Expect a Miracle: A Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

Micah 5:2-5a

 So, have you put up your Christmas tree yet? We have the same debate every year at our house—when to put it up, when to take it down, etc. I know lots of people have different traditions about the tree.

No matter when you put it up: on Christmas Eve or the day after Thanksgiving (or, if you’re a department store, sometime around Labor Day), the Christmas tree is the most simple and recognizable symbol of the season. It’s been the same for centuries, ever since the Christians adopted the symbol from Germanic paganism — the evergreen being seen as a symbol of eternal life because it’s always green even in the dead of winter. Wherever you go these days, you can expect to see that basic triangular shape, be it artificial or real — beautiful green boughs narrowing upward to the point where you put the star. 

But wait a second. Before you anchor that tree in its stand and find a place on it for the those candy canes you’ve kept since the Nixon administration, consider checking out the hottest trend in Christmas tree chic — an idea that could flip the whole idea of the Christmas tree on its ear — literally.

Enter the upside-down, ceiling-mounted Christmas tree. That’s right, across the country a small revival of an old tradition is growing where people are actually attaching their Christmas trees upside down with the base on the ceiling — a holiday stalactite, if you will. It’s an upside-down, backward approach to the conventional positioning of a Christmas tree.In fact, retailers like Hammacher Schlemmer and Target are actually manufacturing trees just for this purpose.

Like just about anything these days, though, the concept isn’t exactly new. Upside-down Christmas trees date all the way back to 12th-century Europe, when they were often used to illustrate the three persons of the Trinity, though they’ve been out of vogue for nearly a millennium.

What’s the point of sticking your tree on the ceiling? Well, other than just being different, the upside-down tree has several practical applications. For one thing, say the marketing experts, you can put more and larger presents under it, which makes it the perfect option for big spenders. If you live in a cramped apartment, a ceiling-mounted tree also takes up less floor space, making it attractive to some city-dwellers. And, from a stylistic standpoint, you can put your more prized ornaments at eye level instead of down near the ground where no one can see them except toddlers and nosy canines.

Of course there are drawbacks. For example, where do you put the star? And some will wax even more philosophical by wondering how you water a tree that’s anchored upside down. 

Then there is the traditionalist argument: Why would you be so gauche as to nail a tree to the ceiling? After all, that’s not Christmas! Some might even argue that the shape of the tree points to heaven, which would make it a sin to turn it upside down. 

There’s nothing like tweaking sacred tradition to tick people off. One of the things that we pastors have noticed over the years of doing the Christmas Eve marathon is that Christmas is the ultimate holiday sacred cow. You just don’t mess with Christmas. For many people the biggest fear of this season is that Christmas won’t happen according to plan, that something will go awry and ruin Christmas thoroughly. 

The truth is that, especially for us baby boomers, we’ve been trained to think this way. Remember all your childhood animated Christmas specials? The Grinch, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Charlie Brown — what’s the basis for those stories? Someone is out to ruin Christmas and to keep it from coming. All must be perfectly restored to order for the season to be valid. 

I found this out immediately after his first Christmas Eve service I ever preached. It was a packed sanctuary with many new visitors and a festive atmosphere. I went to the door to greet people after the service, believing that all was right with the world, when one of the long-time church members came to the door but refused to shake my hand. Scowling, he said, “Thanks for ruining my Christmas — we didn’t sing “The First Noel” as the second carol. We’ve always sung that carol second in the order of worship on Christmas Eve. Without that, it’s just not Christmas.” Then he stormed out the door.

I felt like I was in my own animated special: “The Pastor Who Stole Christmas.” 

People just seem to get wrapped around the axle about the smallest things this time of year. Indeed we all have our expectations, our hopes, our “perfect” scenarios, whether it be for a holiday or for any other aspect of our lives. It’s interesting that at Christmas everyone talks about Christmas “magic” and Christmas “miracles,” but a miracle implies that something out of the ordinary has happened. At Christmas time, people seem to expect the exact opposite of a miracle, wanting everything to be the same. For some reason, we don’t like any deviation — no upside-down-ness to our lives. 

The Scriptures that we read during Advent and Christmas, however, tell us that turning things upside down is exactly what God is up to.

The prophet Micah wrote about a coming reversal in fortune for the people of Israel. The nation faced God’s judgment because of their apostasy — a judgment carried out by enemies who would build a wall of siege against them and “strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek” in an open display of disdain (Micah 5:1). The old patterns of idolatry and corruption that characterized the reign of many of their kings had made the nation almost Grinch like in its devotion to self-interest, material gain and oppression of the weak (Micah 2:1-2). 

In the midst of this prophecy of judgment and tough times ahead, God still offered hope. A new king would arise who would break this old pattern and, in effect, turn things upside down. His origins from the lowly town of Bethlehem, “one of the little clans of Judah,” are a signal that God is interested in overturning the human expectations of power and prestige in favor of uplifting the weak (5:2). 

This king will be a shepherd who will “feed his flock in the strength of the Lord” (5:4). Shepherding is a common metaphor for leadership throughout the Bible and this image calls to mind the choosing of David over Saul as the king of Israel back in I Samuel. It is the humble, compassionate servant whom God chooses over mighty warriors and handsome princes. 

The word “Messiah” is not mentioned by Micah in this passage, but Christians have long read this as a messianic prophecy, naturally applying it to Jesus as the one who would secure his people and “be the one of peace” (5:4-5). 

Jesus came amidst a swirl of expectations about a messiah who would save his people and do it according to a preconceived, religiously approved, and non-miraculous plan. He was expected to wield a sword instead of a shepherd’s crook and make peace by eliminating the enemies of Israel, particularly the minions of Rome who occupied their land. The Messiah was to make a list, check it twice, determine who was naughty and nice and make sure that the ultimate holiday — the restoration of Israel — would come according to the script, complete with happy ending and roll the credits. 

Instead, Jesus does nothing less than turn their expectations upside down and hang them from the spiritual ceiling as a way of making room for everyone. He preached love over and against vengeance for enemies. He spent time with the outcasts and proclaimed that they would be the new “in” crowd. He was a great teacher but performed as a lowly servant, even washing feet. For Jesus the categories of rich and poor, in and out, great and humble, even life and death were all reversed. It’s no wonder that traditionalists would argue that he was ruining everything and want him out of the picture. We’re happy with the idea of a baby in a manger, so long as he stays there.

Think of some of the ways miss the miracle because we’re expecting the same old thing:

We expect to fight the crowds on Black Friday and to go into debt making sure that everyone gets the gift that they want—the real miracle is that Jesus and his grace are the only gifts we really need.

We expect that Christmas is all about being happy. It isn’t. It’s about being obedient and preparing the way for Christ and his kingdom—As Jesus comes into the world on a mission, he sends us out on one as well. The miracle is that we find Jesus in all the unexpected places we will go because he sends us there. It’s not our own happiness that makes Christmas—it is bringing peace to those who need it.

We expect to see a radiant baby Jesus in a quiet stable—no crying he makes, like we expect to sing in “Away in a Manger.” But the miracle and the reality is that this Jesus is anything but silent. He cries out for justice, for mercy, for compassion, and for a completely new order of life in God’s kingdom. This baby is the one who turns the whole world upside down and he calls us to join him.

Instead of celebrating sameness and traditional uniformity during the Christmas season, we should be celebrating the upside down and backward nature of the gospel that Jesus ushers into the world. A manger-born Messiah, a counterintuitive teacher, a religious rebel to the establishment, a crucified King and a resurrected Redeemer — nobody expected this at the time. It would’ve been too much, too off-the-map, making upside-down Christmas trees look normal by comparison. 

Jesus worked miracles because he was focused on not seeing the world as it is, expecting the same old patterns of greed and poverty and brokenness to continue. Rather, Jesus saw the world as God intended it to be—a place of peace and justice, a place of wholeness and healing, a place where Black Fridays are abolished in favor of Easter Sundays. Jesus’ miracles—his healings, his feeding of large numbers of people with nothing but five loaves and two fish, his casting out of demons, his mastery of the wind and waves, even his victory over death—were all signs that things will be radically different in his kingdom.

I wonder what would happen if Jesus’ followers chose to not continue trying to meet the usual expectations of Christmas and, instead, decided to bring the miracle of Christ and his kingdom into the world? What if instead of buying stuff we want and don’t need we gave our money to serve people who need and don’t have? What if instead of trying to make ourselves happy we instead made it our sole desire to give ourselves to the work of the kingdom by serving someone else? What if instead of settling for a silent night, we instead joined Jesus and cried out for justice for people who have no voice because they are too poor, too young, too strange, too out of the way for the world to notice?

It was to one of these people that the angel Gabriel came. Mary was just a poor teenage girl in an out of the way town in the middle of nowhere when the angel came and offered her the chance to bear God’s ultimate miracle to the world. It wasn’t an offer of piles of presents, soft lights, and silent nights, but one that offered the likelihood of ridicule as an unmarried pregnant girl, the pain of childbirth, and the pain of watching her son stagger up a hill toward death on a cross. Mary was invited to bear a miracle that would change the world, and it would cost her everything.

I think Christmas invites us to consider the same offer. Are we willing to bear the miracle of Christ to the world, even if it costs us something? Are we willing to endure the sacrifice it takes to be one of his followers and live the life of his kingdom? Are we willing to forgo fewer presents under the tree in order to bring God’s presence to those who are in need? Are we willing to change someone else’s circumstances—to be their miracle? In this series, Joe and I will be challenging you, and ourselves, to think about a different kind of Christmas—one that confronts us with the coming of a Savior who will turn the world upside down. We’ll be looking at some ways you can be God’s miracle for someone else. 

You know, maybe stapling our trees to the ceiling isn’t such a bad idea after all if it causes us to think differently about the flip side of Christian faith. Perhaps we could all use a little upside-down Christmas this year — and see the world from the perspective of Jesus, the best miracle and gift we will ever receive.