What do you fear? Good news is louder than fear.

Well, we have been traveling through a

sermon series this Advent and the four

weeks leading up to tonight. Um, and

we've been thinking about fear.

Uh, and talking about what it is to be

people of faith living in a pretty

fearful time, I think. Uh, and instead

of like shoving our fears deep down or

pretending they just don't exist, we've

gotten really curious about what it is

that makes us afraid in this season.

We've tried to approach our fears with

compassion

uh and explore what it is that really

scares us in this world and why. And so

as we continue talking a little bit

about that tonight,

uh let's turn to this familiar age-old

story. You all know it well from Luke

2:es 1-20. Hear the word of the Lord.

Friends,

in those days, Caesar Augustus issued a

decree that a census should be taken of

the entire Roman world. This was the

first census that took place while

Corinius was governor of Syria. And

everyone went to their own town to

register. So, Joseph also went up from

the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea

to Bethlehem, the town of David, because

he belonged to the house and line of

David. He went there to register with

Mary, who was pledged to be married to

him and was expecting a child. And while

they were there, the time came for the

baby to be born. And she gave birth to

her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in

cloths and placed him in a manger

because there was no guest room

available for them. And there were

shepherds living out in the fields

nearby, keeping watch over their flocks

at night. And an angel of the Lord

appeared to them. And the glory of the

Lord shone around them, and they were

terrified. But the angel said to them,

"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news

that will cause great joy for all the

people. Today in the town of David, a

savior has been born to you. He is the

Messiah, the Lord. And this will be a

sign to you. You will find a baby

wrapped in cloths and lying in a

manger."

Suddenly, a great company of the

heavenly host appeared with the angel,

praising God and saying, "Glory to God

in the highest heaven, and on earth,

peace to those on whom his favor rests."

And when the angels had left them and

gone into heaven, the shepherds said to

one another, "Well, let's go to

Bethlehem and see this thing that has

happened, which the Lord has told us

about." So, they hurried off, and they

found Mary and Joseph and the baby who

was lying in the manger. When they had

seen him, they spread the word

concerning what had been told them about

this child. And all who heard it were

amazed at what the shepherds said to

them. But Mary treasured up all these

things and pondered them in her heart.

The shepherds returned glorifying and

praising God for all the things they had

heard and seen, which were just as they

had been told. This is the word of the

Lord. Thanks be to God.

I realized as I was writing my sermon

this week that my title isn't exactly

correct tonight. Good news is louder

than fear.

I'm just not sure that's really true.

Now, I was not trying to make a

statement about some provable fact. I

was really more making a theological

statement. Um but still I mean is good

news really louder than fear?

In our world often it's not

fear can be quite loud actually

excruciatingly so.

Turn on the TV, scroll through your

socials, glance at the headlines and

fear dominates.

It seems to scream at the top of its

lungs most days.

fear. It weaponizes our safety. It

steals all the energy in the room. It

takes all the headline space. And we all

know this. If it bleeds, it leads,

right?

And now we're living in a world that's

driven by algorithms and an attention

economy. And so fear, it plays on all of

our worst insecurities

and it drives our marketplace.

Fear sells

It taps into all our human instincts. It

messes with our psyche. It overrides our

neurochemistry. It really grabs on to

us.

Which is why studies continue to show

over and over that it takes at least

five positive messages to outweigh just

one negative one.

feels sticky like that,

taking up too much space in our brains

and in our bodies.

At times, it can feel impossible to

quiet it down.

So, on reflection, maybe good news isn't

actually louder than fear.

In our reading of this well-worn

passage, we find that Luke is carefully

and intentionally drawing our attention

to a particular political moment in

time. He is the fearful moment that God

chooses to bring forth the birth of the

Messiah.

On the night that Jesus is born, most of

the known world is under Roman

occupation.

And Emperor Augustus, he is parading

around this grand notion of pox Romana.

Literally, it means peace through Rome.

But it's a big propaganda campaign for

the so-called golden age of peace and

prosperity.

But Mary and Joseph, they know all too

well that this like poxana, this peace,

it's been achieved through political

oppression,

dominance, violence.

Because like in the city just around the

corner from where they live in Nazareth,

the city of Sepharus,

almost 2,000 people were crucified

for daring to speak against the empire

in an effort to make sure everybody

knows exactly what happens if you want

to oppose Rome.

Rome was offering peace by domination

and they offered prosperity by excessive

taxation.

This taxation, it's the reason Jesus is

born in Bethlehem and not where he's

from in Nazareth

because Augustus decided all the world

should be counted. And so Rome needed to

figure out just how many folks they'd

conquered so they could figure out just

how many folks they could tax.

Friends, Jesus is born into a world

that's just not so dissimilar from ours.

A world full of anxiety and violence,

income inequality, desperation.

A world that feels pulled apart by

political polarization

and religious extremism

and nationalism of the worst kind.

They saw their neighbors be conscripted

or crucified.

And we see ours chased down and taken to

detainment camps.

They heard rumors that they might lose

their business or lose their house or

have their child sold into slavery.

But we scroll through the headlines and

we find out that there's just one more

thing that's going to cause us cancer

and that the Great Salt Lake is going to

dry up and make all the air polluted and

that there's been yet another mass

shooting.

And so our worlds might be really

different, but the fear in the air, oh,

that's the same.

That's the same.

And it's into a dark night, into a world

dominated by fear. read right under the

nose of the Roman Empire that the most

important story of good news that is

ever told breaks into the world.

That word for good news that we throw

around in church all the time, we call

it gospel.

In the Greek, it's unangelon.

But what you need to know is it wasn't

actually like a church word, a Christian

word. It first was a Roman word

in the empire. Rome would announce its

gospel, its messages of good news, and

it would send them around to the cities

and villages whenever they had something

they needed to declare. And so gospel

messages like a recent victory in battle

or a new imperial conquest,

those were Rome's gospels.

But as the disciples and the earliest

writers of the New Testament started

telling the story of Jesus Christ coming

into the world, they chose to steal that

term. They literally just co-opted it.

And they said, "Rome can say that

they're spreading good news, that

they've got the gospel. Let me tell you

the real good news.

Let me proclaim to you a really

different gospel message.

the story of God putting on flesh,

becoming incarnate,

being born to be one of us, to be near

us.

As scholar Bo Young Lee put it, Luke

isn't writing a neutral tale. He's

offering a counternarrative to Roman

propaganda.

Rome claimed peace through domination,

but Luke proclaims peace through

incarnation.

Man,

it's into this fragile, politically

charged moment that God is born.

And we're told that an angel appears

announcing this good news. Not to the

powerful, not to the religious elite,

but to shepherds,

regular workingclass folks, outdoing

their lowpaying job in the fields like

they did every other night.

And Luke tells us they were terrified.

Yeah, I bet they were.

You know, I think our familiarity with

the Christmas story and our images of

like nativity sets set up on our

mantels, it can really obscure what Luke

describes as this like earthshattering,

jawdropping

moment.

this grandeur on a scale I don't think

we really understand

that an angel of the Lord appears and

the glory of the Lord shines around

them. What does that even mean,

right?

It's wild.

And it says that this angel of the Lord,

he's initially one declaring this

message and then all of a sudden there's

a multitude of the heavenly hosts

breaking out in song to these shepherds

on the side of the field.

Now that Greek word for heavenly host,

you ought to know it's a military term.

It means armies,

which is why scholar NT Wright

translates it a crowd of heavenly armies

because that's literally what Luke is

describing.

But you got to remember to a group of

shepherds, people who have been occupied

by the Roman Emperor, oh my word, a

giant army showing up. H that doesn't

usually mean peace,

but this is not Rome's army. Yeah,

as author Meredith Miller puts it, "This

army announcing Jesus's arrival, it

isn't carrying dangerous shiny weapons.

They are singing about good news and

great joy for all people. Like any great

king, God has an army. It's just with

God, they bring news of peace, not war."

And so here in the middle of the fields,

good news of great joy declares

not some mighty victory. It declares

God's vulnerability.

Vulnerability.

God has been made flesh,

incarnate in a tiny, fragile, vulnerable

infant,

laying in a manger because there was no

room for the son of God to be born.

Bananas.

It's crazy.

And this same incarnate God is going to

grow up preaching and modeling a love

that is so big and so reckless and so

generous that he will be crucified for

it.

The gospel message that was declared the

night Jesus is born is that even though

good news

may not always be louder than fear,

even though it might appear weak and

small in the face of fear, it is

actually always

stronger.

always stronger

because as father Gregory Bole said once

you see the kind of God we have there

really can't be any fear that love

drives out our fear

but let's just like name the reality for

us

even still right

that good news of great joy it clearly

has not erased all the things that make

us so afraid in this life. Not that

night long ago and not tonight either.

No, it's not all sunshine and rainbows,

is it?

The circumstances of Jesus's birth,

poverty, political turmoil, violence,

they were not erased by that angel

army's song.

No. In fact, it got tougher for Mary and

Joseph. After this, they're going to

have to flee to Egypt as refugees to

protect Jesus from assassination.

But but here is what I am so incredibly

compelled by. Because isn't this

complicated truth its own sort of

brilliant good news?

Isn't it pretty remarkable that God

still just keeps showing up right in the

middle of our terrifying lives? Not not

after we've sorted them, but right in

the middle of them.

Right in the middle. God is born into

the very biggest mess of this world and

in your life, too.

I don't know about you, but it's when

I'm deeply anxious. It's when I feel

most afraid

that I most need God to show up.

Luke insists that the good news that we

most need to hear that God's with us,

it's going to just keep being born.

No matter how loud fear is shouting,

God just keeps showing up.

Anybody

else here love The Moth? The Moth

Storytellers? Few of you know what I'm

talking about? If you don't know, The

Moth is this nonprofit and it hosts

these like storytelling events all over

the world and people can sign up to

share a story. Their tagline is true

stories told live.

In my opinion, it's the kind of content

that the internet exists for, or at

least like sort of counteracts some of

the cesspool that's out there. Um,

they're lovely. But I recently watched a

story shared by Matthew,

a dad at a McDonald's play place with

who? His two kids

who finds himself in a bit of a pickle.

his two-year-old son Charlie is um stuck

up high in one of those plastic tubes

about six feet up in the air

and he is afraid and crying. He can't

get down.

He He's suddenly terrified to cross um

what do they call it? Those big cargo

nets that stretch across as a bridge.

And so he's frozen up there. But dad

Matthew, he is too big to climb into the

play place.

He won't fit. And so he turns to his

six-year-old daughter, Clara, and he

begs her many times, "Will you please go

up there and help your brother?" He's

scared. And Claire just says, "No, no."

Now, now, not because she's mean,

it's because she's a really anxious

kiddo

who suffers with autism.

And so everything feels too loud and too

bright and too scary for Clara.

But as little Charlie grows increasingly

desperate,

Clara shocks her dad and all of a sudden

he turns around and she's suddenly

walking up to the play place and

starting to climb the tower. Something

she has absolutely never done before,

never even thought about before.

She makes it all the way up to the cargo

net herself before she too is paralyzed

by fear.

And now dad is underneath the play place

thinking, "I got both of them stuck up

there now. What am I supposed to do

here?"

But then Charlie stops crying

and dad looks up to see that Clara is

reaching her little body halfway across

the net to extend her arms to her little

brother. And he's reaching across the

net just so their fingers can kind of

touch and they can hold hands a little

bit.

And then Clara speaks

and dad says he cannot believe what it

is she says.

She turns to Charlie and she says,

"Charlie,

whisper the name of the person you love

the most and it will give you courage."

And pretty soon, Charlie's coming across

the net to his sister whispering.

And they both whisper all the way down

to dad.

You know, maybe good news is louder than

fear after all.

Friends, just like Clara, just like

those shepherds, we too are called to

proclaim good news.

We're not supposed to be like passive

observers.

No,

our encounter of the inbreaking love of

God, it compels us to participate,

to proclaim goodness, even if the best

we've got is a whisper.

Luke tells us that those shepherds, they

tell everyone they encounter about what

happened to them, about what they saw

and experienced. They go back to their

flocks and their families

singing God's praise and declaring good

news.

You know, in our own noisy, fearful

time,

God calls us to courage

and to share in the risk of incarnation

because it is a risk to let God be born

in you.

And just as it was so long ago, allowing

yourself to embody the love of God, it

will be a countercultural act.

It will.

Choosing to recognize the divine image,

the unshakable goodness in every single

human being you meet.

That is a powerful form of resistance to

our fear.

Now, what might that look like for us?

I think good news looks like meeting

hate and outrage

with compassion and vulnerability. I do.

I think it looks like whispering love

over and over to all those that are most

frightened in our world.

In a culture like ours that's like

constantly trying to convince us to step

on each other to get ahead.

I think good news looks like using

whatever amount of influence and

privilege you have to help someone else

that's been overlooked get ahead

and find some success.

It looks like standing with the

marginalized

in a marketplace like ours that just

like is constantly telling us to

stockpile as much wealth as we possibly

can. Good news

looks like having financial integrity.

It looks like giving your stuff away.

And in a time when everybody seems like

all too ready to criticize and to cancel

and to cut each other off, I think good

news looks like forgiving each other.

It looks like reconciliation,

even when it's tough.

Proclaiming good news looks like

embodying the love of God, allowing the

love of God to take on flesh in me.

Like Parker Palmer puts it, I'm invited

to be born again and again in the shape

of my God-given self. Born in all the

vulnerability of the Christmas story.

And so friends, I encourage you as you

leave tonight,

make space

for the good news of great joy that is

for all people.

Resist fears domination.

Resist the noise

by bearing witness to Christ within each

and every person you encounter. Because

tonight we remember fear might be loud.

It really might be quite terrifying.

But love is louder.

And the good news that God is with us.

Oh, that's a gospel worth proclaiming.

Amen.