1st Sunday of Christmas

December 30, 2008


Graduating from college, a young man says goodbye and disappears.

He needed some time away to sort things out.

After traveling around the country for two years, he finally lands in Alaska where he lives off the land for several months.

In 1992 he died of starvation.

When news of his death reached those that knew him - the reactions were mixed.

Of the reactions, there are three that stand out to me.

You may have seen the movie about this young man, whose name is Chris McCandless. The movie is titled, Into the wild.

So, Franz voiced that question that, summed up is;

"If God is so good, why do bad things happen to good people?"

Why are there such events as?

And then, we have today’s reading in Matthew – the death of the innocent children.

Here we have the very act of redemption, the birth of Christ, seeming to cause death.

Why is it that God cannot seem to protect the innocent?

Is God cruel?

Or Uncaring?

Can we believe in a God that could allow such things; this is what Franz was asking.

Again, how is it that the beginning of THE redemptive act in history causes such deaths? Deaths of innocents?

Tom Waits asked this question beautifully in a song titled, Georgia Lee.

“Why wasn’t God watching?”
“Why wasn’t God listening?”
“Why wasn’t God there for Georgia Lee?”

To answer this powerful question, I need to step out of the Lectionary reading. We must first look to the Old Testament.

In Genesis - we blew it. We kept looking over the fence at the grass on the other side - and we were in paradise!

In Babel, tried to reach God and lost our single langauge

Noah, God wiped us almost all out

Moses, wandered in the desert,

Again, even in the best situation, Eden, we manage to blow it.

So, how do these events reflect on the death of the children in today’s passage?

Freewill – sinful by nature

Freewill – sinful by nature

Take Herod, he tried his best to kill Jesus; when he was thwarted, he struck out at the nearest thing to the toddler known as Jesus, other toddlers and infants.

But Herod is not only a person in history, he is also an archetype. He embodies several things.

Maybe the question is not whether God allows bad things to happen to good people but rather the question is;

Is it reasonable to expect God to rescue us from ourselves, and each other?

But better yet, maybe the question is this; is it reasonable to expect God to accompany us in our journey, grieving and celebrating with us and in the end, redeeming us as Gods own?

Today’s message is clear to me; God cannot save us from the hurt we inflict on each other, ourselves and the earth.

But God can, through Christ, save us. Save us from a fate that we would write for ourselves. A fate apart from God.

The message of today’s readings is that despite our best efforts at wrecking things - God will prevail.

We see the goodness of God and creation in Ps 148

In Isaiah, we see the hope and persistence of God. We see that God hopes that we will be faithful and God feels our pain, redeems us and carries us in our affliction. Were we to read on to verse 10, we would see that Isaiah goes on to say that we rebel and that this rebellion grieves Gods Holy Spirit.

In Matthew, we read that despite the best efforts of Satan and Herod, God will prevail. We also read that we, as humans, will stop at nothing to achieve our own goals. We will even kill children and use God to justify it. How many of us have read what was said about the Native Americans during the days of manifest destiny, "Nits breed lice." and so children were killed. Are we so different then Herod when US neonatal care ranks 30th in the world? And I won't even bring up the babes of undocumented immigrants collateral damage of war- are they not innocents too?

In Heb 2:11, we see that we are called “brothers,” though I would prefer “siblings,” to the Christ.

Hebrews goes on the say that God, in Christ, became like us so that we might be saved from eternal death. Christ came that we might always know that God is with us, suffering with us, celebrating with us, always with us, letting us know that we need NOT fear for our souls.

So, what about Chris, all alone in Alaska. Did God abandon him? Did God stop his rescue?

NO.

God was with him. Though God could not prevent Chris from choosing the path that he did, God could still accompany him on his journey. God could still comfort him, assuring him that he was not alone. And if Chris's journal entries are honest, Chris not only felt the companionship of God, but actually was at peace when he died. The first telling entry is this one, "Happiness is only real when shared."

With this entry it seems that Chris had come to a realization in the wilderness. A realization that he needed others and with that realization came a desire to leave the wilderness and rejoin people. Sounds like Thomas Merton to me when he stated that as he stood in the crowded city, he looked around and say God’s face in every person.

His final and most telling message is this, "I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all.”

I think that Chris died at peace, knowing that God was with him for the entire journey.

That is today’s message. That God is with us for the entire journey, and that no matter what we do to mess things up –God reaches to us. And the promise that came as a babe in a manger, is there, for us.

Tom Waits had it wrong;

God is watching .

God is listening

God is there for us

Always.

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