In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

An atheist and a minister were standing in a long shopping line. The atheist, looking at the minister’s clerical collar, declared “I don’t believe in God.”
The minister, at first taken aback by the comment, replied “Really,
 I do. But listen, tell me what the God you don’t believe in is like.”

“What do you mean” said the atheist, “I don’t believe in God.”
“Yes”, the minister continued, “but you must have some concept of what the God you reject is supposed to be like… in the minds of people who do believe.”

The atheist sees the minister’s point. “I don’t believe in a God way up there in heaven while there’s all this pain down here on earth. He could stop it all but he doesn’t do a thing. He’s supposed to be all loving but he obviously doesn’t care about anybody but himself. That’s the God I don’t believe in.”
“That’s good” responded the minister. “I wouldn’t believe in that sort of God either. The God I believe in is nothing like that at all.”

Like the atheist and the minister each of us have an image of who God is. So what is your image of God? Who is this God that you believe in? You must have some idea.
For “God” continues to have some lasting hold even in our secular world. Poll after poll indicates that belief in God remains high among Canadians even though the majority of Canadians are not involved in organized religion.

And if we were to dig a little deeper we would probably discover that for some, God is perceived as a managing director controlling our cosmic drama. For some, God is akin to a good luck charm to be pulled out in time of need or trouble. For others, God is like a heavenly superman who flies in to find them a parking spot close to mall door or deliver them from a head cold.

But while many pay lip service to the existence of God, it seems true that many have experienced the “death of God” insofar as the traditional images of God no longer make sense to them. They feel God’s absence rather than God’s presence. No doubt, some of this is due to the apocalyptic events of the last century: Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Rwanda,
the Aids pandemic. Like the atheist in the story, all this evil and suffering makes them question the Christian concept of an all-loving, good and merciful God.

One way of looking at this modern crisis of faith is to see it as the final breakdown of the biblical worldview of a three story universe. In this view heaven is above, earth in the middle and hell below. God dwells in heaven with the host of angels and directs earthly affairs. However, this worldview or cosmology has been undermined for several centuries by accumulating scientific knowledge and this cozy picture of a birthday cake world has almost dissappeared from view.

And yet it is this biblical worldview that makes its appearance at this time of year. It is found there in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. There is God in heaven sending the angel Gabriel down to earth to proclaim a message to a girl who was but a child herself. The story is so familiar that even those who are only in church at Christmas and Easter know it by heart.
So what are we to make of this familiar story read once again in the midst of our scientific and secular world. What meaning can we or should we give to the term “God” if the image of God as an absolute monarch ruling over three story universe no longer works for many people?

Certainly in the story there is a theological truth present, a truth that remains even if the biblical worldview disappears completely. This truth is summed up by the word “incarnation”. You will not find it in Luke’s gospel. The angel Gabriel speaks to Mary with simpler, more direct words. However, the church in a effort to make sense of the mystery of Mary’s pregnancy has come up with the doctrine of the incarnation.

Now the key for understanding this doctrine is to think small for incarnation means that God became small, vulnerable, weak. God becomes small for us, a living, breathing, sign of grace bundled in a young girl’s arms. But we who have been bruised and scarred by shattered dreams and broken hopes find this image of God difficult to conceive. We are saddened by the dark places in our own lives and in our world and find it difficult to let go of the all-powerful God for the all-vunerable God.

The theologian Henri Nouwen wrote about the powerlessness of the Christ-child in this way:
“Jesus is God-with us- Emmanuel. The great mystery of God becoming human is God’s desire to be loved by us. By becoming a vulnerable child….
Who can be afraid of a little child who needs to be fed, to be cared for, to be guided?
We usually talk about God as the all powerful, the almighty God…
But God wanted to become the all-powerless, all vulnerable God….
How can we be afraid of a God who wants to be “God with us” and wants us to become “us with God”.

And yet we need this gift of God becoming small, this gift of tenderness and mercy delivered in a manger. At this time of year especially, we have to retrain ourselves to look for God in the small and unexpected, to see God in the Christ child. To see God in the midst of those small, unexpected and ordinary moments of our lives. For it is there in the midst of each and every ordinary moment of life that God is present, moving in quiet ways to redeem God’s creation in a world consumed by the big and the powerful. He comes to your life and my life as a priceless gift- the only gift that really matters. 

THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.