In the last minutes of the last episode of the HBO series ‘Six Feet Under’ the young sister of the Fisher Family, Claire, prepares to leave for a new job in New York City. Gathered on the porch she has a last conversation with her mother and her brother. “I don’t know how to do this.” She says. “You just say goodbye, You just say I love you I will miss you.” Her brother tells her. “Be happy.” She tells him. “I am.” He replies. She turns to her mother, “My sweet baby girl… don’t let them work you too hard at your new job.” Her mother says. “I hope you can come visit.” Claire replies. Her mother says, “I pray that you will be filled with hope as long as you possibly can.” “Thank you for everything, for giving me life…” Claire responds. “You gave me life.” Her mother says. Later in the scene Claire says, “ Oh wait I want to take a picture of this…” The ghost of her dead brother Nate tells her, “You can’t take a picture of this, it is already gone.”
It is a poignant moment, bookended by the departure of a child into the world and the reality that each of the moments of our life are over as soon as we realize they are happening. Pictures capture them, but Nate is right, you really can’t take a picture if it, as soon as you do it is already gone.
The Christmas story in Luke is a lot like that. It is an attempt in words to capture a moment where angels come and announce to shepherds the birth of the messiah. We have heard it a dozen times, the ruddy shepherd people, the glorious angels, the holy family in a manger, with Mary pondering all these things in her heart. The writer of the Gospel is trying to take a picture of that moment, but really you cannot. It is already gone. All we have left is a future. The future we already know. The fragile baby grows up, leaves home, preaches peace and repentance to a rough and angry world. His life is taken in a brutal and tragic way. His life is then restored in a fantastic and mystical way, and after his resurrection he stands in a room and breaths on his disciples saying, “Peace be with you.” In an instant the Gospel story goes from a simple stable with simple shepherds and a new baby to a heckling crowd and a horrible cross to a the passing of the peace from the son of God to his Disciples. These are moments in life you cannot take a picture of, they are only something you can remember and proclaim.
As Claire Fisher drives away, a song by the singer Sia called “Breath Me” plays. As Claire drives, pictures of the future play on the screen, cutting back and forth from present day Claire in her car, to the distant future, and vignettes of the lives of the characters from the show. We see weddings and birthday parties. We see reunions and fancy vacations, and we deaths. All interspersed with Claire driving and the words of the song playing: Help, I have done it again/ I have been here many times before/ Hurt myself again today/ And, the worst part is there's no-one else to blame
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me
It is an amazing moment in television and theology, because the scene serves as a reminder that life is a journey. And that in our journey there are people who come in and out of our lives. All journeys have a beginning and an end. And that life is fragile and fleeting. You cannot take a picture of it, you cannot freeze it, the moment is gone. Mary knows this, as the busyness of the manger scene swirls around her, she ponders the birth of her child, the report of the angles visit to the shepherds, the proclamation of what the future holds for her child, all of these things are locked in her heart. Claire realizes this, as she journeys into her own life. We discover it in the busyness of the world which surrounds us, and as we drive off to our own futures, and as we sit in a manger surrounded by shepherds, all we really have is the ability to ponder these things in our hearts. And while we are locking these moments to memory we see the child, the child in the manger, the messiah child, the savior child, the son of God child, and we hear the words of the song, as if they come out of the child’s mouth, “Be my friend, hold me, wrap me up, unfold me. I am small and needy. Warm me up. Breath me.” The fragility of the child in the manger, who will later show his fragility on the cross, this is a fragility that we can relate to. We know this fragile self all too well in our own lives. We know it and too many times we have realized it, and what makes the incarnation of God in Jesus that much more powerful, is that now God knows it too. Here is the manger, look at it. Here are the scenes of your life, look at them. Take them all in, ponder them in your heart. The divine and human, something you cannot take a picture of. What the manger story tell us, what the life and death and resurrection of Jesus proclaims to us, what is revealed to us is that God knows it too.
There is another song I am fond of. “On the radio” by Regina Spektor. She sings, “This is how it works /You're young until you're not/You love until you don't /You try until you can't /You laugh until you cry /You cry until you laugh /And everyone must breathe /Until their dying breath. These lyrics fit with my idea of journey in the sense that there is a tension to living, and we human beings are an odd bit of existence. We have to live until we die. And we have a choice about that living everyday we get up, and no matter the choice we will have to keep breathing. We cannot quit living. No matter how painful it gets, we cannot quit until we are all six feet under. Again the incarnation points to this. Jesus lives an authentic life and asks that we do the same, live as authentically as we can, living as much as we can, and loving as much as we can. Our relationships are more precious than our gold. This is the message of the manger. The Messiah is found in the proclamation of Shepherds. The messiah is found as the child of peasant people. The messiah is found as a weak baby. His arrival points to not to Ceasar, or Herod, or the Governor, or the rich. His arrival points to people, common people. You and me.
Regina Spektor’s other verse in “On the Radio” Goes like this, “No, this is how it works /You peer inside yourself /You take the things you like /And try to love the things you took /And then you take that love you made /And stick it into some /Someone else's heart /Pumping someone else's blood /And walking arm in arm /You hope it don't get harmed /But even if it does /You'll just do it all again
That is a line that gets me, “And walking arm in arm /You hope it don't get harmed /But even if it does /You'll just do it all again.” In this life we lead, we are called to take the risk to love, to take the love that we have and incarnate it into someone else, in flesh it in someone else, be in community with someone else, risk loving, all the while knowing that we each will have to leave. And even in the leaving, and even knowing the risks of loving, we’d just do it all again. This is what Jesus did, he loved, and he showed God’s love to the world. God’s love, a love of peace and mercy, even in the midst of pain and suffering, is the love of God for us. And the call to us is simple, breath me.
Breath me. As you look at the child on this Christmas Eve, as you look at the babe lying in a manger, as you look at his eyes Look at the world through those eyes. Breath me. See the world and see the Christian life in the lyrics of a pop song played during a montage of a cast of characters at the end of an HBO Show about a dysfunctional family of undertakers. See Jesus there, being herald by Claire and her family and then by Mary and by angels and shepherds, see the divine and human commingled together in one pronouncement. See the call of God through the life of Jesus, Be my friend Hold me, wrap me up Unfold me I am small and needy Warm me up, And breathe me. Look at the world around you, in the middle of this living journey you are on, look at the world around you and see that child, the child that later breathed the Holy Spirit onto those first disciples, told them not to be afraid, and breathing on them he said peace be with you. The call then is for you and me to go out into this night, like the shepherds did. We go out into this night rejoicing for this community of St. Mark’s. Ordinary as we are, as ruddy and dysfunctional and human as we are, we go out into this night and we breath the breath of Jesus into our lungs and we risk to love each other and we see the face of God in each other, because really we are the incarnation too. We are children of God too. This night is for us too. We are holy too. And as we journey in and out of each other’s lives, we see that this is holy as well. And walking arm in arm /You hope it don't get harmed /But even if it does /You'll just do it all again. Risk to love this night. Risk to live. Risk to keep on the journey. Ponder it in your heart. And know that every moment is precious, beyond pictures, breathing until you don’t, finding God in the oddest of places, seeing love in all that you do. And as Claire’s mom said to her I say to you, “I pray that you will be filled with hope as long as you possibly can.” Holy Hope. The hope found in living, the hope that was found in that manger, on that cross, in that tomb, in the lives of those who proclaimed it before us. Hope as long as you possibly can. Amen and Merry Christmas.
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