00:00:00.000 - 00:00:24.640

The following sermon is preached by Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. His sermon is entitled, "Starfire in the Midst of Storm." Let us continue in our worship by giving attention to this reading from the Gospel according to Luke, the second chapter.

00:00:24.640 - 00:00:38.920

I begin at the verse number eight. "And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about

00:00:38.920 - 00:00:57.100

them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, 'Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

00:00:57.100 - 00:01:19.160

And this will be a sign for you; you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.'

00:01:19.160 - 00:01:33.800

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.' And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.

00:01:33.800 - 00:01:57.320

And when they saw it, they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen

00:01:57.320 - 00:02:26.400

as it had been told them. And may God bless to us this and all of the other readings from his holy words. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

00:02:26.400 - 00:02:51.820

Amen." No one really disputes its importance. The psychologist Abraham Maslow said that hope is the underlying philosophy of all values. Tillich, the theologian, said that hope is the conviction which gives life ultimate meaning.

00:02:51.820 - 00:03:23.020

The philosopher Huston Smith says that hope is the basic structure for an adequate life. The agnostic Marcel says that hope is the very stuff of which the soul is made. Von Braun, the scientist, said that hope is as basic as breathing. And Cervantes, the brilliant writer, says that where there is life, there is hope.

00:03:23.020 - 00:03:46.960

And yet there are many hopeless people about, and their lives are walking tragedies. You have perhaps heard of some incidents coming out of some primitive tribe of an individual who is hexed, cursed by the witch doctor. Some bone is pointed at him, and some threat is muttered.

00:03:46.960 - 00:04:10.720

And this individual then goes off alone and separated, and proceeds to die. The anthropological records are full of such instances, not because the witch doctor has any special power, not because there's any magic in the bone or in the muttering, but because the one who dies is so convinced of the power of the witch doctor that he or she

00:04:10.720 - 00:04:23.800

gives up hope. And when hope is gone, death comes. When there is surrender, there is despair. Or move it into our own time and climb.

00:04:23.800 - 00:04:41.400

A woman from Wisconsin writes these words at just this season of the year, "I do not enjoy Christmas. I find no pleasure in it. I used to look forward to it, but I see it now as a time of deadly obligation.

00:04:41.400 - 00:04:58.680

I used to listen for my husband's car when he pulled into the parking lot, but now he is deceased and the kids are gone, and every day is an essay of tedium, and Christmas is especially a time of despair. I have lost all hope," she writes.

00:04:58.680 - 00:05:26.680

"I am ill, and I may get well, but I doubt that it will happen." She, of course, doesn't believe in witch doctors, but the hex of hopelessness is upon her. Harvey Cox, a noted theologian and sociologist, says that there are millions of people who are stumbling through life without hope.

00:05:26.680 - 00:05:46.080

Those who had hope in the 60s have now surrendered to the status quo. Though you do not hear much about the death of God's theology anymore, there are many people who look at the way life is going and who live as if God is dead. What else, they say, can explain the way things are?

00:05:46.080 - 00:06:17.400

A rampant consumerism testifies to hopelessness. Eat, drink, be merry, spend all you have, for tomorrow you die. And what is the drug epidemic but the pitiful state of many who, for a brief moment or for all that is left of their time, try to lose themselves in some oblivion, utterly without

00:06:17.400 - 00:06:35.960

hope? Viktor Frankl, the noted founder of the school of psychotherapy called Logotherapy, was in a Nazi concentration camp for some years, and he tells of one man in the camp who was kept alive by his desire to protect his wife.

00:06:35.960 - 00:06:51.480

His great goal was to bring his wife through the camp experience. He would slip her his food, he would defend her. Sometimes he was beaten and terribly mistreated because of his efforts to protect his wife, but he gave himself totally to that protection.

00:06:51.480 - 00:07:13.920

This was his goal, this was his hope to get her through, and then she died. And within 24 hours, he had died. And when Frankl, at the command of the Nazis, performed an autopsy on the body, he discovered that the man was full of cancer, that he should have died a long time before.

00:07:13.920 - 00:07:39.840

He was kept alive by his hope, and when he lost hope, he lost life. I've seen that same thing, not, thank God, in a concentration camp, but in the pastorate. People who lose hope and are paralyzed, these are the hopeless, and they see no promise in life.

00:07:39.840 - 00:07:59.480

But in addition to the hopeless, there are also the hoping. And by the hoping, I'm speaking of those who have given themselves over to what are basically false promises. They live a kind of buoyant optimism, they argue that change is inevitable, and just

00:07:59.480 - 00:08:13.960

as inevitably, it is going to be changed for the good. They see a certain advance in the course of the human experience, and so everything is going to come out all right. Have you seen the Broadway show, Annie, where these pathetic little orphans, caught in a

00:08:13.960 - 00:08:34.840

bleak orphan asylum, get together and in the midst of their misery sing every day the song, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out, tomorrow." That kind of wishful thinking isn't hoping, it's built on illusion. It's like those great balloons you see in the Thanksgiving Day parade, full of air,

00:08:34.840 - 00:08:53.760

but little reality. This is the kind of thing that captures the imagination of the devotee of the chain letter, who gets the letter and takes seriously the warning, "Don't break the chain, or you'll be like that plumber from Pacoima, who on the same day lost his job, his union card,

00:08:53.760 - 00:09:22.720

and his wife. And if you keep the chain going, then you'll be like that seamstress from Cincinnati, who while pumping gas into her '47 Buick, saw there on the sidewalk before her $6,732.95." To put it very bluntly, that kind of hope, the pap of that kind of positive thinking,

00:09:22.720 - 00:09:39.400

is not enough. It doesn't cut it. May I see the hands of all of those of you who can identify Sadaku? Sadaku was a little Japanese girl who lived in Hiroshima.

00:09:39.400 - 00:09:55.560

She went through the bombing there. She received terrible burns, but they thought she was going to live, and then the signs of radiation sickness came, and when the sickness came, she pledged herself in the short time that she had left to making a thousand paper cranes.

00:09:55.560 - 00:10:17.520

Now for the Japanese, the crane is a symbol of peace, and she was folding a thousand paper cranes to send out to people in the world to promote peace. She managed to finish 644 of them, and then she died. And a Japanese poet wrote a five-line poem about her.

00:10:17.520 - 00:10:37.240

"You yourself must fold the 645th. You must fold all the other paper cranes. Never let their fluttering wings be still. Never let them die, but see them winging, winging, winging."

00:10:37.240 - 00:11:02.200

It's a beautiful thought, isn't it? But you see, none of you have ever heard of Sadaku. You've heard of Vietnam and Cambodia and Tibet and El Salvador and Nicaragua and Afghanistan and Angola and the West Bank and Lebanon and Ethiopia and Libya and Panama and Romania

00:11:02.200 - 00:11:23.560

and all of those other atrocities that have happened since Hiroshima, but you never heard of Sadaku. We want to be thankful for the efforts of this little girl and hold her in very tender memory of course, but the fact of the matter is that paper cranes don't stop wars.

00:11:23.560 - 00:11:40.520

To believe that they do is to commit oneself to the idea of human perfectibility, and there is no evidence to support such a contention. None whatever. It's to believe that humankind can pull itself up by its own bootstraps, when the fact of

00:11:40.520 - 00:12:00.200

the matter is humankind has no boots, but stands naked and ashamed. It's to rest on the thesis that every day in every way things are getting better and better and they're not. There has been more blood spilled in the twentieth century than in all of the centuries of recorded

00:12:00.200 - 00:12:26.560

history before it. Rene Descartes, the great French philosopher and mathematician, set himself the goal of determining a set of mathematical formulae by which one could establish a morality and an ethical system and a spiritual value system, which would be what man would need to live

00:12:26.560 - 00:12:46.680

successfully. As a result of his researches, he developed analytic geometry, which is a great gift to humankind, but as far as creating any science by which he could determine morality or ethics or spirituality, he failed utterly, and so has everyone else who has ever tried to do

00:12:46.680 - 00:13:08.600

such a thing. The hopeless despair and those who are the hoping, who give themselves to false hope, are not much better off. There's little that separates the one from the other.

00:13:08.600 - 00:13:34.840

And then there are the hopeful, and the hopeful are those who rely on the promises of God. Let me say something to you that may at first sound rather shocking. I believe that the hideous state of our planet confirms my belief in God. Why?

00:13:34.840 - 00:13:54.520

Because I believe that God's world is subject to God's law. Now if the world breaks God's law as it has, and if nothing were to happen as the result of that, then that would testify to me that there was either no God, or he was not at all concerned about what was transpiring here.

00:13:54.520 - 00:14:13.080

But the fact that when we on earth break the law of God, and then suffer because of it, proves to me the reality not only of his making us, but being involved in the living of our lives. Earth's agony doesn't deny the existence of God, it affirms it.

00:14:13.080 - 00:14:31.200

You see, God has established a moral order, and those who break that order break themselves against it. It is not that he reaches down and breaks them, not so at all. They do it to themselves.

00:14:31.200 - 00:14:53.320

And add to these truths this one, that the God who established the moral order, which we understand to be the order of the universe, that God must be a good God, because he cares and he loves. And the truth that he gives us in the pages of scripture is a truth which can be trusted.

00:14:53.320 - 00:15:16.680

His promises are sure and dependable. So while the hopeless lean on despair, and the hoping lean on delusion, the hopeful rest on the divine. God says the wages of sin is death, and the result of his saying that is that a world

00:15:16.680 - 00:15:42.800

that is intent on killing itself is dying. But God also says, "In me is life and light," and the result of that is that all those who give themselves with hope and in hope to God, they know what joy is. They stand with Paul when he wrote, "We rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God."

00:15:42.800 - 00:16:01.160

There was a time many centuries ago when a man named Isaiah stood in his little country and looked at the world about him. It was a time of great tumult and disarray, much as we live in today. Big Glass Pileser was leading the Assyrian armies on a march across the Fertile Crescent.

00:16:01.160 - 00:16:20.880

Rezin was leading the Assyrian people down to dusty death. Mardath Baladin was planting the seeds of the Babylonian Empire, which would impress itself upon the Mediterranean with ferocious cruelty. The twenty-third dynasty sat on the Pharaoh's throne in Egypt, Aluf and Dostir.

00:16:20.880 - 00:16:36.320

Romulus and Remus were founding the city of Rome. The Mycenaean Empire, with its king Agamemnon, had passed away, and the city-states were coming into existence in Greece. The flags and symbols of different nations and times were rising and falling all about

00:16:36.320 - 00:16:54.000

a little Israel, and it was the tiniest pawn on the checkerboard of history at that time. And it was a rotten pawn. It was full of paganism and unbelief and the sacrifice of children and abysmal poverty while some lived in sinful luxury.

00:16:54.000 - 00:17:13.560

And Isaiah, looking at the world about and looking at his own land and being spoken through by the Holy Spirit of God, wrote, "I built a vineyard on a fertile hill, I digged it and I cleared it of stones, and I planted it with choice vines, and I built a watchtower and a wine vat for its produce.

00:17:13.560 - 00:17:44.120

But when I looked, I saw that it yielded wild and stinking grapes." That was the state of that time, and as much the state of our own. But Isaiah did not surrender to despair, and he did not give himself to some vain positivism. Instead of that, he turned the telescopic prophetic insight which was his on a time

00:17:44.120 - 00:18:04.960

centuries hence when a star would rise above a Judean hillside. And looking at that star, he wrote, "For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

00:18:04.960 - 00:18:21.320

And many years came before that star was rising. But in all that time, he remained true to that hope, and those who walked with him remained true to it also. There was a wilderness of years to be crossed before Bethlehem, just as there was a wilderness

00:18:21.320 - 00:18:45.640

of 85 miles for Joseph and Mary to cross for Bethlehem, just as there was the wilderness of the Arabian desert for the Magi to cross as they came to the manger of the kings. But in all of the wilderness, the hope endured, because the promise was that the God who made it and made us and sustains us and gives to us the direction so necessary for living had

00:18:45.640 - 00:19:07.000

come into the midst of us, not to give us good advice, of which we have too much, but instead to give us power for salvation. In Krakow, Poland, during the Second World War, the cathedral basement was being used as a field hospital.

00:19:07.000 - 00:19:25.560

There was only one doctor there and a handful of nurses, and many, many hurt and dreadfully harmed soldiers. And as the doctor worked by candlelight, moving through the wounded men, he noticed one man who was apart over in a corner, and he took his candle and he began to approach that soldier

00:19:25.560 - 00:19:53.240

there in the corner, and as he drew near he could tell he was dead. The body was still, and the pallor was white with death. As he reached down to take the sheet, he noticed that the hand of the young soldier was wounded, and as he pulled the sheet aside, he stepped back in amazement.

00:19:53.240 - 00:20:13.360

There had been a splendid sanctuary in the cathedral upstairs, and during the days of the onslaught they had taken it all down and wrapped it in sheets and put it in the basement, and when he pulled aside the sheet he revealed a crucifix. And falling back, he said, "Christ is here!"

00:20:13.360 - 00:20:27.880

It was only a whisper, but others heard it, and it echoed like some pebble dropped into a pool, sending its reverberations out to the shorelines. It echoed to the bare, cold walls of the basement, "Christ is here! Christ is here!"

00:20:27.880 - 00:20:52.720

And that is the truth of Christianity, and that is what keeps Christians' hopes filled, that the wonderful Counselor and the mighty God and the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace took upon Himself all the hardness of the world, took the hardness into His hands, took the hardness into His feet, took the hardness into His side, took the hardness

00:20:52.720 - 00:21:26.720

onto His brow, took the hardness onto His back, took the hardness into His heart until it broke, that great heart broke! And in it all, loved, and after it all, rose, and with His rising fulfilled all His promises. His promises that in the end light will vanquish darkness, and right will triumph over wrong,

00:21:26.720 - 00:21:51.360

and truth will defeat untruth, and mercy will rise above cruelty, and justice will put down injustice, and life will be resurrected above death, and hope will stand above and beyond hopelessness. And that's what brings us here on Christmas Eve.

00:21:51.360 - 00:22:23.480

Nothing is ready for tomorrow, except maybe some corner of our hearts. So we come here to think about Isaiah's star and Christ's star and our star, and the flame of hope. Back in 1956, when I was doing graduate study at St. Andrews University in Scotland, I love

00:22:23.480 - 00:22:38.720

that town because it's on the edge of the North Sea, and I love the sea. I love the heave and the halt and the hurl of it. I love Homer's pictures of it and Debussy's music about it and Conrad's words written about the sea.

00:22:38.720 - 00:23:00.280

And I walked out one night onto the Edward II Pier, which is just like a great stone finger out into the North Sea, and the sting of the spray was on me, and the sound of the sea, the deep diapason of the sea, and the wind-hounded waves smashed on the pier at my feet.

00:23:00.280 - 00:23:24.500

And I was very much disturbed. For you see, it was just at that time, 1956 October, that those young Hungarians were revolting in that land and trying to throw off the Communist joke. And you will remember how they were being run over and shot down by Russian armors in

00:23:24.500 - 00:23:45.000

the streets of those Hungarian cities. And the whole world listened while those Hungarian students spoke over radio stations, clandestine stations, the voices getting weaker and weaker, and the headlines ran red with blood, and the whole world's face was filled with tears.

00:23:45.000 - 00:24:10.340

And I was far away from home and alone and hurt because of what was happening to young people just like myself. And I was afraid. And in the midst of it all, I looked up and I saw scintillating in that cold, crystalline

00:24:10.340 - 00:24:42.740

air a star, star fire in the midst of storm. And as I looked at it, I remembered that other star, that star which speaks to us of the presence of God in Christ in our lives, that star which calls us to the splendor of service, that star which offers us the intimacy of communion with a Christ who prays for us,

00:24:42.740 - 00:25:16.100

that star that calls us to invite others to the joy that we know, that star which gives to us the sweetness of hope, the joy of God, star fire in the midst of storm. And that is why Christmas claims us. The God whose dreams we are put into the storms of our lives, which are altogether of human

00:25:16.100 - 00:26:12.580

manufacture, put into the storms of our lives, no matter when or where or why they come, no matter how long they last, always, we put there star fire, hope. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, for to you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord."

00:26:12.580 - 00:26:49.620

Let us pray. O God, on this night of night, when we are in the midst of the greatest mystery of all the ages, when time itself stands still, and memories parade across our minds, and nostalgia claims our spirits, and the ghosts of loved ones lost awhile walk again with us, day in

00:26:49.620 - 00:27:18.780

and day in, on this night, which is so different from other nights, this hallowed and this gracious time, on this night, grant that we might see the star, and see never ever, the darkness, be without hope. We pray our prayer in the baby's name.

00:27:18.780 - 00:27:39.780

Amen. [END] 1