This morning on a little sheltered island on the Gulf of Suez a veritable miracle is happening. Prime Minister Begin of Israel and President Sadat of Egypt are talking peace. And some ways, it is just like Moses being with the Pharaoh saying God has sent me to you to let my people go.
The miracle of the Middle East is that all the world is waiting in expectation. There is an unbelievable feeling that agreement will be reached. Peace is imminent. When one listens to Prime Minister Begin, the former radical terrorist and freedom fighter, it is as though God has softened his heart and he is willing to make the kind of radical concessions history demands of him at this critical moment. The happenings this morning in Egypt are illustrative of the crisis of faith that is part of our Judeo–Christian heritage.
When the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her she was to become the mother of God’s Messiah, her incredulous answer was: “How can this be since I have no husband?” Somewhat strangely the crisis of faith is centered around this very point in the Christmas story. “How can this be since I have no husband?” Or, to phrase it in a modern way” “Do you believe in the virgin birth?”
Just recently, I experienced a good illustration of this. Snowcap, our community-service agency, sometimes makes strange bedfellows. Not long ago, a staff member of Snowcap was asked to speak at a neighboring Presbyterian church. On Monday morning of our coffee hour, he said: “Boy, did I get into something yesterday. I was speaking at another Presbyterian Church in the area and had to recite the creed with all of this stuff about “Born of a Virgin” and this Son-of-God bit. I had to mumble through it my tongue in my cheek at many places and fake my way through it.”
Strangely, if you go through the Judeo– Christian story, it is one of “Believability”. God came to an older couple, Abraham and Sara, one day and said:
Leave your country and your father’s place and go away to a land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
Abraham looked incredulously at God and said: “ Wait hey minute. My wife and I are old, and long past the bearing children stage. We do not have a son. Where is all of the seeds going to come from?” And God answered: “Sara will have a son!”
When Abraham came home and told Sara, she just laughed and disbelief. “I an 80-year-old Woman will have a son?” I am sure any of us in Sara’s place would laugh to. God came to Moses, the sheepherder, out of the desert: “I have heard …” Moses answered: “Who me Lord, take on the Pharaoh? Why I’m running away from him now?” David and Goliath is another model of faith of our Judeo-Christian heritage” “Who me, take on the giant of the Philistines?”
The Christmas story is this kind of “crisis-in-faith” story. God came to Mary: “How can this be, Lord?’ God came to Joseph: “Now what will the people say, Lord?” Shepards in the field: “Will the people believe us?” Imagine a wise man was standing in this community saying: “Tomorrow, I am going to take off after a star!” Only the paranoid Herod had no problems of belief. He was so insecure and so paranoid about his job that he would believe any threat to his kingdom.
However, in our Judeo-Christian heritage, the crisis of faith is always resolved by brave action in obedience to radical faith:
—Abraham did go
—Moses did go
—David challenged Goliath
—Mary did believe the angel in his unbelievable magnificence
—Shepherds did leave the hills
—Magi did follow the star
—Disciples did see him through beyond the resurrection
This morning you and I are disciples of the incredulous. That Bethlehem’s manger should have meaning for our time is unbelievable. However, year-after-year we go to Bethlehem on our pilgrimage of faith. We go following our star to where the Christ child would have us be in our time.
Reverend Arthur Schwabe Blog 