Micah 5:2-5 Commentary

Illustration:

Depending on how churches structure their worship services for the holidays, this may function as a kind-of Christmas preview or, at least, one last Sunday before the Christmas Eve or Christmas Day celebrations.  So you might riff on those expectations a bit.  If you have the opportunity to solicit answers and foster a bit of a conversation in a children’s sermon or in the sermon-sermon, you might use it here. The point being there is a kind of “magic” we all hope for or expect in our Christmas celebrations.

Commentary:

You may spend your whole life in impromptu improvisations, eager for new experiences, full of zest and curiosity for the previously unexplored. But, when it comes to Christmas worship, there isn’t a whole lot of interest in being avant-garde. “Let’s do something different this year” doesn’t poll well on Christmas Eve.

All those memories from my childhood and beyond coalesce into one picture, one moment, snapped like a Glamour Shot, with hazy filter. One magic moment each year. And, I suspect, you may be eagerly awaiting Christmas worship because this same habit was formed in you. Or maybe it’s just that the family tradition won’t be overturned on your watch!  Maybe you are eager to hand down that hazy filtered magic moment to the next generation.

And I do so knowing that “magic” is an iffy word to use here. The Incarnation is not some slight of hand. The communion table is not an abracadabra moment (or at least it hasn’t been since we stopped celebrating the Mass in Latin). There’s no sorting hat to pick out the angels, the shepherds, the wise men and farm animals for the nativity tableaux.

The magic is that something happened 2000 years ago and we still think it matters enough to celebrate. Something happened that we will never fully understand no matter how many Christmas worship services we prepare or participate in. Something happened that we aren’t meant to understand. But that it happened changes the way we understand everything else. The magic is the unsolved mystery, the outstanding tension, the unresolved paradox of it.

Take this text from Micah. Written 700 years before Jesus was born, it’s all in there: Bethlehem, a shepherd, majesty, the ends of the earth, the birth of a son, the small being exalted, an ancient-future King. “And he will be our peace.”

Jesus born within the covenant as that covenant’s fulfillment. And this text kept safe for all those years, studied by the curious and quoted by the Magi as the reason they followed the star to Bethlehem.

To tell the story of this birth, the Gospel writer Matthew reaches back to Micah, situating the birth of the one we celebrate in the context of covenant. And to tell the story of this birth, the Gospel writer John reaches all the way back, behind the veil of creation.

Don’t be fooled by the bitty baby in the manger, this is the story of eternity past, eternity future and the patience of God in telling a particularly wonderful story. And a wonder-filled particular story. The magic is the unsolved mystery, the outstanding tension, the unresolved  paradox of it.

The magic is in the paradox of the lyrics that can still send a shiver down your spine:

“For that child so dear and gentle, is our Lord in heaven above.”

“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the Incarnate Deity.”

The angels “sang creation’s story” tonight sing to “proclaim Messiah’s birth.”

“Though an infant now we view him, he will share his Father’s throne.”

“God of God, Light of Light eternal, low, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb.”

“Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.”

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly — “Gloria in excelsis deo”

The magic rests in the truly preposterous theological paradoxes celebrated made on a night like this:

That the baby in the manger is, in fact, the pre-existent 2nd person of the Triune God.

Fully God and fully human.

(In other words, phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty living space.)

Until our deliverance is delivered.

A King born on a dirty stable floor.

This one is both sin’s judge and sin’s sacrifice.

That this infant, who cannot yet intentionally curl his fingers into a fist has struck the first blow in a skirmish over sin and death, a battle from which he will emerge (scarred and scorned, bruised and betrayed) but victorious in the resurrection.

This teeny tiny baby (still with the stump of an umbilical cord attached to what will be our God’s belly button) has truly shattered cosmic paradigms about the relationship of heaven and earth, about the divine and the human.

He can’t even hold his own head up but the government will be upon his shoulders.

The magic rests in the paradoxes of the story itself:

The barren and virgin women (one who had stopped hoping long ago, the other who hadn’t even yet thought to hope) are with child.

The fragility of Mary’s place in the world and the ferocity of Mary’s faith.

Joseph the righteous rule-follower bends the law toward grace to protect the child who is our gracious salvation.

The angels visit the shepherds and their song fills the chasm between heaven and earth on a Judean hillside.

The Prince of Peace fleeing violent men, carried in his mother’s arms.

Israel’s strength and consolation worshipped by foreign kings.

A story as old as Micah’s prophecy and even the creation itself. And a story as new as a baby’s first cry and a Kingdom now on its way.

This child placed in time and space, a tiny dot on a map, the smallest blip in history’s unfurling. This is the story of the ages. The Alpha and the Omega — the beginning and end — who was and IS and is to come. Startled human eyes, only beginning to focus, lying in a manger, taking in the world he has made. The world he will redeem. The world he will, one day, restore.

This is the story we are eager to celebrate.  This is the story we will never fully understand no matter how many Christmas worship services we prepare or participate in. And this is the story we aren’t ever meant to understand but, by it, we understand everything else. The magic is the unsolved mystery, the outstanding tension, the unresolved paradox. Thanks be to God.