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Eggnog and the Messiah
Christmas Poem Sermon 2005

I sit at a desk as I compose my monologue,
Embracing a large glass of my favorite eggnog.
And like eggnog, which only is found
When Christmas and New Year's comes around
We sometimes remember the Savior's birth
And the rest of the year forget it's worth.

(By the way, eggnog to me is very dear.
I could drink it throughout the year.
I charge the milk companies with dereliction,
in failing to market to my annual addiction.)

But, alas, I digress away from our story
I'm here to tell of Jesus' glory
For this morning is meant in poem and rhyme
To tell about this Christmas time.

But how do I tell the wonder of Christ
And recount to others the sacrifice
That Jesus made in coming to earth
And appearing through a virgin birth?

How can I compete for your attention
When some of you live in the fourth dimension
Of movies and music and video games
And all those things with greater claims?

How does a preacher compete with a movie
With special effects and all that's groovy?
Should I demonstrate that the real King Kong
Has really been Jesus all along?

How's this…
   Jesus was human, Kong was hairy
   But there are similarities both of them carry.
   Like Kong, Christ was the king of His dwelling
   But sacrificed all for a love compelling

   Both became a captives, rather than king
   Willing giving up everything,
   For love compelled both Kong and Christ
   And ended in each one paying the price.

   But there were also deviations
   In their actions and motivations.
   In King Kong, beauty killed the beast
   But in the Bible, the beast is not deceased.

   The beasts killed Beauty in our tale
   For to a cross they did nail
   The Son of God who never sinned.
   On Beauty's body our crimes were pinned

   To show selfish rebels His affection
   And bring us back from our rejection
   By finding a way to conquer sin
   Through dying in His mortal skin.

   And though Kong lay dead for all to see
   The King of the Bible held death's key.
   Our King came back from death. He's living!
   He offers new life to us forgiving
   All of our self-centered rebellions
   And offering peace to all us hellions.

So perhaps I could do the movie scene
Comparing Jesus to the latest screen.

But I'd rather tell the story direct from the Book.
So perhaps you'd be willing to have a look
At the Christmas story as found in a Gospel.
Though I imagine some of you might be hostile:

"This story was written in ancient Greek!
It can only have meaning for a religious freak.
There's nothing here for intelligent folk.
The whole thing's just some pious joke!
Why pay attention to a story antique?
What makes you think this man's birth was unique?"

A doctor named Luke faced similar questions
And he wrote a book with his impressions
From testimony he had collected
From talking with people he respected.

For the past two months we've been reading
Something resembling a judicial pleading.
Luke takes us into a courtroom to throw
The evidence before us like a picture show.

Luke brings forth witness upon witness
To help us find spiritual fitness.
And before our doctor's work is done
He means to show that Jesus is the Special One.

So follow me as we take a quick look
Through a few chapters of the Good Book
And see if you agree with Luke
That Jesus is more than just some spook
Or angel or enlightened man like Buddha -
This Jesus from the tribe of Judah.

You can follow with me in chapter one
As Luke tells of God's coming Son.
Listen for what each witness tells
And see if there's reason for Christmas bells.

Starting with the old priest Zechariah
Luke tells us about the coming Messiah.
A son will be born to the priest and his wife
A child he's been praying for all of his life.

The priest's son will come in Elijah's power
And prepare the way for Messiah's hour.
Zechariah proves a bit contrary
So God decides Zack's speech He'll vary.

Zach goes home and sleeps with his wife
And even though Liz is past her "change of life"
God creates a son for Zechariah and Liz
And in spite of doubts, Zach sees there is
A God who can do whatever He says
A Creator who speaks and that is what is.

From Zechariah wary,
God moves to Mary.
And to the girl about to marry,
God tells her that she soon will carry
The Son of God within her womb
And this will happen without a groom.

What do you think: truth or fable?
But you must agree that God is able
To do even the impossible or He wouldn't be God.
God not able? That's quite odd!

Mary submits to Gabriel's pronouncement
But she'll send no baby announcement.
Who will believe that this child is God's own?
Mary must feel very alone.

So Mary picks up on Gabriel's allusion
And heads to the hills for a time of seclusion
To get away from Nazareth
And visit her cousin Elizabeth.

In the womb John does some leaps.
Upon Mary Liz blessings heaps.
So Elizabeth and fetus John
Encourage Mary and urge her on.
And this young girl composes a song
While the Spirit sings along.

She sings about how the proud will stumble
And of the Messiah who comes for the humble.
With God every promise shall come true
Cause we know surely all things He will do.

Now at the end of chapter one
Old Elizabeth bears a son.
John is born on a mountain peak
And his dad Zack is freed to speak.
And dad sings out in joyous strain
About Messiah's coming reign.

So now in review we arrive
To where Luke has told of witnesses five:
A priest, an angel and Mary the girl,
A wife and a babe in womb did curl.
All these people had something to say
About the child of Christmas day.

And then in a passage preached by Lars
We came to where God would give cigars
If he was some kind of earthly father
But since He's divine, He didn't bother.

A census Caesar did decree
Which brought to Bethlehem the three
And during the time they were there
The time came for Mary to bear
The Son of God and man.

And then in Luke chapter two, verse eight
We met some shepherds out quite late
While taking care of common sheep
Heavenly visitors disturbed their sleep.

If you were choosing to announce a king
Would you pick shepherds with which to sing?
The intelligentsia of Jesus' day
Considered them part of the common fray.

The nature of their outside work
Meant the Jewish law they shirked.
And since herders moved about a lot
It sometimes happened that they were caught
Confusing 'mine' with 'thine.'

The Jewish leaders did not even allow
A shepherd to in court avow
His testimony was considered unsound
A despised class; they were not renowned.

So why if Luke was inventing a story
Did he choose shepherds to hear God's glory?
The answer doesn't take a sleuth
Luke didn't invent; he recorded truth.

The shepherds were chosen by God it seems.
They weren't myths or fanciful dreams.
And in choosing shepherds God did reveal
That the smart and the proud often miss what's real.

Some skeptics will protest, "Angels! Ridiculous!
Don't clerics know that modern people are meticulous
About accepting angelic tripe.
Winged cherubs are a bunch of hype."

Of course, they are entitled to their opinions.
Their thoughts, no doubt, hold sway in intellectual dominions.
Yet these cynics doubting a heavenly creature
Have no problem swallowing a sci-fi feature.
Their belief in theoretical things we've never seen,
We are told to swallow sight unseen.

To believe in angels they say is naïve,
But according to them we must believe
In aliens, black holes and antimatter
And that one day even time we'll shatter.

Carl Sagan with angels could not come to grips
But he had no problem believing in space ships
Which came to earth eons ago and brought
The first seeds of life that wrought
The beginning of evolution.
That was his conclusion.

(I once knew a skeptical Episcopalian
Who was convinced he was abducted by an alien.)

But let's get one thing straight
Doctor Luke doesn't state
That angels are like cupid
That would be sort of stupid!

Chubby angels with stubby wings
Have nothing to do with the angel that sings
To the shepherds in the Bible -
That would be an awful libel.

Angels in the Bible are warriors,
Messengers, and destroyers.
"Fear not!" is what you often hear
Whenever an angel does come near.

When angels appear in verse thirteen
Just ask any soldier or any Marine
"Company" and "host" are terminology
That belongs to military etymology.
And never an angel in armor suit
Was told that he was cubby and cute!

Oh, and angels don't have wings
This misnomer springs
From people trying to figure out
How the angels moved about
Before aerodynamic inventions
And those Star Trek conventions.

These warrior angels sang a word
Proclaiming a baby as the Lord!
They called Him Christ and also Savior.
Doesn't that seem strange behavior
Unless these angels had acumen
That the babe was more than human.

Home is where we like to be
When we light the Christmas tree.
Christ's first Christmas was not at home.
Far from the comfortable, He did roam.
So you and I could find the way
To return to God some day.

For God is not the Creator who makes, then hides
But instead the One who loves and provides.
He came to live among us, so we would see
That our Creator was no absent deity.

It certainly seems strange to me
That there are those who see
(As I do) the existence of something greater
Which they call their Creator.

But if you ask them what He's like
They'd just as soon you'd take a hike.
"We can't really know for sure
Who She is is a bit obscure.
Knowledge about God we don't possess.
All we can do is grope and guess."

But if God caused us to abide,
Do you think He'd want to hide?
If He called us to be real,
Do you think He'd then conceal
Who He was and how to reach Him
What He's like and how to preach Him?

Jesus came two thousand years ago
So the Father we would know.
In human form God was enfleshed
In knowledge of God we were enmeshed.

God hath taken a body, it seems
And having gone to such extremes
Angel warriors shout the themes
And glory all around them beams
For sin-forced wrath now shall cease
As an army announces peace.

The angel mentions one thing stranger:
"Look for the One lying in a stone manger."
Two babies could be wrapped in swaddle
But surely only one would be the model
For the King whose bed was stone.
In this way He would be known.

Thirty-three years later another Mary
Would around a graveyard tarry.
As this Mary wept and dawdled
Another Joseph swaddled
The same body with cloth strips
Hardly able to come to grips
With the idea that their King was dead
As He lay on a cold stone bed.

But death could not contain our Lord
Back to life He was restored
And after appearing to hundreds over forty days
God to heaven His Son did raise.

But now on this Christmas night
God chose shepherds to invite
To be witnesses of His birth
As God took the lower berth
Being part of His creation
In sinful human habitation
In a trough in which the animals fed,
In pieces of cloth as his bedspread.
Choosing life among the poor,
Manger bed next to manure.

In verse twenty-one we're told
Two events that do unfold.
Jesus suffers circumcision
And there is no split decision
When it comes to naming Him.
Won't be Eli. Won't be Jim.
Jesus is the name conferred -
"Yah saves" in Hebrew word.
Only seven special youngsters received
Their names before they were conceived.

After forty days the mother
Goes to temple like every other
Jewish lady who bore a male
Following every legal detail.
When they did arrive
They paid their shekels five
And being poor offered pigeon
Following their Jewish religion.

Two more witnesses now come forth
And almost like magnetic north
Are attracted to this tiny boy
And both come up expressing joy.

Simeon was a righteous man and devout
And to all in the temple he did boom out
A little song for all those near
To tell them their Messiah was here.

Simeon speaking as a seer
Says the Gentiles good news will hear.
This is a promise dear to me,
Since my grandpap worshipped a tree.

He said the babe was the light of the nations
And the glory to his Jewish relations.
This child who was the talk of the town
Would bring some up and put some down.
Because He would their thoughts reveal.
Their hearts they could no longer conceal.

He'd be a comfort to some in the nation
But to others the Messiah was a complete frustration.
As the day of Messiah commenced
The proud would speak against
The One who is Lord of heaven and earth
Only Jesus has the worth.

Some greet the Lord with glee.
Others are unwilling to bend the knee.
The baby of Christmas stamps
Humanity into two respective camps.

Up or down, you decide
Jesus is the Great Divide.
Accept Him as the Lord who reigns
Or find yourself in self-made chains.

And so Simeon saw the Christ
Because the Spirit had enticed
Him to know that he would not die
Until the Messiah he did spy.

Simeon tells mom to be attuned
For her Son's coming will leave a wound.
A sword will pierce her soul and leave her dazed
Until the time her Son is raised.

And while Simeon is speaking God's will
A lady comes up much stranger still.
Hannah was seven years matrimonial,
Decades of service ceremonial,
Now brings the final testimonial.

With fasting she seeks
By the Spirit she speaks
Anna comes up to the child
And tells all how God has smiled
Upon His people by sending redemption
So they'd get a slavery exemption.
The slavery that she means is sin
Freed by asking Christ within.

The final verses we leave for next week
Of the boy in the temple Randy will speak.
This final passage of the coming Messiah,
Will be told by Randy who is no liar. (pronounce "LI - YA")

So have you ever wondered?
Before Luke is done over a hundred
Witnesses he will mention
Trying to bring to your attention
Who Jesus really is.

This morning I have tried to show
The Jesus who you may not know
The Christ we celebrate at this Yuletide
Reminds us that the Father wants to live inside
Of each of us and take control
Reigning o'r our heart and soul.

So if you'd like to celebrate
Then from your heart's throne abdicate.
For Christ came for the humble and defeated -
Not the proud and self-conceited.

Christ can live within your heart
This New Year - a brand new start.
Jesus will come in and be
Closer than a friend to thee.
Only then will you be really free -
Free to become all you're meant to be.

If you have questions about this Savior
Or how He forgives your misbehavior
Or why He hung upon a tree
Or what it means to "bend the knee."

Then please feel free to speak to us
We would be happy to discuss
What we know about the Christmas gift
And how He came to mend the rift
Between God and us.

Well, my eggnog is gone. My heart is merry.
We have no further need to tarry.
I've tried to tell the history in rhyme
Of Jesus come at Christmas time.

If you listened without fidgeting while you were seated.
Then this preacher's mission has succeed.
If a silly rhyme made you chuckle
Or forced you to loosen your belt buckle
If one word stirred your heart to feel
And helped you bear with your ordeal.

If one verse was said to make you think
And deeper of the Savior drink
Then what I started out to do
Turned out better than I knew.

Now it's time to end our verse.
And after this phrase you may disperse:

Happy birthday, Jesus, and thank you for another new year of new life!

-- Dennis Rupert
Christmas Day Poem Sermon
December 2005

Hear it by clicking here

Eggnog and the Messiah Christmas Poem Sermon 2005

Eggnog and the Messiah
Christmas Poem Sermon 2005