Author’s Note: This Post comes from a pair of sermons delivered on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday, 2022 and 2023, respectively. Together, they form a single exploration of the Gospel narrative, and the story of Jesus Christ..

Part 1

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

The greatest story ever told was written a long time ago.  And it will keep being written in the future.  And it is being written today, all across the world, and right here, right now.  The greatest story ever told has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  And the greatest story ever told never stops.  Each day it adds new characters and changes the roles of the existing cast.  Each day it grows and shakes, twists and turns, rises and falls, as life gives way to death, and death gives way to life again.

In some ways, the greatest story ever told begins in Rome, the capital of the greatest empire the world had yet seen at that time.  It begins with a powerful man, an emperor known as Augustus, declaring that a census should be taken of the entirety of his empire.  It is because of this man, living thousands of miles away, on the other side of the Mediterranean, that a carpenter and his heavily pregnant wife were compelled to travel back to his hometown to register for a census.  

But really, the greatest story ever told begins much earlier.  You could say it begins with a shepherd boy named David, or with a prophet named Moses, or with a patriarch named Abraham.  You could say that it began with a man named Adam and a woman named Eve, and a terrible choice that they made which has cost us all dearly.  But really, the greatest story ever told has to begin at The Beginning.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and God did this by speaking them into being.  God said “let there be light” and so light came to exist.  The Word of God is a powerful thing.  And the Word of God continued to be powerful when, having finished creating, God spoke a Word over all this creation, and called it good.  All was calm, all was bright, and God’s peace reigned over all the universe.

And when humanity forgot about the Word that God had spoken, when humanity chose to eat the Fruit of the Tree and forsake God, to pursue its own destiny and trust in its own wisdom, the Word of God remained.  As the fortunes of the people of Abraham, of Moses, of David rose and fell, as they went from freedom to captivity, back to freedom and back to captivity once again, God looked on.  As the man named Augustus built up his empire and claimed his power, God watched.  And as Mary and Joseph prepared to travel, as they made their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem, as an exhausted Mary grimaced in pain and realized nervously that her baby was coming, God prepared to come to Earth.  

As we know well, this was a fateful decision, one often met with unpleasant consequences.  The power of an Emperor and his agents is harsh.  It’s built through violence, at the point of a spear and on the blade of a sword, and it’s maintained through fear.  Fear is a powerful weapon, one that is still being used today.  It awakens us in the middle of the night and, as we sit up awake in bed, staring up at the bedroom ceiling, reminds us that someone we love is in the hospital and there’s a stack of bills on the desk and we barely made it through today so how can we possibly get through tomorrow?  Fear has long been a part of our lives, and it will remain so long after we as individuals are gone.  That’s because fear’s true master isn’t a king or an emperor or any human being.  He’s someone we know well.  He has no name, has no shape, has no face, his anthem is silence and his flag is darkness.  He is nothing, and his nothingness is always stretching out towards us, waiting to pull us apart until he has consumed us, and just like him, we too are nothing.  

But the greatest story ever told is not a story of nothingness.  Nor of darkness, nor of the ringing silence of the void.  The greatest story ever told is the story of life.  It’s the story of the glory of God shining in the sky and driving out darkness while choirs of angels sing hymns of exultation.  It’s the story of shepherds, grown men with rough hands and thick beards, hurrying excitedly off to the nearest town because they have just heard news that seems too good to be true.  It’s the story of an exhausted mother and father who sit beside a manger and welcome into their family the greatest miracle the world has ever seen.  And yes, later that night, the silence will return.  But this will be a holy silence, punctuated by the gentle breathing of a baby boy in whose tiny, frail body God and humanity have been brought back together.  It’s the story of noise and motion, of energy and enthusiasm, and of chaos and confusion and stress giving way to joy and peace.  The greatest story ever told is the story of how, with the birth of Jesus, the Word that God spoke in The Beginning came to once again pour into creation, until all fear, all darkness, all nothingness has been washed away.  

This is how the greatest story ever told ends, with God triumphant and the goodness of the world restored.  In some ways, this ending has already come – a fact we will commemorate on Easter Sunday.  In other ways, our world is still very much awaiting this ending.  Fear still reigns, silence still lingers, and darkness still rages against the light.  But tonight, we can rest in the knowledge that, within this story, God has secured our stories.  Because the greatest story ever told is happening around us right now, and you are a part of it.  Right here, in this place, we can listen to Mary and Joseph resting beside us and hear the eager footsteps of the shepherds coming in from outside.  And if we really strain our ears, we might just catch the notes on an angelic chorus echoing through time and space to share with us the good news – that hope is real, God is with us, Christ is here.  Come all ye faithful, let us rejoice together.  Amen. 

Part 2

Scripture: John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

The greatest story ever told was written a long time ago.  And the greatest story ever told will keep being written in the future.  And the greatest story ever told is being written today, all across the world, right here, and right now.  The greatest story ever told has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  And the greatest story ever told never stops.  Each day, it adds new characters and changes the roles of the existing cast.  Each day it grows and shakes, twists and turns, rises and falls, as life gives way to death, and death gives way to life again.

The greatest story ever told begins in the murky past of our human story, when God brought us into being and called us “good.”  It continues when humanity forgot what God had said, and chose to pursue its own destiny and trust in its own wisdom.  Humanity made this choice, not realizing that by striking out on its own, humanity was rejecting its Creator, and choosing the way of un-creation, the way that leads to destruction.   

And so the God who called us “good” spoke again, and this Word of God became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  The Word of God came into the realm of humanity bearing the name Jesus Christ.  He was born as a human.  Grew up as a human.  Came into adulthood as a human.  But from the first, there were signs that something was different about him.  He spoke about a Kingdom ruled by God, a place where justice brought harmony between righteousness and mercy.  He spoke about compassion, and the importance of loving enemies, loving the poor, loving the differently abled, loving the promiscuous, loving the homeless, loving ethnic minorities, even loving sinners.  He called tax collectors and fishermen, women and zealots, to serve alongside him.  He walked on water, challenged the powerful, healed the sick, raised the dead.  And he did all this because he knew that the greatest story ever told is a love story, and that in this story, he personified God’s relentless, unstoppable love for humanity.

But in our world, love always comes with a price.  Jesus lived his life, taught his lessons, did his work, knowing that it would make him unpopular.  That men who had built their power through cruelty would see – correctly – that he was a threat to them.  And that, lurking in the shadows, nameless, faceless, shapeless nothingness still lingered, waving its flag of darkness, playing its anthem of silence, and waiting to destroy Jesus, the same way it destroys today.  

And so, as Jesus brought light into the world, darkness closed in around him.  The powerful men of his age schemed to have him killed.  They perpetuated mammoth injustices against him.  They arranged his betrayal, his sham trial, his sentencing, his execution.  They watched as he bled, as he cried, as he suffered, as he died.  And they believed they had won.  Jesus’ followers also believed that the powerful had won, and that Jesus too had been claimed by the nothingness into which life itself can disappear.  They remembered that they were dust, and that to dust they would return.  And they forgot what God can do with a little dust.  

But the greatest story ever told is not a story of nothingness.  The story which began on Christmas Day, with the joyous shouts of shepherds, the wondrous singing of angel choirs, and the crying of a newborn baby does not end with the silence of death on Good Friday.  Instead, it continues, first through a moment of confusion and doubt, and then, through a moment of triumph.  Today, we meet Mary Magdalene, Peter, and another of Jesus’ disciples outside Jesus’ tomb, confronting the shocking reality that the tomb is empty.  How could this be?  Mary Magdalene has a theory.  She believes the tomb has been desecrated.  That Jesus’ body has been stolen away by grave robbers.  She cannot bear this.  This has been an uncommonly hard, hopeless, lonely week.  A week of fear, of mourning, and of horror.  A week of watching from afar as the man in whom she had placed so much hope had publicly died the painful death of a criminal and a sinner.  Jesus’ tomb is empty, and the wounds in her heart are ripped wide open, once again.  Mary has no more hope, no more strength, no more resilience to offer.  She collapses to the ground and weeps, as despair closes in around her.

And then, as angels come and go, a man appears.  He looks at Mary Magdalene and asks her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Mary Magdalene replies, despair creeping into her voice: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”  She wants this to be over.  To end.  At this point, the only relief she can find is to return to her mourning.  The air is still and dry.  The wind whips gently around them.  And in this hour of defeat, Mary longs for little more than an end to the pain.  

And then Jesus Christ, the baby in the manger, the child on the temple steps, the healer of lepers and sinners, the teacher, the miracle worker, the prophet, the Messiah, speaks.  He calls Mary by name, by the same name her parents spoke when they called her to dinner, or when they tucked her in at night.  By the same name he used when they first met, when they ate together, when they worked together, when she listened to his teachings, when she told him about her life and asked him questions about the nature of God.  He calls her by name, and as he does so, he awakens something within her heart.  The fear disappears, the grief fades away, the fog is lifted from her vision.  Suddenly, Mary Magdalene sees her Jesus in front of her, in all his resurrected glory.  “Teacher!” She shouts, her voice cracking with emotion as a smile comes over her face and the tears in her eyes turn from tears of heartbreak to tears of joy.  What all this means is yet to be codified.  There is no Church yet.  No Sunday School.  No carefully developed theology. Mary has only what she sees.  And what she sees today is the best news anyone has ever received.  That today, Jesus Christ is alive.  

And today, that is enough.  Today, our world is full of noise.  Today, our world is full of motion.  Today our churches are full of bells ringing and choirs singing and guitars strumming and tamborines shaking as families shuffle into pews and children dance and skip with joy while babies laugh and cry.  Today, our world is full of life.  Of people rejoicing, and people struggling, of people striving, and people failing, of people hoping, and people thriving, as food cooks in the oven and cars rumble down the road and pollen causes noses to itch.  And it is this life that announces to us gathered here today that life itself has not been snuffed out, but is carrying, relentlessly, on.

And anywhere life goes, so too should we tell the greatest story ever told.  The story of a God who has called each of us by name, just as Jesus called Mary.  The story of a God who, relentlessly, intensely, ferociously, loves each of us so very much, from creation and on to eternity.  Today,  we can say with certainty that, from creation to the cross, and on to the resurrection and ascension, and even on to the ending of the world — that hope is real, life has won, and that in all things, Jesus Christ is Lord.  Amen.