two messages are really one message. “Don’t be afraid! You’re not alone. I am with you - always.”

 

The testimony of scripture is that our relationship with God always begins with God’s initiative, not our own. God comes to Abraham. God comes to Moses and the enslaved Jews in Egypt. God comes to David, through Samuel, and anoints him as king. And finally, most miraculous of all, God comes to earth. God is born of a young woman, and He is named Jesus.

 

God throws open the gate and comes to earth. God takes on flesh to be one of us, to be human like us - to be Emmanuel - God with us. God comes so we might know that we are never alone.

 

You’re not alone when you are lost or sort of lost in the mountains.

You’re not alone when you are unemployed.

You’re not alone when you or a family member is going through a challenging illness.

You’re not alone when you experience the death of a family member, a close friend, or a mentor.

You’re not alone when you feel lost spiritually, and don’t know what God is up to in your life.

You’re not alone when you go through a divorce.

You’re not even alone when you are minutes or seconds away from your own death.

 

The apostle Paul put it this way: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

 

The amazing news of this night is that God wanted to be with us so much that He came to be born - ever so humbly - in a manger. Just to be with us! There’s no room in the inn? That’s okay, God says. I’ll be born right there among the animals, and my first place to sleep will be a feeding trough.

 

RAMIFICATIONS

There are a couple of other things for us to think about, on this most holy of nights.

 

First, if God is with us, it means that we - you and I - are the presence of God to someone else in this world. Whatever else we do and wherever we travel, that is our calling - to be the presence of God to someone else in this world.

 

Second, if it is all God’s initiative - and it is - our part involves response. The question that God puts to each of us this night, the question God puts to us every single morning when we wake up - for the rest of our lives - is this: “Will you make room for Me in your heart, and in your life? Will you receive Me? Will you welcome Me?”

 

If we do that receiving... if we welcome the One who is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace... then fear will never get the best of us. We will know that we are never left all alone, to fend for ourselves. We will know a joy and a peace that comes only to those who open their hearts to receive Him.

 

God has come. God is with us. God will always be with us, and will never forsake us. To us is born this day, a Savior! How you respond - tonight, tomorrow, next week, next year, ten or even twenty or thirty years from now - is entirely up to you. But one thing is for sure: you are not alone. God has come. God is with us. Hallelujah!