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Christmas
The liberator



Christmas Eve     Luke 2:1-14

“The angel said to them:  I bring you good news of great joy which is for all people, for onto you is born this day in the city of David, a Liberator, who is Christ the Lord.”

One of the most exciting and most dramatic rescue missions of modern times happened in Entebbe, Uganda, located in Central Africa.  It occurred on July 4th, 1976, on the 200th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence.  That rescue mission captivated the whole world.  An Israeli airplane has been hijacked after it left Paris, France.  It was hijacked by a group of Palestinian guerillas.  These Palestinian guerillas had made arrangements with Big Daddy Amin of Uganda to land their plane at Entebbe, a remote city in Uganda.  The hijacked plane landed at Entebbe, and Big Daddy Amin, one of the cruelest dictators of all time, who had brutalized his own country into submission, who had murdered his own people by the tens of thousands, came out to meet the hijacked airplane.  He fumed and railed at the 150 prisoners on the plane.  They expected death at the hands of this violent, cruel man.  The hostages were kept isolated, captive for several days and then…it happened.  So suddenly.  So secretly.  No one had an inkling that it was going to happen.  Suddenly and silently in the middle of the night, at 1:00 AM on July 4, 1976, on the 200th anniversary of our national liberation, a plane quietly glided into Entebbe and out jumped a squadron of forty commandos.  There was a blast of gunfire.  Two Israeli soldiers were killed, but the Ugandans immediately surrendered.  Quickly there were two airplanes in the dark sky, the first plane which had been hijacked and the second, a rescue plane. Both planes flew to freedom.  The next day, Big Daddy Amin again fumed and railed that his airspace had been violated.

Liberation is a good word.  Liberation is good news.  Liberation implies positive change, being set free from an awful situation.  Liberation happens to you.  You don’t liberate yourself.  Liberation is exciting, life giving, and thrilling to see when it happens.

A second story.  A man was deeply disturbed when he entered the public grade school that day. Crazy.  Yes, I think he must have been crazy.  He shot one teacher and then another, and soon he had a whole classroom of younger children hostage.  This was American violence, 1993.  The word spread like wildfire through the media.  The parents were panicked.  The teachers were panicked.  Even the news reporters were panicked by this one.  How long was this stand off going to last?  How many children would he shoot with his machine gun?  An undercover agent slipped into the school.  It seemed that hours slowly crept by.  Then…a shot rang out and hearts froze.  The crazed man slumped to the floor, and the children instinctively ran, screaming as they fled to freedom.  Parents came running to embrace them in their arms.

The children were liberated; they were set free.  Liberation is a good word.  Liberation is good news.  Liberation implies positive change, being set free from an awful situation.  Liberation happens to you.  You don’t liberate yourself.  Liberation is exciting, life giving, and thrilling when you see it happen.

Third story.  I spoke to him this past Wednesday night after church, and I tell you this story with his permission.  He came to me to show me his grades.  He pulled his grades out of his black, leather jacket and laid them on the altar for me to see.  He was thirty- three years old, going to Renton VoTech, and he was studying to become a licensed practical nurse.  He had an A in pharmacology; you know, the hard stuff like math and chemistry.  He had an A in practicum; you know, the on-the-floor practical nursing which is so important.  He was proud of his achievement.  He reminded me of his story that twenty years ago he had dropped out of school and life at the age of thirteen.  It was twenty years since he had been in school.  He used drugs, marijuana, cocaine, alcohol, and everything else the world had to offer in those years.  For more than a decade, he had been a prisoner, a captive.  And slowly, ever so slowly, he found himself.  Slowly he was healed, and slowly he was liberated, and now he is getting “A”s in school.  He was so proud as he laid his report on the altar this past Wednesday night, saying to me, “Geese, it’s holy up here by the altar.” It was and it holy.  It was holy because his life had been liberated, and liberation is a good word.  Liberation is good news.  Liberation implies positive change, being set free from an awful situation.  Liberation happens to you; you don’t simply do it yourself.  Liberation is exciting, life giving, and thrilling to see when it happens, and his parents and pastor were thrilled to see that report card and what it symbolized.

The angels said to them:  “I bring you good news of great joy which is for ALL people, for onto you is born this day in the city of David, A LIBERATOR, who is Christ the Lord.”   The word, liberator, is a good word, a strong word, a real word for a real world in need of liberation.

Usually, when we hear the song of the angels on Christmas Eve, we hear the words like this:  “For unto you is born this day in the City of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  We hear the word, savior, rather than the word, liberator.

The word, liberator, and savior, come from the same Greek word, but the words have different meanings and connotations in English.  The word, savior, implies the forgiveness of sins.  God cancels our sin.  God covers up our sin.  Got lets go of our sins.  God erases our sins.  We need God’s forgiveness for all of our lives.  We cannot escape this sinful disposition that we all have, so we need to experience forgiveness throughout our whole lives.

But the word, liberation, has a different feel to it than the word, savior.  The word, liberation, implies more than forgiveness.  Liberation implies positive, actual change in us and to us.  That is, a person who drinks too much is forgiven for his or her mistakes, but it is equally important to be liberated from one’s alcoholism, to be liberated from the destructive habits that ruin our lives. 

Tonight, I would like to briefly focus on Jesus, the Liberator, and how the power of God’s love makes positive changes in us, freeing us from unhealthy patterns, habits, and values. 

Jesus came to liberate us from religious sentimentality and what some have called, Christmas Eve Religion.  How we love our “Christmas Eve Religion,” and how the world loves it.  How I love it. 

As a pastor who plans worship services, I am responsible for trying to make Christmas Eve Religion happen, to create the scene from that first Bethlehem night, to try to recreate the magic of the moment, with candles to remind us of the starlight sky, with choirs to recall the glorious sounds of the heavenly angel choir, with a harp to recreate the mood and feelings of a silent peacefulness.  Christmas Eve Religion is made up of candles and choirs against a backdrop of darkness and stillness.  Shhhh, you can hear the baby whimpering in his sleep.  Christmas Eve Religion makes you feel good inside.  We come to church on Christmas Eve and we want to feel calm and contented, the religious equivalent of a hot toddy, the religious equivalent of a hot buttered rum.  It feels so good going down, both Christmas Eve Religion and a hot toddy.  So in my Christmas Eve sermons, I like to tell warm and loving Christmas stories that make people feel good inside, perhaps even cry a bit.  It always feels good to shed a tear or two on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve Religion is epitomized by an issue of the local newspaper a year or two ago. The Federal Ways Newspaper had a Christmas section.  In this Christmas section of the newspaper, they were all happy pictures of happy children, and underneath each picture of a smiling child’s face was printed the phrase, “a vision of peace.”  There were ten touching photographs, ten visions of peace, and then you came to the last page, and it said melodramatically in large print:  CHRISTMAS IS A FEELING.  My God, what junk.  What garbage.  What sentimentality.  Christmas is a feeling, carefully orchestrated feelings, in order to meet the needs of a warm glow.  Christmas is a feeling, an orchestrated moment in time, lasting at most about 45 to 60 minutes. 

Christmas Eve Religion is symbolic of so much of American religiosity.  This “warm glow” religion makes you feel good inside, and so with the aid of pictures and poetry and music and harps and candles and good friends and good family and good money and good drinks and good health, this all makes Christmas Eve Religion possible

Mother Teresa of Calcutta recently spoke about this American style of religiosity, this Christmas Eve Religion, this warm glow spirituality. She said that Americans are poorer than the starving people of India because there is a spiritual poverty in America that is worse than the physical poverty of India.  Another person has said:  American religiosity is a mile wide and an inch deep.

On Christmas Eve, we occasionally hear the solo, Sweet Little Jesus Boy, sung.  It is one of my favorites.  It is gorgeous, a lullaby, so sweet.  When it is sung, I am moved to tears and deep emotion.  But this sweet little Jesus boy grew up and became man.  The sweet little Jesus boy was born into a rustic manger but he died on a rugged cross.  This sweet little Jesus boy did not remain a boy but grew up into maturity and taught his disciples the beatitudes:  love your enemies, pray for those who harm you, care for those who hurt you.  This sweet little Jesus boy did not remain a boy but grew up to become a liberator, the greatest liberator the world has ever known, and his Spirit produced positive, revolutionary changes in people’s lives.  This sweet little Jesus boy did not remain a boy but became a liberator who freed people from their awful situations, who freed people from their destructive habits.  It was thrilling and life giving to see what the Liberator did with people’s lives. Tonight, Jesus does not remain a baby or a little boy, but comes to us as the greatest liberator of all time, and he comes to set us free.

On this night, Jesus comes to liberate us from our selfishness, from those habits of childhood, where I need to be the center of all that happens and where I want others to wait on me and care for me, the most important person in my world.  Jesus comes to liberate us from that selfishness that enslaves us to our own whims and appetites and egos.

On this night, Jesus comes to liberate us from our painful pasts, to set us free from all the mistakes we have made years and years ago and as recent as this morning.  Mistakes with the kids.  Mistakes with the spouse.  Mistakes with the job.  Mistakes with the neighbors. Jesus comes to actually set us free from our uncountable mistakes.

On this night, Jesus comes to actually liberate us from our fears, the fear of disease, the fear of death, the fear of failure, the fear of growing old, the fear that there is no God, the fear that your kids won’t turn out.  Jesus comes to liberate us, to make positive changes within us and around us.

On this night, Jesus comes to actually liberate us from our addictions to drugs and alcohol and marijuana and sexual fantasies and overeating of food, and all the other addictions that dominate our lives and pull us down.  Christ comes not only to forgive but to liberate us, to evoke positive changes within us.

On this night, Jesus comes to actually liberate us from our love of money and wealth, from silently believing that money and material things will bring us happiness, from believing that people with money are somehow more successful.  Christ comes not only to forgive but liberate us, to evoke positive changes within us.

On this night, Jesus comes to liberate us from our rage, our anger, our sharp tongues and sharp comments, our sarcasm, our putting others down, our need for revenge and the dreams of inflicting revenge on someone who has hurt us and needs to hurt by us.  Christ the liberator comes to free us from all that.  He comes to forgive us, but more than forgive us, he comes to liberate us.  He comes to evoke positive change in us.

This is a night of joy and happiness and good news, because liberation always vibrates with joy and happiness and good news.  Whenever God in Christ comes into our lives and frees us from all this stuff that stifles us, cripples us, corrupts us, it is good news and great joy.  So we are happy, not because of Christmas Eve Religion which goes down like a warm toddy, but we feel exhilarated, thrilled, overwhelmed by joy because we have experienced freedom in our lives, freedom from all the junk which has been weighing us down.

For the sweet little Jesus boy of Christmas eve does not remain a boy but he grows up to become a man, a liberator, who has the audacity to believe that you and I are in need of liberation, positive change, and growth.

It’s is Christmas, Christmas Eve of 1993, and two thousand years later, we still hear the angel’s choir singing their song:  I bring you good news of great joy which is for all people, for onto you is born this night, a liberator, who is Christ the Lord.  Amen.


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