St. Patrick: Intimacy with God

Christmas: Eternity

Rob Gieselmann, Dec. 24, 25, 2015

As a boy growing-up  in Vero Beach, Florida, I would ride my bike the two blocks to the beach to watch various Apollo spacecraft launch.

Vero Beach is just one hour south of Cape Canaveral, so even during daytime, you could spot the white light of the thrusters propelling each craft into deep space, and when NASA would launch at night, the sky around the rocket would light-up bright orange. I would stare in awe, at the greatness of it all, the heavens, of-course, but the endeavor, as well – the quest. That mere human beings might imagine themselves reaching beyond the sphere, traveling to the moon, and beyond. It is as though the human soul is a natural repository for the quest for God, to reach beyond ourselves, physically to apprehend the transcendent. Sir Francis Drake, Ferdinand Magellan, and all the European explorers; Sir Edmund Hilary, and Mt. Everest,

and even Teddy Roosevelt, who explored uncharted segments

of the Amazon River following his little stint at the White House. And not just the expanse, but the minute, as well. Just last week, European physicists announced that they had observed traces of the tiniest particle yet discovered: a heavier version of the Higgs Boson.

Exploration, and …

When you explore God’s universe, you explore God.

For the Almighty is tucked sideways into each crack and crevice, into each star and black hole. And I have to ask, isn’t the number one job of the church – yours and mine exploration? To stand at the precipice fundamentally and literally peering into the black, shimmering with both stardust and light, and wonder - Where is God? Who is God? We have to ask the question, and we have to seek the answer.

                  Explorers each of us … Week before last, NPR
 aired an interview – I didn’t catch the interviewee’s name – but the fellow was talking about space exploration – We need to seek, he said – and I am paraphrasing, here. We need to go to other suns and solar systems, way beyond where we’ve already been. Isn’t that us, he asked, at our best? Once we were committed to exploration – the space race – our best and brightest, worked for NASA – But somewhere along the way, we lost that drive. Now our best and brightest, he observed sardonically, move to Silicon Valley to create the latest iPhone APP.

**And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Shepherds, looking into the expansive darkness, staring equally into eternity, wondering at the wonder of it all, when suddenly, the black split into two, a door from another dimension opened, and a ten foot angel stood before them.

That angel announced the birth of a baby – a baby - And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  No really, the shepherds saw heavens bifurcated, a ten foot angel standing in front of them, and the sign is a baby? In a dirty manger? Yes, a baby, and theologians call it, the scandal of particularity – I call it, “Casablanca theology.” You remember, Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine. Of all the barns in all the towns, in all the world, the Word of God was born in Bethlehem? Shepherds stared at the stars. Wise men stared at the stars. And we, too,  stare at the stars. Explorers, one and all.

Immanuel Kant  said, the sight of a starry sky annihilates

                  us as physical beings. Tears us away

                           from the earth, and throws

                                    us into the infinite.

Novelist, Julien Green, experienced religion first as a boy, at night, in his bedroom. [Looking through the windowpane,]

I saw thousands of stars shining in the sky….[and] God spoke directly to me, in that vast, confused tongue which words

have never been able to render. Staring at stars, for aren’t you and I linked heart and soul to the heavens, inexorably to star and eternity – And yet, the sign given is dirty and dirt, earthly, a child of dust, just like you and me. And there it is:  Right there. Peace. On Earth.  *I have observed in this life, a world of people who live so very, very afraid. People are afraid of death. Or of being poor, or economic crisis. Or environmental cataclysm.  Americans are afraid of ISIS – the polls reveal that a vast majority of Americans deeply are afraid of terrorism – Then there are those people afraid of elections, that Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders might actually win. Hollywood refracts our fear onto the screen – so many movies are dystopian – they reveal of a world of chaos, and instability. Failed politics, and worse, failed religion. But I am here to tell you, that on this night, as that baby was born at that particular time, among a people who were so similar to us – they, too, lived afraid –  The message of the angel reverberates across the deepest heavens. Be not afraid. For the promise itself is eternal: I bring you Good News. For all the world. No longer is God relegated to the expanse of eternity, but you may observe God here, on earth – first in that one little manger, at that one little place in time, on that one little scrap of earth.  For unto you is born this day in the City of David, A Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest ,and on earth, peace,  good will toward all.