A Baby and the Cosmos

First Sunday after Christmas • December 27, 2020
Reading: Luke 1:26-56 (adapted from The Inclusive Bible)
Pastor Alexis Waggoner

What has the last week been like for you? For me it's felt like kind of a mini-encapsulation of the year. there's been a whole range of feelings and experiences -- joy, despair, hope with vaccine, fear at rising numbers, one day I'm waking up and rushing out into the snow like a kid, the next day (or hour) I'm coming up against a wall of fear.  We are told in this passage that from the beginning, Jesus and those around him knew that his life would cause and contain many of its own ups and downs... and then his presence would grow to encompass the universe of high highs and low lows.

These words that Anna and Simeon speak over Jesus are a revelation of sorts, and they join a tradition of revelation, picking up the various threads of what the coming of Jesus meant to a variety of people.  As Simeon says,  he is "destined for the rising and falling of many." And there's a lot of other things that Jesus as the Christ is supposed to do, or cause or contain:

• a light. a glory. a salvation.

• a sign. a sword

• a redemption. hope for Israel.

This is where I want to draw a bit of a distinction between "Christ" and "Jesus" -- because when I was a kid it was said like "Christ" was just Jesus' last name!  When I'm speaking of Christ, I'm speaking of all this possibility alluded to by Anna and Simeon. The vast presence that can contain a universe of possibility, the experiences of the evolved, created order. The Cosmic Christ!

This presence, then, comes to earth in a special way in Jesus -- it's why these words spoken by Anna and Simeon are profound.

It's why -- much as in our own Christ-filled stories -- We DO NOT GET a single arc, a neat narrative of Jesus' life -- and the expectation for chaos starts when he's only a few days old. Really, it's there from even before his birth. And I think that's intentional -- not that things ACTUALLY happened this way, but that the authors deliberately put all this elements in to make a point for their original communities: That something special is going on here -- in the way the story mirrors other epic hero myths of the time, and the way it deviates. There are definitely elements in Jesus' story that we find in other "son of God" stories from this period, but there's a lot of juxtaposition.

For example: Mary's life is upended, but angels are signing. Herod is killing babies out of fear of Jesus' survival, but other monarchs are traveling to see Jesus in person. Shepherds bring themselves and their sheep to a messy stable; but rich astrologers bring gifts -- some of which allude to death. It's allllllll here!

Even in John, which is the LEAST narrative, there is this stage-setting for the cosmic Christ containing all experience. As the author of John tells us -- the presence that is there from the beginning, is somehow human, is somehow also not received, is somehow unseen and also seen...?? We hear echoes of John in the Thunder text -- it is an ever-expanding view of a Christ figure, one that is vast enough for all our created possibilities. One that is made real in Jesus but also in other parts of the evolved, created order.

These are ALL the places that you find Christ. What I love about the text we shared earlier, it really gets at this. It names all these truths about our experience, any number of realities, and then assigns a divine essence to them by revealing how all things are manifest and contained in Christ.

And this is a powerful realization as we struggle through our own highs and lows. The essence of this manifold presence, this cosmic Christ made manifest in Jesus is all encompassing. It embraces all of our experience, IS our experience, IS our very self. In addition to these stories and texts revealing things about the presence of Christ in Jesus. it's more than that. The presence and power of Christ cannot be contained -- that's the point of it being this expansive, cosmic reality.

In this understanding of Christ, something  of ourselves is also being revealed. Jesus as Christ is inviting us to dive into this presence in the world, which is also the presence of Christ within US. And , in the words of Anna and Simeon, to uncover our "inner thoughts," our own swords, our own fallings and risings.

This is beautiful, and compelling... but it also is challenging.  What is inaugurated at the birth of Jesus, and brought to the fore in our text and readings from today, as the presence of Christ is revealed in the person of Jesus? It's a lot of challenge, a lot of difficulty -- a sword juxtaposed with redemption.

If all these things are Christ, and by extension brought into the person of Jesus, there's a lot in there to make us uncomfortable. This beautifully makes room for our struggles, our ways or being in the world, our reality, our places of belief and disbelief... AND it makes room for that in others. Which might be a revelation that we'd like to keep un-revealed sometimes!

Here, it's important to mention not that Christ CAUSES, or ENDORSES all experiences, but that Christ is there with us, in them. Holding the possibility of all of them.  Which of course means Christ -- as experienced in Jesus  and all the evolved, created order -- is holding the possibility for our salvation. And that means to me that Christ is calling us into the most flourishing possible for the most of creation.

Going back to the text of Simeon and Anna, we see this is a communal revelation, a communal salvation. They see the presence of Christ in Jesus as something special for those in their community who need it most. The people who had been waiting, who had been agonizing. Their experiences and voices are now being called from the edges. Called to live and hope in a new way. And this is what the revelation of Christ does -- it calls us toward this goodness, to make room for the flourishing of many voices.

As one commentary put it, The good news of Jesus’ birth is that insiders and outsiders of our immediate communities... can carry the good news of salvation, liberation, love, and acceptance... these things that do unfold as Jesus' ministry continues.

As some of us will likely spend time over the coming week preparing for the New Year, I invite us to consider how our full range of experiences in 2020 is a reminder of Christ's revelation in Jesus, and how that revelation extends to us - and the whole of the cosmos.  It may feel grandiose, but -- as we've spent some time outlining the seeming contradiction contained in Christ -- it is also fittingly normal and human.

Just like the revelation of Christ in Jesus started in a kind of icky manger, our own cosmic revelation can take root at any point.

Copyright © 2020 by Alexis James Waggoner
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