Christmas: Where Fear Meets Hope
Luke 1 & 2
Introduction:
Charles Dickens featured three ghosts in his classical story A Christmas Carol: The Ghost of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future.
Today I’m not going to talk about the three ghosts of Christmas -- but I do want share with you about the three fears of Christmas.
The three fears of Christmas tend to frighten and haunt people more than the literary phantoms that appeared to Ebenezer Scrooge so long ago.
Fear was a big part of Christ’s first coming, and fear will play a major role at the eve of His second coming.
However, fear is never forced upon us! We aren’t victims, that is, people without choices. In fact, we have a choice to make today -- between fear and hope!
At the end of Luke’s Gospel Jesus predicts that in the last days people’s hearts will fail them for fear.
Jesus’ warning reads...
“Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”
But in the next breath He offers a word of hope...
“When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:26, 28).
So the choice is before us -- hope or fear, fear or hope.
Phillips Brooks penned a seemingly contradictory line in his carol “O, Little Town Of Bethlehem”: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
Strange as it may seem, I think he got it right, don’t you? Christmas is about dirt and divinity; about both hope and fear.
Where the land and sea meet there’s a lot of foam, mire, jetsam, and flotsam. Where God kissed earth, at Bethlehem, hopes and fears existed (and still exist) side-by-side.
In another of his novels, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens begins with the oft-quoted words...
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way...”
Again, the author nails it. Hope and fear, expectation and terror, co-exist in a state of tension at all times, but especially at Christmas.
Of course, during this month of celebration we want to believe that throughout the holidays our problems, anxieties, and even fears cease to exist.
Christmas is supposed to be “different”.
The death angel should stop visiting cities, villages and hamlets around the world. Funerals should be on stand-by until after the New Year.
No one should get a “pink slip” at work during December.
The word “divorce” shouldn’t to be mentioned in any home throughout Advent.
Every emergency room should be empty -- because no one need be injured over the holidays!
I pause to ask you: Is this Christmas as you know it where -- you and I live -- in the real world? I think not.
Christmas is not about the absence of fear or tough circumstances but, rather, about the presence of the Savior.
As another hymn says, “Jesus, the Name that charms our fears...”
So, fear is a legitimate emotion of the Christmas season, but it need not control us as long as hope in God stands nearby. With that in mind let’s consider the Three Fears of Christmas. Turn to Luke 1...
The first fear emerges from the shadows when an angel appears to Zechariah, husband of Elizabeth, a couple whose golden marriage had produced no child.
They had long since given up on the idea of being parents because they were both too old to have a baby. By this time they had turned what thye’d hoped would be their child’s nursery into a storage room. All hope of being parents was gone.
But though Old Zach was a bit crippled with age he insisted on taking his turn as a priest. On one rather non-descript day while he is serving at the temple...
"... an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John."
It is in this text that we encounter the first fear of Christmas…
Fear #1: The Fear of the Unexpected (1:11-13)
Have you ever had someone jump out from behind a bush on a dark night and yell “Boo!”? For a moment you were startled, right? What happened? You encountered the unexpected – and it produced fear, maybe even terror.
We like our fears to come with warning labels. When we get on the roller coaster ride we know what is going to happen. When we watch “Jaws” for the umpteenth time we know when the shark is going to appear. Forewarned is forearmed. We can handle fear if we are braced for its appearnace.
What is really frightening is when we encocunter the totally unexpected – such as when an angel shows up in full regalia to answer a very old prayer – one that we had long since put in the “hopeless” file.
By the way, what does God do with our antiquated prayers? Do our prayers have a shelf life? Is there an expiration date stamped on our petitions? Should we ever say, “Well, I guess it isn’t going to happen after all”?
Zechariah represents us here because, though he once held out for a miracle, in his case a son, he had lost all hope. He wasn’t afraid. He was just numb. Life had worn him down.
After awhile, like Old Zach, most of us simply go through the routine of faking our hope, though we are really convinced that God has turned a deaf ear to us. We go thorugh the charade of saying our prayers, but if an angel were to show up with the answer we would be, well, afraid!
Notice that the angel said that Zach’s prayer had been heard. When did God hear him? How long ago had the old man prayed for a son? How often? What caused him to lose hope? His age? Elizabeth’s change of life?
When a couple is going to have a baby we say that “they are expecting”. Well, Zach and Liz weren’t expecting anything. They had given up.
Christmas is about being confronted by the unexpected. God becomes a human. How much more unexpected can you get than that?
We are the ones who turn Christmas into little more than ritual and routine and tradition.
We strip the Incarnation of mystery and then wonder why we are afraid – afraid of the bills that will come in Januray, the stabilty of our job, and whether Social Security will be solvent when we retire.
So, God sometimes does things to shake us up. He jumps out from the closet of our tiny lives and yells, “Boo!” Maybe He’ll do it to you -- to me -- this season. I certainly hope so.
In fact, I pray that we will all get jolted by the Divine at least once this December. In the midst of the hum-drum, I pray that we’ll rediscover answers to our unanswered prayers. I pray that hope will replace fear and that we can move from the ordinary to the extra-ordinary.
Now let’s skip down to Luke 1:29-31. Here we find Mary receiving the message from the angel that she will soon carry the Messiah in her womb. And here we encounter, along with Mary, the second fear of Christmas. Please follow along as I read...
"But when she [Mary] saw him [the angel], she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus."
Fear #2: The Fear of the Uncontrollable (1:29-31)
The angel’s greeting mortified Mary! She had her life all planned out...
First, she would go to the prom. Then college. Then she’d marry Joseph. They were going to build a nice little house with a grape arbor out back. Then they’d start a family. When they got older the kids would take care of them. Oh, and they’d all go to synagogue each Sabbath and pray for the Messiah to come soon.
But then Gabriel showed up. That’s when she discovered a new fear – the fear of the uncontrollable. One short uninvited and unexpected conversation short-circuited all of her cherished plans.
Let’s face it: Most of us are control freaks! We don’t welcome the unexpected. And we don’t want any part of our lives to be out of our control. We like order and lists. We spend a lot of time organizing things so our lives will be predictable.
And that’s when Gabriel usually shows up and our fear quotient goes through the roof!
Frankly, Gabriel’s message did little to calm Mary. She did not doubt the angel, like Zechariah. No, she believed him. That was the problem. She had to come to grips with the fact that her life was about to change – forever.
If what Gabriel had said to her was even half true, who was going to accept her story? Pregnant before marriage – but “Hey, its okay because it was the Holy Spirit’s idea....” Surely Joseph, her parents, and the local rabbi would all line up to believe that alibi, right? Wrong.
Mary’s fear came from hearing a message that threatened the predictability of her life. Are we ready for such a message this Christmas. Can you and I say with Mary, “May it be according to your word”?
God may have a different job for some of us -- and we may transition into it in an unconventional manner.
God may want to birth a new ministry through others of us – one for which we feel extremely under qualified.
The antidote to the second Fear Of Christmas, the fear of the uncontollable, is hope – akin to the hope the Psalmist (46:1-3) had long ago...
"God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging."
When we hope in God our fears are trumped. The unexpected and the uncontrollable are charmed and brought to heel. As Jeremy Taylor said: “We are safer in a storm with Jesus than anywhere else without Him.”
Finally, let’s read Luke 2:8-10 to discover the third fear of Christmas…
"Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people."
Fear #3: The Fear of the Unknown (2:8-10).
The shepherds weren’t just afraid – they were greatly afraid! No human had ever been let in on an oratorio featuring an angelic choir before. They were navigating uncharted waters – the unknown, if you will. And it was a frightening experience.
They had been minding their own business out in the fields, helping their ewes to lamb successfully. Covered in blood and after-birth, they weren’t even ritually qualifed to attend services at the nearby Temple. They were certainly not candidates to go to a baby shower for a king, much less The King.
But God, with His eternal sense of humor, invited them anyway. In fact, they were commissioned to be the very first evangelists. Think of it, shepherds, people not allowed in those days to give witness in court, were marshalled to be joyful witnesses to God’s arrival on His planet!
The fear of the unknown comes in many disguises. It comes as a nudge from the Spirit; a prompting to step out and do something far removed from our comfort zone. It comes full of question marks and uncertainties. But taking our hearts in our hands, as the shepherds did, we approach the manger and find there cause, not to fear, but to hope.
When the western part of our country was being tamed there were two kinds of men and women who ventured across the mountains into the unknown. The pioneers took risks. They went to the unmapped places. They walked where no white man had ever trod.
Then, when they had conquered the unknown, the pioneers called back over the mountian peaks to the settlers, “Its safe for you to come on out here now!”
The shepherds were like the pioneers. They faced the unknown that night long ago, vanquished their fears, and still stand to invite us to join them in worship.
There still are fear-filled “unknowns” for all of us to master. Like caterpillars, we must decide to play it safe as mere worms -- or go through the scary chrysalsis stage that will transform us into resplendent butterflies. The unknown beckons. Are we equal to the call?
Conclusion:
Zechariah, Mary, and the shepherds all had to confront the fears of Christmas. But they didn’t remain afraid. They moved on to hope. And so can we.
When I was a kid I would go over at dusk to watch televison at my uncle’s house next door. I would sometimes get engrossed in a program and fail to realize that it had become dark outside.
This wasn’t good. I was afraid of the dark. Monsters and snakes lurked in the dark!
So, when the TV show was over I’d run across the connnecting yards in my barefeet, going through patches of painful sandspurs, until I arrived breathlessly on our front porch.
My Mother found out about my fear and taught me a Bible verse: “I will trust and not be afraid.” But all that did was to cause me to quote the verse between clenched teeth as I tried to outrun the dragons and varmints that my imagination informed me were “out there” somewhere.
Then Uncle Bill found out about my fear. And he offered to walk me home. He didn’t laugh at me. He walked with me. And my fear subsided. The goblins were still in the undergrowth as far as I was concerned, but Uncle Bill was tougher than any of them.
God’s antidote to the fears of Christmas is the command to “not be afraid”. But He does more than merely give us a command. He offers to walk with us: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear on evil – for You are with me.”
We have hope. And hope disarms our fears everytime. The fears may still be there in our minds, but hope is greater than any and all of them.
“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Fear not. Hope is by your side. His other name is Immanuel -- God with us.
