Praising God with Creation - Psalm 148

Praising God with Creation - Psalm 148


I grew up, and my parents still live, in a very small town called West Monroe; about a 30 minute drive north of Syracuse. When I was growing up there was only one blinking yellow light in the whole town, and there was only one church, and one small store and I was about 5 or 6 when the town finally organized a volunteer fire department. As part of a larger school district, West Monroe doesn’t even have its own elementary school. At both ends of my road were dairy farms, and there were two more dairy farms less than a mile away on the crossroad. Driving anywhere in the spring and fall often meant breathing in the pungent smell of cow manure being spread as fertilizer.

The block my parents’ house is on is about 2 and ½ miles in circumference and most of the land in the middle is woods, with a swamp in the center. My parents choose to build their house back in these woods on their 4 acres. In the summer one can hardly see the house from the road. Hemlocks and beach, white pine and maples surround the house, which only had a bit of a front lawn when I was growing up.

It was a wonderful place to play. My dad made a swing secured between two trees and a sand box in back of the house. The space under the umbrella branches of a hemlock became my pretend house. The shallow vernal stream and ponds between our house and the road became an adventure course: trying to cross over the stream on fallen logs to get to a little island; “fishing” for leaves with a stick, and “skating” on an icy area in the winter until I hit a thin patch and my boot would fill with icy water and I had to walk the dozen yards back home. My brother and other neighbor children and I would often make picnics and eat them out under the trees.

I learned to love the other creatures that lived in our woods. We had several bird feeders and I loved to watch the different birds coming to eat and the silly antics of the squirrels trying to outsmart my mechanical engineer father’s newest attempt to keep them out of the seeds. My parents taught me the names of the birds, and which songs they sang. Sometimes we would see deer and rabbits. When I was little I went to sleep in the spring to the peepers and in the summer to the song of the whip-poor-will, and as I got older a population of turkeys developed. I came to know many plants, the prodigious ground pine, and wild winter mint, the rare and beautiful trillium and the very occasional lady slipper. I used to plant the red berries of the mayflowers in my sand box. I loved turning over rocks and logs to find the creepy crawly bugs and worms scurrying below. I would catch toads, salamanders, frogs, fireflies and caterpillars and sometimes keep them for a while. My neighbor even taught me how to pick up the little snakes in the woods before I was 5 years old.

I also learned to love the elements. The sound and smell of summer rain falling on the leaves; the feeling of safety when I was in my house and the thunder clapped all around; the sound of the branches creaking against each other in a strong wind, and the cozy feeling of being at home by the fire while the snow was falling, snow on snow.

And then there were the stars. We didn’t even have streetlights on the corners when I was a kid, so the stars and the moon were the brightest and clearest. I learned some of the constellations by name; Orion became my favorite.

Even living so closely with nature, my parents usually took us camping when we went on vacation. We tented in many national and state parks; canoed in the lakes and streams trying to sneak up on beavers; climbed mountains in the Adirondacks, and Catskills; hiked to lovely waterfalls; explored the sea side at Manasquan, NJ, Arcadia National Park and Eastham, Cape Cod; spelunked through Mammoth cave in Kentucky; picked wild strawberries and blueberries; biked along old bits of the Erie Canal. I also frequented the local Girl Scout camp in the summers, eventually spending three whole summers living in platform tents as part of the staff. When looking at colleges I easily chose one located in an old apple orchard at the foot of the Holyoke Mt. range over the one on Commonwealth Ave. in Boston.

Coming to know so much of God’s creation so intimately; it is easy to read Psalms like 148 that invite all creation to praise God together. Creation praises God naturally, just by being and doing what God created it to be and do. The cosmos around us knows and expresses joy every day. And what is more hopeful than nature? Look at the life that comes back even after a forest fire. Look at the persistence of the dandelions even when people try all manner of banning them from their lawns. Look at the moss, which will grow on a roof, the trees, which will seed themselves in our gutters, and the flowers, which will start to grow even in the cracks of pavement if given half a chance. When we develop our relationship with the other creatures of this universe the scripture passages which treat nature as a being, almost an enchanted being, will no longer seem simply poetic, or fanciful. The mountains and the hills can break forth in singing and trees of the field do clap their hands. The real invitation is for us to recognize ourselves as part of creation and join together in the constant cacophony of praise.

What if we woke every morning and crowed like a rooster? Hallelujah! What if we sang quiet peaceful songs before we went to sleep each night? All night, all day, angels watchin’ over me my Lord… What if we frequently let feelings of delight well up within us like the geysers and spill out into our smiles and our speech, our thoughts and our actions?

What does all this have to do with Christmas? It is only the second day of Christmas after all. It hinges on the song of the angels at the time of Christ’s birth. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace. It also has to do with the gospel of John’s description of Christ as the Word, present with God at creation, through whom the Father made all things. The meaning of the incarnation of God has a bigger meaning than we usually imagine. Christ is in a loving relationship with all of creation, not just with the human population. The joy of Emmanuel, God with us, is known to the whole world, and to the heavens above.

So let us participate with creation in taking delight in the Lord. Let us “make a list of God’s gracious dealings, and all the things God has done that need praising;” God’s “compassion lavished and love extravagant. ” Let every heart prepare room to receive Christ our king and let us raise up our voices with every creature in heaven and earth to sing God’s praise.

The Gift of Christ

The words of the prophet Isaiah start with darkness. He reminds us that the message of Christmas isn’t all superficial fluff and pretend goodwill. The message of Christmas is for real people who often walk in darkness. Those who know what it is like to live in a land of deep darkness. Isaiah’s good news is given to a people who have been living under a yoke of heavy burdens, with a burdensome bar across our shoulders so that sometimes we can barely move forward through life. The message is also for those who are oppressed by the rod of violence and poverty.

We are such a people who know darkness. We know what it means to loose loved ones to grave illness and death. We struggle with addictions, or we watch, feeling helpless as our loved ones struggle with addictions. Some have known the excruciating pain of the death of a child. Others find that when we interact with our children, we behave as badly as our parents did with us, no matter how strongly we vowed that we would be different. We know what it is to live with ongoing conflicts, anger that rarely subsides, or ingrown depression. We know the fear that comes when we loose our jobs, or can’t pay our bills, or loose the money invested for our old age. Some know great physical pain that never heals; others are trapped in mental or emotional illnesses and the social stigma that comes as part of the package. And when we take the time to reflect on our inner lives, many of us will find that there is darkness in our hearts, and in our thoughts that we’d rather not admit to.

As if our own darkness wasn’t enough, every day we sit in front of boxes that ironically use light to show us even more darkness. Not only in the news of wars, terrorism, tremendous greed of a few leading to tremendous suffering of many, and the inability of governments to work for the well-being of their people, but also in our dramas CSI, Survivor, and ER –even our comedies seem to depict more darkness than light these days. We know what it is to live in deep darkness.

The gift of Christ, which we have gathered to celebrate this evening is the very personal gift of God entering into our darkness. The heart of this celebration is not the birth of a baby per se, but that this particular baby named Jesus is both fully human and fully God.

Often we seem to sentimentalize the human part of Jesus. Oh, what a sweet baby, just like every other baby. Being born in a manger seems cute, fluffy lambs, funny shepherds dressed in bathrobes, and glowing young mother and beaming father and a visit from kings showering the family with gifts. All so sweet, calm and peaceful, but not very much like real life.

Even Luke leaves much to our imaginations when he conveys Jesus’ very human birth. He simply says, “While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him up and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Luke’s story may be understated, but it doesn’t take too much imagination and common sense to see how tough this event was for Mary and Joseph. Giving birth is a difficult undertaking at its best. There is a reason it is called labor. And giving birth 2000 years ago, away from home, or midwives, or an easy supply of hot water must have been traumatic indeed. Of all the Christmas pageants and movies I have seen about the nativity, the only time I have ever seen of a fully human birth of Christ depicted is in Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity. I saw it in downtown Boston about a decade ago. Mary and Joe Wallen went to see this year’s production just last Sunday. Here is how Mary describes the scene.

"This is not a romanticized version of the Christ child’s birth. Surrounded on both sides of the stage by a gospel choir, Joseph and Mary use modern dance to convey their terrible situation. They are on the road, Mary heavy with child, and suddenly Mary is doubled over in pain. She begs Joseph for help, for they have nowhere to go.

"Accompanied by African drums, Joseph, panicked, leaps about the stage, seeking shelter for his wife. He is turned away. He returns to cradle and comfort her. They have a very unusual dance together – Joseph the protective husband lifting his very pregnant wife in the air; Mary, the loving wife responding gracefully, then contracting in agony.

"Joseph exits the stage to keep searching. The drumming becomes louder and faster mirroring Mary’s pain and fear. Her solo is all angles and contractions. Her body extends as she longs for Joseph and then is pulled back over her belly as the baby draws near.

"Finally Joseph returns to her, the panic turned to resolve, ready to deal with the inevitable right where they are, in the middle of nowhere. The dancers turn their backs and after a few more contractions, Mary shows us her baby."

This is the beginning of the Good News that brings great joy. God doesn’t avoid our human darkness, but jumps into our lives of trouble and woe from the very beginning. God enters that darkness as the person of Jesus the Christ, becoming fully human. This is the basis for Paul’s strong claim that nothing can separate us from the love of God. For God is with us wherever we are.

Yet while Jesus Christ entered the darkness of human life with us, his purpose for coming into our world is to bring light and to make us children of the light. This is the meaning of salvation. Each human being was created in God’s image. So even though it is crucial to recognize that Christ is fully human, it is equally important to know that when we look at Christ he is also fully God. If we want to see how God intended each of us to be, we only need to look at Christ. When we decide to turn away from the darkness of our sins, and focus on the light of Christ we will be transformed and become children of the light.

Though you may not know this from what you see on tv, there are people imitating Christ and reflecting his light all the time. We just need to learn to look for it and recognize when it is happening. I found a great source on a web site called Good News Network with stories like this; the students of Dublin High School in San Francisco chose Rachel Cooperstein, a young woman with Downs syndrome as their home coming queen. An 11-year-old girl began drawing pictures of birds to raise money for the clean up of the Gulf Coast and she raised $200,000. A group of teens in Kansas found a discarded purse on the side of the road as the walked along and discovered $7,000 in it. They decided to return it to the owner, who was an elderly widow, planning to buy a memorial for her late husband. But we don’t need to turn to the news to see the light of Christ all around us. When we wake in the morning to a new day that is a gift from Christ. When someone says “thank you” that is the light of Christ. When a driver stops to let you cross the street, that is the light of Christ. When someone invites you for dinner, or a cup of coffee, that is the light of Christ. When you are invited to join with others in studying the word of God, or serve the hungry and lonely at Breaking Bread that is the light of Christ. When we gather to remember other children of the light who have passed from this world to the next, that is the light of Christ.

And we can participate in creating more light in the world. Every time we choose to forgive someone, every time we act with self-giving love, every time we exercise patience, kindness, gentleness or self-control we are walking as God’s children of light. Every time we sit with someone who is grieving, tend to someone who is sick, try to find the peaceful solution to the problem we are walking as God’s children of light.

The story of Christ’s birth in Luke is filled with light. This light is signified by the word glory – the angle of the Lord stood before the shepherds and the glory of the Lord shone around them. The heavenly choir of angles sang glory to God in the highest heaven! And after seeing the newborn Christ the shepherds returned with glory in their hearts and on their tongues as they told everyone of what they had seen. The mood of the story is filled with light too. The news of the angles was good news, of great joy, for everybody. I don’t know about you, but when I hear good news and am filled with great joy I feel like my feet are off the ground – I feel light.

In the season of Advent we focused on of hope, peace, joy and love as gifts from God. On this Christmas eve we can be sure that as we unwrap the gift of Christ in our lives we will also find the hope, peace, joy and love that life in Christ promises us. May we all walk together as children of the light so that our lives glorify God with every step we take.