Adapted from the 12/24/1967 Sermon of Harry K. Zeller; my Grandfather
At the La Verne Church of the Brethren
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What truth then do we need from the greatest story so that its reality
can come off? What is there about Christmas that we must have yet?
It’s not enough to say that the son of God is come, we have said that
for two thousand years. It’s not enough to give homage to Christ, this
we have been doing for centuries, this we will do again as Christmas
comes. But alas, it will go, and the greatest story will be told in
song and drama and music and art but what God really intended has not
yet come off, it has not become a reality for humanity. What yet are we
to receive? What truth have we not learned or lived that God is
striving to reveal to us? I could say it simply in a single word, what
God hoped could happen when he came to earth in Christ, finds it’s focus
its center it’s meaning its reality in that much used and very abused
word - LOVE. It could be that Christmas does not quite come off because
we all stop short of the greatest thing in the world. It could be that
we have emphasized faith or have dealt with hope and thought that in
these we would find Christmas but we have not achieved the greatest of
these which is love.
You know, the Christian church has more often thought of Gods unspeakable gift, of his own life in the physical form of a child, as a requirement of faith as an encouragement of hope rather than as a reality of love and so humanity, preoccupied with faith and hope, has not yet quite been able to grasp the greatest of these.
So Christmas keeps coming back again and again to remind us of whats really the most important thing of all; God’s love for us, our love to him, our love to each other, even our love of self.
I think part of the reason we so easily forget that love is so supremely important is that so much of it’s needed and it’s almost a hopeless task we feel, to try to match all the hostility in life with love, to try to counter indifference with compassion. The need for service is so great that we throw up our hands and run from compassion, that so tender fragile word which means to suffer with to love with thats something that makes love possible, we run from it because so much is needed.
I was reading about the impact of the Peace Corps in south east Asia and how discouraged the people became when they tried to dispense medical assistance. They developed compassion fatigue, they were overwhelmed by it. They helped five and fifty appeared, they helped fifty and five hundred appeared, they organized to help five hundred and five thousand appeared. They tried to treat hunger or disease or malnutrition and it was everywhere and who could not become fatigued in the face of such utter and vast want and need. And this bothered me until I read what Norman Cousins said about it, he said “that’s no excuse for not helping one, reach out and take hold of one that happens to be nearest to you and if your never able to help another person, never able to serve, never able to love another person at least you saved one; perhaps their body maybe more importantly their spirit”. And he said “theres some people who stroll through an entire life without doing as much as that to help put meaning back into one single live, to show love, thats the greatest thing in the world”. This is what Christmas is trying to tell us. This is really what God did to humanity and were still striving to reach for that wonderful gift for ourselves.
Now how remote this compassion is and how seldom we think in terms of God’s suffering love was brought to me a few weeks ago. I was beckoned by a man who wanted to thank me in a few quiet words for a memorial service I had performed for his brother who had died about a year earlier. He said I must tell you a story, about my brother you remember he was a classic music buff, especially the piano. One day he was listening to rubenstein playing a prelude from chicofsky, and while he listened he held up his arthritically paralyzed hands, and when the music stopped he said “isn’t it wonderful that I am the one who’s crippled rather than he”. I thought of a word from Gandhi who said when suffering must come to you remember it will enrich your life it will ennoble your life it will even teach you how to love. And if I catch the story of Jesus from the cradle to the cross it’s the story of suffering love. It’s the story of why God came at Christmas. And Paul was so right in first corinthians thirteen: Faith and Hope are great, don't ever sell them short, but the greatest of these is love.
And if I had any down deep want for Christmas, for myself, or for you, for those I love, for anyone, and for all it would be that we might have a greater awareness for that something for which there is no better name than the word love. That quality that gives warmth, and meaning, and joy, to the life which God has given us. A gift that is more than money, more than job, that’s more than life itself, well that’s why Christmas is the greatest story because it tells us about one who lived in the human situation but who's love was so daring and so compelling and so inspiring and so complete that his whole being became a fixed point of departure for the human race. And from Christmas on and from Christ on and for always this is the greatest story that was ever told and its still the greatest even now.
#lavernechurchofthebrethren #harrykzeller #christmassermon #pacifists
You know, the Christian church has more often thought of Gods unspeakable gift, of his own life in the physical form of a child, as a requirement of faith as an encouragement of hope rather than as a reality of love and so humanity, preoccupied with faith and hope, has not yet quite been able to grasp the greatest of these.
So Christmas keeps coming back again and again to remind us of whats really the most important thing of all; God’s love for us, our love to him, our love to each other, even our love of self.
I think part of the reason we so easily forget that love is so supremely important is that so much of it’s needed and it’s almost a hopeless task we feel, to try to match all the hostility in life with love, to try to counter indifference with compassion. The need for service is so great that we throw up our hands and run from compassion, that so tender fragile word which means to suffer with to love with thats something that makes love possible, we run from it because so much is needed.
I was reading about the impact of the Peace Corps in south east Asia and how discouraged the people became when they tried to dispense medical assistance. They developed compassion fatigue, they were overwhelmed by it. They helped five and fifty appeared, they helped fifty and five hundred appeared, they organized to help five hundred and five thousand appeared. They tried to treat hunger or disease or malnutrition and it was everywhere and who could not become fatigued in the face of such utter and vast want and need. And this bothered me until I read what Norman Cousins said about it, he said “that’s no excuse for not helping one, reach out and take hold of one that happens to be nearest to you and if your never able to help another person, never able to serve, never able to love another person at least you saved one; perhaps their body maybe more importantly their spirit”. And he said “theres some people who stroll through an entire life without doing as much as that to help put meaning back into one single live, to show love, thats the greatest thing in the world”. This is what Christmas is trying to tell us. This is really what God did to humanity and were still striving to reach for that wonderful gift for ourselves.
Now how remote this compassion is and how seldom we think in terms of God’s suffering love was brought to me a few weeks ago. I was beckoned by a man who wanted to thank me in a few quiet words for a memorial service I had performed for his brother who had died about a year earlier. He said I must tell you a story, about my brother you remember he was a classic music buff, especially the piano. One day he was listening to rubenstein playing a prelude from chicofsky, and while he listened he held up his arthritically paralyzed hands, and when the music stopped he said “isn’t it wonderful that I am the one who’s crippled rather than he”. I thought of a word from Gandhi who said when suffering must come to you remember it will enrich your life it will ennoble your life it will even teach you how to love. And if I catch the story of Jesus from the cradle to the cross it’s the story of suffering love. It’s the story of why God came at Christmas. And Paul was so right in first corinthians thirteen: Faith and Hope are great, don't ever sell them short, but the greatest of these is love.
And if I had any down deep want for Christmas, for myself, or for you, for those I love, for anyone, and for all it would be that we might have a greater awareness for that something for which there is no better name than the word love. That quality that gives warmth, and meaning, and joy, to the life which God has given us. A gift that is more than money, more than job, that’s more than life itself, well that’s why Christmas is the greatest story because it tells us about one who lived in the human situation but who's love was so daring and so compelling and so inspiring and so complete that his whole being became a fixed point of departure for the human race. And from Christmas on and from Christ on and for always this is the greatest story that was ever told and its still the greatest even now.
#lavernechurchofthebrethren #harrykzeller #christmassermon #pacifists
