Sermon for December 8

So…

Doubters, gonna doubt!

As Jim Eggleton pointed out last week (and God bless Jim and Elizabeth and Candy and Edgar and Marilyn for preaching while I was in the hospital and home mending) doubters gonna doubt.

There are those in our communities, maybe even in our families - that doubt the Christmas story or at least some parts of it. They doubt perhaps that Christmas was in December. Or they doubt that the stable was in a field all off by itself. They may even doubt there were angels.

And the truth is, some of those doubts may have merit. Biblical scholars admit they are not at all sure that Jesus was born in December. The bible doesn’t say.

And the lonely stable? Well again, all the bible says was that Jesus was born and laid in a manger! Where the manger was, well that’s not clear.

But doubts about the Christmas story are nothing to afraid of. As Jim pointed out the Christmas story is all about believing what on the surface is unbelievable, that God sent his son to be with us.

So, as Jim said, “believe”!

But I’d like to add that doubt has always been part of the Christmas story!

Doubt isn’t always a bad thing, because doubt means that you are thinking hard about something and trying to make sense of what sometimes makes no sense, at least to you.

Back in seminary we talked about antinomy’s, two perfectly reasonable ideas that are on the surface contradictory. Like the idea that a baby born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago can somehow be our savior today! But of course, that where Jim’s, “believe” comes into play.

The Christmas story begins, of course, well before Christmas. It begins with the reminders in the Old Testament prophets that God was going to send a Messiah, a new leader, a King like David, at some point.

There would be one who would come who could set people free from their sins, something the Mosaic Law had made clear was impossible under human effort.

The story continued, rising and falling in the background of scripture like the breathing of a contented infant, until Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah was doing his turn in the Temple.

So, if you thought the Christmas story actually began when Mary and Joseph found out they were going to have a baby, nope.

It goes a lot further back, back to when the children of Israel, the progeny of Jacob left Egypt, and formed into tribes named after Jacob’s and Joseph’s sons, including Levi, the tribe given cities, not land as their inheritance; and with them the responsibility for the Tabernacle and then the Temple, and the worship of God.

From Levi came the Levites, the priests and the High Priests, and the responsibility for the sacrifices and ritual in the Temple, like filling and lighting up the incense burner in the Holy Place that by its smoke would forever symbolize the rising of the people’s prayers to God.

And Zechariah a Levite, on his two-week stint once a year to be at the Temple, was chosen by a throw of the dice to be the one that day to go and do that holy duty.

In many ways Zechariah reminds me of our Deacons, setting up the communion table each month. Doing their duty, a little humbled, and perhaps a little afraid that somehow, they would mess up the table.

So intensely focused on the job at hand that the thought of God suddenly showing up in the form of an angel is not even remotely in their heads.

But then God did, sending an angel to let Zechariah know what was about to happen!

He and his wife would have a son, and name him John, and that he would be like Elijah to the coming Messiah, and all this, when Zechariah and Elizabeth were old!

It was a lot to take in, and a lot to believe. Zechariah struggled. And Zechariah doubted!

It was too hard to believe. It made no sense. Why would God do this, now?

But isn’t that just the way God works. Not in straight lines, but jubilantly coloring outside the box.

The challenge is to overcome your doubts and believe.

Zechariah struggled, and God gave him the gift of silence, or maybe that was for Elizabeth!

In any case, in nine months the silence would be broken, and this once doubting dad would announce this forerunner of the Messiah by declaring, “His name is John!”

Don’t be afraid to doubt. God can handle all the doubts you could ever muster.

And then “Believe”!


Amen!