Ridiculous!

CHRISTMAS EVE 2007

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

How many of you out there know what a “boggart” is? If you don’t, don’t worry, it just means you have not journeyed very far, if at all, into the world of Harry Potter. So let me explain. A “boggart” is a creature who looks different to everyone who sees it. How you see the boggart depends on what your worst fear is. If you are deathly afraid of spiders, the boggart appears to you as a gigantic spider. If you are afraid of one of your teachers, the boggart appears to you as that teacher. If you are afraid of terrorists, the boggart appears to you as a terrorist. You get the drift. A boggart is embodied fear.

Now in the Harry Potter world, the way you get rid of a boggart is to imagine that worst fear looking funny and then shouting the word, “Ridikulous!” So you imagine the spider trying to roller skate on all those legs and you shout “Ridiculous!” and the boggart disappears. Or you imagine your teacher dressed up like a pig, and you shout “Ridiculous!” and it disappears.

Now why in heaven’s name would I be telling you this on Christmas Eve, you may be asking. Because the story we are telling tonight includes people who were very afraid. Joseph was afraid something might go wrong when Mary had to have her baby in a dirty stable. The animals must have been afraid when Mary cried out in childbirth. The shepherds were terrified when a whole loud chorus of angels showed up in their pasture. King Herod was very afraid that a new king might have been born. Indeed, all the people of Bethlehem were afraid that night because there were Roman soldiers with large swords everywhere.

At first, God’s response to all this fear seems, well, ridiculous! The world was in bad shape then, with wars and disease and hunger and people hating each other. Why would God think that it was in any way appropriate to come into this fearsome world as a helpless, vulnerable baby? It would have made a whole lot more sense for God to come as a powerful warrior to stop the fighting or with the cures to all diseases or with loads of food to pass out or with new laws to make people stop treating each other so badly.

Why was this baby born in little Bethlehem and not some big important city? Why didn’t God make sure the best hospital or at least a fine hotel had a room ready for Mary? Isn’t a stable a little ridiculous, let alone dangerous? And what’s with telling the shepherds first? Why wouldn’t God have this announced to the government leaders or the religious leaders? Why tell people who have no power and are smelly to boot! And what about these three weird guys from somewhere far away, those magi, astrologers? Please! If people from other countries are going to come, it should have been real kings with some power to get that kid out of the stable! And their gifts? Well, gold I can see, but incense and some smelly ointment? Ridiculous.

It’s all ridiculous, and really unbelievable, and that’s what makes it so like God, and such a gift of love. Remember that the angels told the shepherds not to be afraid? Well, the angels were not only talking about not being afraid of them! The angels were trying to tell them not to meet the world with fear. Roman soldiers occupying your city? Maybe not enough food for the hungry mouths this year? “Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy. For to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Ridiculous! That’s certainly what some of the shepherds might have said. “That baby isn’t going to feed my children or get rid of the soldiers!”

And that baby didn’t. What we are talking about here is a bit more complicated than a spell out of a wand, especially in the face of the very real fears out there in our world. But here’s what that ridiculous baby lying in the smelly old manger did bring. God. God. Real and present with May and Joseph and the shepherds and magi and all of us, forever. The best present; God’s presence. “Don’t be afraid,” the angels said, not because we now have a wand and magic spell (those things are only in fantasy stories), but because we have been given the very presence of God, walking beside us through the shadowy, scary parts of our lives and through the carol-singing, present-unwrapping, joyous parts of our lives. Not a God to fear, but a God who comes as a baby, reaching out a hand to us as babies do, wanting to wrap a hand around our fingers and never let go.

So as Christians on Christmas Eve, we look out at the world and see much that is scary. We have words to shout, however, words that can empower us to meet the challenges of our world without fear, but with the power of the love of God. The word is not, “Ridiculous!, but something else, something that sounds like a spell if we say it in Latin. “Gloria in excelsis deo,” which means, “Glory to God in the highest.” Say it with me loudly: Gloria in excelsis deo!!

“In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone” (UC Canada Creed). Gloria in excelsis deo!