The Color of Dawn

Listen to the words of the Three Kings as they follow the star, searching, searching…

Have you seen this child? This child who has within him the dawn, wheat, earth, sadness, mildness, poverty and the immeasurable riches of a King? These particular words come from Gian Carlo Menotti’s Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. They describe the child who is born this night. Have you seen him?

And when we find him, what does he bring? To us? This year? What does this tiny baby mean for us? Picture in your mind’s eye a newborn child. Perhaps for you that picture is a memory, a memory of your own child or grandchild’s birth. Or perhaps you can imagine an idealized picture of your own first days. I’ve seen a picture of the hospital where I was born. It was a cozy, small brick building with a red carpet out front. I can picture myself inside, wrapped in a warm glow and surrounded by the young faces of my parents. Imagine the face of any brand new baby. It doesn’t matter who it is. I think for most of us a tiny baby is a symbol, a rich symbol, of things like potential, beginnings; a sign or symbol of the power of new beginnings.

Garrison Keillor has written a very trenchant parody of tonight’s gospel lesson. He casts it within the fictional context of a Christmas pageant entitled, "The New Christmas." In this pageant Luke’s gospel comes out like this. It’s the passage about the angels coming to the shepherds.

"And the spirit of truth came upon them, and it gave them a great brightness, and naturally they were worried. And the spirit of truth said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve come with good news that should make you really happy, for there is born today a child who shall be a symbol of new beginnings and possibilities.’ And suddenly there was with the spirit of truth a multitude of truths, praising goodness and saying, ‘It’s wonderful! Peace on earth and real understanding among people.’" The angels have become "spirits of truth." The shining glory of the Lord has become "a great brightness." And the spirits of truth have come with good news that should make the shepherds really happy. There is born today a child who shall be a symbol of new beginning and possibilities. The birth of any child is good news that makes us really happy. The birth of any child is a symbol for us of new beginnings and possibilities.

But this is not any child. This child is so much more than a symbol. This child is a promise. This birth is more than a happy occasion that stimulates good feelings within us. This new child is a promise. A concrete promise by God to us. And when God makes a promise, absolutely nothing can break that promise. "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation…" will break God’s promise to us. "Cross my heart, and I will die" to keep this promise, God says to us. This little baby, the color of dawn, with sad eyes and the hands of a King… this baby is God’s promise to us.

Isaiah says this child shall be called "Mighty God." And part of this baby’s promise is God’s promise to us that good is more mighty than evil. The powers of hell may do their worst. Chaos and destruction may fury and rage. But no matter how dark the world may become, this child is God’s unbreakable promise to us that good is stronger than evil. Listen to the words of an old Christmas carol. (They don’t make them like this anymore—too stark for modern taste, I suppose).

The gates of hell in the old carol are all the prisons that bind us, all the sins that hold us captive, all the human shortcomings that imprison us. This little Babe, so few minutes old, will stand up some years later in a synagogue in Nazareth and say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to… proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind." That is God’s promise. We will be set free from the power of sin and evil.

There’s a wonderful prayer in the Episcopal marriage service. In it we pray that this new marriage may be a "sign of Christ’s love to this sinful world and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair."

A sign. Just as the birth of any child can be a sign for us of new possibilities, at our best we human beings in our lives can be signs or symbols in the world of Christ’s love. In our love for one another, in our acts of compassion and forgiveness, in our sparks of creativity and new birth, we may reflect Christ’s love into the world. But only because this baby has been born tonight. We may reflect Christ’s love into the world only because this child brings Christ’s love into the world. We may be signs of God’s hope and reconciliation only because this baby is God’s promise.

This baby is God’s promise to us that unity will overcome estrangement.
This baby is God’s promise that forgiveness will heal guilt.
This baby is God’s promise that joy will conquer despair.

The Three kings sing of this child as a child the color of earth, the color of thorn, whose eyes are sad and whose hands are those of the poor as poor he was born. In this child with sad eyes God takes on our poverty and promises to us that even the deepest poverty within us cannot estrange us from God. Even in our poverty of faith, in our poverty of humility, our poverty of generosity, our poverty of vision, in our poverty of love for one another and God, even in our deepest poverty God will still find us.  That is God's promise in this child.

The kings also sing of a child who is the color of dawn, whose hands and eyes are those of a King, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This baby is God’s promise of a dawn—a dawn on the other side of every darkness, even death. In the words of Gordon Bok, "The world is always turning towards the morning." That is God’s promise in this child. "The world is always turning towards the morning."

Look upon this child, baby Jesus, born in a manger in Bethlehem. Like any new child, this child who is born tonight is a symbol of new possibilities. But this child, this child who is the color of dawn, is so much more. He is a promise. God’s promise of new life.

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