Meditation #1 - If I were God, how would I come into the world?
Text: Isaiah 53:1-5

If I were God, and I were going to come into my world, how would I do it? Believe it or not, I've actually thought about that. Isaiah gives image of suffering servant. But I think if I were God, that's not how I'd have wanted to do it.

Here are these people that I made, and whom I love, and what do they do? I give them a beautiful garden, I give them everything they could ever want, everything they need - and I give them one rule. I tell them, "Just leave this alone. You don't want knowledge of good and evil. You're not built to handle it." - and what's the first thing they go after? And they find out to their dismay that they're not built to handle evil. Now they know what shame is; now they know what guilt is. Now they hide from me. They've opened up a gulf between us that they can't get back across.

They're not content to let me be God - they want to be gods for themselves.

So I choose one particular group of them, to whom I will teach what kind of a God I am. The first thing that I do is that I rescue them from slavery. And as I continue to dwell with them and teach them, I give them a whole series of commandments, what they call the Law - nothing less than the instruction manual for this life that I've given them - and what do they do? No sooner is a commandment out of my mouth than they're finding ways to break it!

But here and there, I find some who are trying to listen to me. So I call those ones aside, and I give them extra measure of my truth, and then I say, "Now, go and tell the others." They call those ones Prophets. But what do they do? They kill my prophets. So bent are they on rebellion, so intent on being their own gods, that they would rather kill the ones that I send them than hear the truth about themselves.

If I were God, I'd be ready to come into my world, all right - but I'd be ready to do another "Noah" - only this time not tell anybody! If I were God, I'd be ready to say, "I know what I'll do - I'll just wipe out this whole experiment and start over."

But what does God do? God says, "I know what I'll do - if they can't get to me, I'll go to them. I'll come to them, in a form they can see, and hear, and touch - a form they can understand. I'll show them what life in me is like by living it out among them. And finally, I'll make it possible for them to share this life by taking on myself all of the consequences for everything they've done - I will die for them."

As long as I live, I don't think I'll ever understand that kind of love - all I can do is respond to it.

Meditation #2 - If I were God, how would I make my entrance?
Text: Luke 2:1-7

If I were God, and I were going to come into my world, how would I make my entrance?

I think I'd want to shake these people up. I think I'd want to let them know who they're dealing with. A flaming chariot? That might work, or maybe I'd want to make my entrance like the Air Force Thunderbirds.

We saw the Thunderbirds once at an air show, and the final stunt that they did was perhaps the most memorable. The announcer said that now we would have a formation flyover, to show the insignia on the underside of the planes. And they had four planes come over, flying very slow, and very quietly. As we were watching, what we didn't know was that there was another plane, 'way out here (opposite direction), screaming toward the runway at treetop level, flying just below the speed of sound. And when an airplane is flying at almost the speed of sound, you don't hear him coming, because the sound that he was making when he was twenty miles out is getting there just a few feet ahead of the plane. So we're gazing up in the air, and all of a sudden there's a deafening roar, and a plane flashes by right in front of us, thirty feet off the runway, five hundred miles an hour, with a huge blue flame out the back!

Popcorn and hot dogs were flying through the air. People hit the deck! We never saw him coming!

Now if I were God, and I were coming into my world, I'd want to leave everyone flat on the ground saying "What happened?"

But that's not God's idea of a surprise.

How many of us, if we were God, would have chosen a womb as our means of entry into the world? To be born a baby? Is there anything more helpless than an infant?

How many of us would have chosen a peasant couple? Wouldn't we at least want to be born to the rulers? The movers and shakers? The people who could get things done? Wouldn't the Son of God deserve that?

How many of us, if we were God, would have chosen Bethlehem? It had been a great city in its time - it had been the city of King David - but that was four hundred years ago.

Jerusalem was where everything was - that's where the seat of power was, that's where the learning was, where the Temple was, the rabbis. That's where the King was, and the Roman governor - wouldn't the Messiah be born there?

But once again, just when we think we have God all figured out, God takes us by surprise.

Here is God the all-powerful - coming in complete weakness and helplessness.

Here is the God of righteousness and holiness - coming not in judgment but in mercy and love.

Here is God the creator of everything - being born to people who had nothing.

Here is God the author and giver of life - coming, ultimately, to die.

And so, God enters our world - in a way so simple, so beautiful, so humble, so perfect - that we never saw it coming!

Meditation #3 - If I were God, who would hear that I was coming?
Text: Luke 2:8-20

If I were God, and I were going to come into my world, who would I want the announcements going to?

There were plenty of people in Israel who thought they had it all figured out - they expected the announcement any day, but they thought they knew what to look for.

Certainly the rulers thought they knew what to look for. They were looking for a king like David - someone who would restore the Kingdom of Israel to its former glory. Wasn't that what it was about - the Kingdom? At the other extreme, the Zealots thought they knew what to expect, too. Wouldn't the Messiah be a great military leader, a revolutionary - someone to overthrow the Romans and give the Promised Land back to God's chosen people? Wasn't that what it was about - the Promised Land?

And the religious leaders thought they knew what to expect, too. They expected a great teacher or a great rabbi. Certainly the Pharisees thought that the salvation of Israel lay in strict obedience to the Law of Moses, and they had developed a code of conduct, a set of rules and regulations so complex, so all-encompassing, that no one could expect to fulfill it - and probably only the well-off could even afford to try. Certainly no one who had to work for a living could have the time or the energy to comply with all of the rules and regulations. The Pharisees thought that the Messiah would look like them, only more so.

Each of these groups thought they had God all figured out - they thought they knew what the Messiah would look like.

But what does God do? Who hears the good news?

None of these folks - but the shepherds. People who live out in the fields with the sheep! People who, as Pastor Anne pointed out in her sermon a couple of weeks ago, were considered almost non-persons by their culture. Their testimony was not even acceptable in trials. They were so far out on the fringes of this society that they were almost not regarded as people.

Why would God choose to reveal good news to these people?

I think maybe it was because the shepherds were the only ones who didn't "know enough" to be looking somewhere else. They didn't think that they had God all figured out. They didn't have much of anything figured out - if they did, they wouldn't be shepherds in the first place. It wasn't a profession you chose if you knew how to do something else, but a profession that you ended up in because you knew nothing else. But maybe because of this, they were the ones who were open to the good news that night - the good news of the wonderful thing that God was doing in their midst.

And so, God enters human existence,
Not in a flaming chariot, but in a baby's swaddling clothes;
Not born to kings, but to a peasant couple;
Coming not to the Temple, but to a stable in a small town nearby;
Announced not to the rich & powerful, but to the shepherds - the poor, the disenfranchised, the powerless - people viewed by many as the "dust of the earth."

God takes us by surprise.

Meditation #4 - the Magi Text: Matthew 2:1-12

The final group to hear the good news of Jesus' birth were the Magi - "wise men from the East." They were probably at the opposite end of the educational spectrum from the shepherds. These were educated people, from the region we think of as Persia (or Israelites thought of as Babylon) - the area of the Tigris & Euphrates rivers.

Once again, though, God takes us by surprise - the only educated, powerful people who are even aware of Jesus' arrival come not from the "chosen people," but from a different culture altogether!

They did, however, have one thing in common with the shepherds. They, too, had no preconceived ideas about this God of the Hebrews, and no expectations of what the Messiah would be - they were simply seekers of truth. They came simply because they had seen the sign - the star - and they knew that something of great significance had happened, so they came to see what it was

From King Herod's reaction, we see perhaps why the news came not to him, but to these "strangers." Herod, like so many in Israel, was so invested in the status quo, so comfortable with the way things were, that he was not at all open to hearing of anything which might change things, or which might threaten his power. Indeed, we read later in this chapter that his reaction was quite brutal.

Only the Magi, the "strangers from the East," were open to hearing what God had to say that night - the strangers, the shepherds, and the peasant couple in a stable in Bethlehem.

The rest of Israel missed it altogether! So busy were they with the affairs of state that they didn't notice the star. So busy were they with their feasts, their festivals, and their observance of the Law that they slept right through the angels' song.

And so once more, God takes us by surprise -

God says to the rulers, "It's not about power, it's about servanthood." God says to the zealots, "It's not about the land, it's about love." God says to the Pharisees, "It's not about rules and regulations, it's about relationship with me." God says to the Scribes, "It's not about the Law, it's about forgiveness and life."

As Christians, we do well to remind ourselves of this, especially in this season of Epiphany - because so often, we think we have God all figured out, don't we? Too often, we think we know who and what God is, and what God is about. We think we know who and what we are, and what we are about. We think we know what a church is, what it is for, what it is about, and what it can be and do.

But if we are truly open to God's leading, we are going to find that God will take us by surprise!

It might mean that we will have to let go of a few of our preconceived notions - of who God is, of who we are, of what we can or can't do.

But if we're willing to do that, we will find that God will surprise us. We will find God at work in our lives, and in the life of this church - in ways so simple, so beautiful, so perfect, that we never saw it coming!

Come, Lord Jesus, be born in us today.

Amen.

(c) 2001, Bill McWilliams