We were fortunate, when we lived in Nashville, to have next door neighbors that had three daughters the same age as our daughters. Craig and Donna Holland’s family became our family, their daughters became our daughters, and our daughters theirs.
Craig and Donna were from Bowling Green, Kentucky, which is about sixty miles north of Nashville. That meant they had no relatives in the immediate area, so on Christmas Eve, we’d gather at either our house or theirs. I have a video of one such Christmas Eve; we’d had dinner, the kids are all running around the house, whooping with excitement, as kids do on Christmas Eve; for some reason, Iron Butterfly’s “Inna Gadda da Vida” is blaring from the stereo. To this day, I am not clear what made this a good idea, but there is a video record, and it appears all were having a good time.
Carol and I consider ourselves most fortunate to this day, more than two decades after moving to central New York, to be very close to all of them. No trip to Nashville is complete until we’ve been with the Hollands.
The wonder that is Facebook is one thing that has enabled us to stay in touch, day by day, with the happenings in their lives--the joys and the sorrows, the weddings, the births . . . Carol and I both got Facebook messages last week from Emily, Craig and Donna’s youngest, that after several years of trying, and several disappointments, she is pregnant with her first child. “We aren't posting anything on social media just yet,” she messaged us; “We just started telling people and I wanted to let you all know!”
When our grandson Liam was born three years ago, Donna was all over us for pictures. Through Taylor’s Facebook postings, Donna has been able to watch Liam grow, as sure as if she was still living next door to us. I think when Liam was about six months old, Taylor posted a picture, and Donna commented excitedly “I just want to squish him!” Taylor and I thought we ought get Liam a T-shirt that said “Somebody in Tennessee wants to squish me!”
Now we have Mallory, our granddaughter. She looks like a little China doll. She has these big, round China blue eyes, and the rosiest, chubbiest little cheeks . . . whenever someone walks past her, they can’t help but give her little cheeks a squeeze. And our good friend Donna Holland, true to form, claims that she wants to squish Mallory as much as she wants to squish Liam.
So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
This passage tells us “Now when they had seen Him . . .” but I do wonder: is seeing Him all they did? As I’ve read the texts for this week, I’ve been thinking about the child, about the fact that we are told God came to us in the form of a child. I have to believe that not only did they “see” Him; they must have picked him up and held him . . . because a baby, by its very nature, invites touch.
Parker Palmer wrote this week in an essay: “In the Christmas story, God — an airy word if ever there was one! — takes the risk of incarnation. The flesh God chooses is not that of a warrior but of a vulnerable baby . . .” Perhaps that is why a baby invites touch: because of its vulnerability.
But whatever the reason, it is next to impossible for us, when we encounter a baby, not to touch the child in some way.
And that is the thing that I’ve been thinking about this week: touch. Touch is the invitation of Christmas.
The Gospel of John opens with a hymn, a hymn that contains these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The Word became flesh . . . and flesh invites touch. And touch is what makes our worship this evening most singular. It is a theme that we find running throughout the New Testament.
In his book on world religions, Huston Smith compares the God of the Jews to the gods of the Romans. He says the Romans believed the pantheon of their gods to be “immoral, vindictive, capricious.” He calls the monotheism of the Jews “the supreme achievement of Jewish thought.” While their neighbors viewed their gods as “amoral” and “toward humankind . . . preponderantly indifferent,” with their singular God “the Jews reversed the thinking of their contemporaries.” Yahweh, the God of the Jews “watched over widows and orphans,” He “speaks the name of Abraham, lifting his people out of slavery . . . seeks out the lonely, heartsick Jewish exiles in Babylon. God is a God of righteousness, whose loving-kindness is from everlasting to everlasting and whose tender mercies are in all his works.”
And it is this unique and singular God of the Jews that, according to the Gospel of John, “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” It is this child, whom Luke has the angel announce as “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord . . . wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger,” that the author of Hebrews says is “the brightness of (God’s) glory and the express image of (God’s) person.” In his first epistle, John claims “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled . . .”
This singular and unique God of the Jews comes to us in the flesh of Jesus the Christ . . . and on this evening before Christmas, comes to us in a most intimate manner: as a baby, and does so because He bids us not just to know Him, not just to behold Him, but to touch Him.
And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.
And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.” And their eyes were opened.
And perhaps one of the most moving episodes from John’s Gospel:
Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
The fourth chapter of Hebrews tells us “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are . . .” I much prefer the way the King James Version renders it: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are . . .”
And I submit to you, my dearest friends, on this holy, holy night, that this is indeed the Good News. Emmanuel . . . God with us. Not “God with us” figuratively, not “God with us” in “spirit;” but God with us, Who took on flesh, Who experienced not only death, but birth as well, that He might suffer with His people.
Are you watching, waiting this evening? He knows what it is to watch and wait, and He waits with you. Are you lonely this evening? He knows what it is to be alone, and He stays with you in your aloneness. Are you longing, sorrowing, sighing this evening? He knows what it is to long, to sorrow, to sigh, and He embraces you as He does so alongside you. Are you rejoicing this evening? He knows well what it is to feel joy, and He rejoices with you.
There is nothing in the human experience that Christ did not experience for Himself . . . from the manger to the tomb . . . and we, as believers and followers of Him share in the immense privilege of His fellowship in every step of our human experience. He comes to us; He touches us; He invites us to touch Him.
In this season of the giving of gifts, by the Holy Spirit, may we be made freshly aware of His immediate presence in all that we do, in all that we think, in all that we hope, in all that we endure.
And in that awareness, may we come to know what it means when the scripture says: Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
AMEN.