Episode 493 - Karl Barth on Christmas Day 1918 (Rebroadcast) - Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show.

Welcome back to the Voices in My Head podcast. This is your host, as always, Rick Lee James, and I'm very glad you could be with us here today. Today is going to be a very special podcast because it's going to be a Christmas podcast, and it's going to be another sermon of Karl Barth, which was preached on Christmas Day in 1918. So that's coming in just a moment. I want to remind you as we begin that maybe you have some end-of-the-year donations that you're looking to give. If so, you can go to rickleejames.podbean.com and you can help us out with expenses for this podcast. There is a donate button right at the top of that site at rickleejames.podbean.com. Any amount of money you give would be wonderful and a huge help for the bandwidth cost, which always comes due around this time of year for me. And we could certainly use your help. The podcast is not a moneymaker. Matter of fact, we never make money. We always lose money every year on it, but it's worth it to me because I enjoy bringing these episodes to you. We don't do advertising at this point, so we're kind of existing based upon donations of kind people like you. So if you've been enjoying the Voices in My Head podcast and you think of the number of episodes that you have listened to this year, and maybe you could say, hey, you know, I've listened to a bunch, maybe I could give like 50 cents per episode or a quarter per episode or something like that. Just whatever you find it to be worth to you would be wonderful. And because we are heading fast to Christmas, um, I guess I could say galloping like a one-horse open sleigh towards Christmas, um, I also have several things that you can get at rickleejames.com. There's CDs, there's books, there's other merchandise. But if you go to rickleejames.bandcamp.com— or is it bandcamp.com/rickleejames? It's one of those two. If you use the offer code 10OFF, that's just the number 10, 1-0-O-F-F, right now you can get 10% off anything on the site. That's all my music, all my books, all the digital downloads, all the CDs, everything at rickleejames.bandcamp.com with 10% off. Things like that also help to cover costs of bandwidth and things like that. Every little bit helps. So with the advertisement out of the way, I am going to go ahead with today's episode. And today is a sermon of Karl Barth. We could say about this sermon, even though it is a Christmas sermon, And even though it is the beginning of the Christmas season when we hear these words, and also, by the way, side note, I'm very excited that Christmas falls on a Sunday this year. Um, and a matter of fact, in church the other day in one of our adult Sunday school classes, I was so pleased when one of our adults said, "Why don't we have church every year on Christmas Sunday?" I mean, on Christmas, even if it's not a Sunday. And I was so proud of that, and I thought in my heart, yes, we're starting to get it. We're starting to understand that we are Christians. We have our own time. It's not just Christmas Eve, but we could do it on Christmas. So who knows if that'll happen at our particular congregation, but I was proud to hear those kinds of conversations being had. Anyway, what we could say about this sermon from Karl Barth today, even though Christmas is what many of us look at as a beginning, it's actually the close of Advent, and it's a time where we could say in many ways, "It is finished." we could celebrate the Easter story as well as the beginning of the story of Jesus' birth. And so today it's a very special sermon from Karl Barth. This was delivered on December 25th, 1918, and I'm going to go right into it today. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's salvation. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word." For my eyes have seen your Savior, whom you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light to illumine the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. And that was Luke chapter 2, verses 25 through 32. Here is the sermon of Barth: To celebrate Christmas means to see salvation. The birth of Jesus was its beginning. It's dawn, it's coming. Here was only the infant and not yet all the great and wonderful things that would go forth and unfold from this child, who came into the world so that the world might become new. Yet in the child Jesus the new world itself was already present. In the beginning was the end. In the seed the certain guarantee of the coming fruit. Not a half of something, nor something partial and imperfect, but complete salvation. The salvation that God prepares for and gives the world is present in the child. To celebrate Christmas means to see salvation. It means no longer only to believe in Christmas, not only to hope for it and to wander toward it in the dark night, but to see it. The shepherds could go to Bethlehem and see what the Lord had made known to them. It was given to the aged Simeon to see the salvation in the temple. This seeing, too, has to do with something present and tangible, with having something, possessing something real. Empty wishing, seeking, and desiring do not belong to Christmas. No, the words of a hymn express just the opposite: Lord, my Shepherd, fountain of all joy, you are mine. I am yours, none can separate us. You are mine because I hold you and never let you, my light, leave my heart. This belongs to Christmas, not closed doors, unanswered questions, impassable ways, and unfulfilled hopes. To celebrate Christmas means precisely to see what we always only seek. It means to be allowed to take and use what we long for. Unresolved misunderstandings do not belong to Christmas, and neither do hard, intense oppositions, nor do cares that we cannot bear and that no one helps us unburden, nor goodwill that never becomes act, nor evil and dangerous conditions that are left as they are with no attempt to change them, nor misery inside and outside for which there is no redeeming word, nor a dark world that with a shrug of the shoulders, one lets go its own deplorable way, nor the death that one cannot see beyond. When Christmas happens, all that belongs to the past. And when God acts, how can we be mere observers? How can we do otherwise than to participate in what God is doing? To celebrate Christmas Dear friends, means to take part in great transformation, a factual and decisive transformation of all things. It means to see the world, life, and ourselves with the eyes of God. It means to perceive God's shining light in the world, in life, and in ourselves. For both belong together: the eyes of God and God's light. Where both are, that is where all is changed and becomes new. What was hard becomes soft. What was petrified begins to move. What was unstable and unsure becomes firm and sure. The captive becomes free. The hidden love of God is poured out like a flood, bringing salvation. God's thoughts about the world, as God thought them before we human beings disordered them in our lives, are again honored. The joy that is the being of all beings, God, can again break forth after having been so long suppressed by our foolishness. Angels, whom short-sighted human understanding reduced to fairy tales, are once more over the earth and speak to human beings, and human beings no longer wish to be more clever than God, but instead add their voices to the angels' song of praise. But who may and can celebrate Christmas in this way? Our text tells the story of a man who was both able and permitted to do so, which means it was given by God. His name was Simeon. It is said of him that he was a righteous and pious man. In his case, these words have, as they do generally in the Bible, a particular meaning. If we were to explain them by saying that he was decent, honest, and of a Christian mind, we would have understood neither him nor the secret of the right celebration of Christmas. His righteousness and devoutness were not human qualities that by themselves would have distinguished him from other human beings. His righteousness and piety were rather quiet and hidden gifts and acts of God in him. And that is the point. God must do something to us if there is to be Christmas. Here we cannot take charge or make anything of Christmas based on ourselves and our initiative. Something must happen to us from God's side, and we must only let it happen willingly, in openness for it. It does not have at first the effect of making us better than other people, and it does not bestow any sort of distinction in the eyes of human beings, but it will create the possibility of seeing God's salvation This possibility, this condition that only God creates in us, is what the Bible calls righteousness and piety. Simeon looked forward to the consolation of Israel. This consolation is more than human consolation, for here it is God who must prove God's promises true. When God does this, it is something whole, deep, and perfect, and it fills the earth. For God is God, and God cannot deceive, nor can God do anything halfway. Simeon looked forward to this great coming consolation. He did not let himself be distracted by all the contrary evidence that seemed daily to contradict it, nor could he be content with all the lesser things one hopes for, all of which are limited to a certain period of time. He looked beyond all that was provisional and limited, both the good and the bad. Beyond happiness and unhappiness to the whole. He judged all temporal relationships and events only in their relationship to this whole. All in all temporal— in all temporality, he saw something of the forward-moving hand of the clock that tells us that time passes in order to open us to eternity. Such looking forward does not belong to the abilities and arts of human being, but is a divine work in human being. Only God can make human beings so restless, so much without consolation, that in their hearts they become deeply tired of the present world, that they seek their consolation entirely in God's future, that no earthly, temporal hindrance can overcome their hope, that no human consolation can content them and that no human thoughts and experiences can distract them from their goal. Only God can create in us such faithfulness in anticipation and in looking forward to God's salvation. The only thing that Simeon added of his own was that he obeyed the heavenly voice. But there was more. The Holy Spirit had an eye on Simeon. The Holy Spirit has nothing to do with human virtue, but is the personal power of God. And God wants to send the Spirit from heaven down to us, God's human children. No one can take this power for themselves, nor can one imitate it, although both have often been tried. But such attempts only demonstrate that there have been whole periods of history and entire communities, peoples, and provinces to whom the Spirit could not descend from heaven, because their guilt was a hindrance. At the time of Simeon, for several centuries, the people of Israel had not received the Holy Spirit, although God ever and again had an eye on individuals, especially those who persistently looked forward to what God would do in the future. It is as if God said to each one of these individuals, "You will experience something new. You will see it. In your place, in your time, and in your particular way, you will be an instrument of God. And where the Holy Spirit claims someone in this way, there one may assume that great manifestations of God are near—manifestations that will be given not just to certain individuals, but to many. What individuals like Simeon are given to experience through the Spirit, through this personal power of God, always stands in connection with what afterward many will experience. It makes a way, so to speak, for the great deeds of God. Together with several others, Simeon was such a person marked by the Spirit. He was marked by God's choice, and not by any choice of his own. In all human relations we can choose and act to take up what we will, but in relationship to the kingdom of God and to its quiet way through the world, We are chosen. What we can do is only to ensure that we are open, that we do not have deaf ears that cannot hear when the fire of the Spirit comes near to us. Simeon had done that. And now what is most remarkable, it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's salvation. We see again and very clearly how absolutely elevated the relationship was that such individuals had to God, and how it very much exceeds what we call righteousness and piety. He had been given instruction. Like one might receive a command from the king, his life had been placed in a very definite order. There could be no hesitation, no deliberation, and no doubting, but only obedience. Here was something like the heavenly compulsion that compelled the old prophets Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, It later compelled John the Baptist too, even if he had wanted to act differently. Out of this heavenly compulsion, out of this divine capacity, came Simeon's faithful looking forward to the consolation of Israel. And so also the Holy Spirit could be inclined to him as a friend to a friend. We, on the other hand, are used to dealing with God from case to case, always with the questions, "Should I do it?" "Do I want to do it?" "Do I not want to do it?" There are persons like Simeon for whom this dubious kind of freedom is at an end. God has become too strong for them, and now they must order their lives completely according to their relationship to God. All their thoughts could move more and more in one direction, and everything that could separate them from their relationship to God becomes more and more impossible. If we should once receive such a revelation, such information from God, we would be in the same situation. Not long would we then be proud of our own freedom or of the way we swing now this way, now that way, in the exercise of this our human freedom. Simeon received information from God, and he had no choice but to keep what it told him to do. Now for the astonishing content of this information. There will be a miraculous triumph over death. Simeon was told that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's salvation, the promised consolation of Israel. We all, in some way or other, hope for consolation and redemption, but when we do so, we have the idea that first we have to die. As a poem says, "The pilgrim finds peace only when covered by the grave." It is only beyond death that we expect heaven, so it is no wonder that our hope is often so weak and so unsure. How should we know that there is heaven after death when this side of death we expect nothing of heaven? The shadow of death lies on our hope and makes everything else doubtful. It was different for Simeon. For him, the reality was very clearly and very explicitly this: first live, then die; first eternity, and then the end of temporal life; first the Lord Christ, then the Lord Death. Only now Death is no longer the lord who makes the eternal uncertain, but the enemy bound and tied. Death can no longer put an end to our life. But as a servant it must do its service to us. First, the full gleam of the morning light of eternity, the full glory of God beaming into these breakable mortal earthly dwellings, and only then their collapse and death. A death that can have no claim on those who presently, as once Simeon did, live in these mortal dwellings. But this was not all. Simeon accepted this information and subjected himself to it. It held him in expectant anticipation, made him able to begin each day with new hope, and made every day fruitful in what he did. This was the divine compulsion, the divine capacity that held him. In the words of Psalm 118:15-18, there are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has indeed disciplined me, but he did not give me over to death. Is it necessary for me to say that this revelation, this information from above, came from God, just as everything the Holy Spirit does is from above? If it were possible for Simeon from here below to form such an understanding of life out of himself, Why are there not more persons with this remarkable understanding of life? Simeon made nothing of himself, but he did recognize something, and he willingly recognized it. He was not unteachable, but someone who could be instructed about the coming of the truth. People like Simeon are like those who can and may celebrate Christmas. What is Christmas for them? Other than the divine answer to their whole life. This answer is given to them just as clearly as the question itself is not their own invention, but is raised in their hearts by God. We clearly see a reflection of the splendor of the Savior in the faces of fathers and prophets of Israel who expectantly looked forward to His coming. But how much more must a great light have illuminated Simeon and John the Baptist who stood so near to the historical life of Jesus Christ. Wherever there was a person like Simeon, a righteous and pious person not according to the world but according to the meaning given these words by the Bible, that person stood certainly also in the light of God and was in some way given the gift of seeing salvation and celebrating Christmas. In most cases, such persons will have been completely unknown and hidden from recognition by the world, as was Simeon himself. Perhaps we all live, far more than we are aware, from the fact that such persons, those for whom Christmas really can happen, have never been completely missing from the world. Through them, in spite of all the darkness, the divine and eternal has always remained to some degree at home here on earth. For their sake the angels have never completely ceased singing of "Honor to God in the highest," of "Peace on earth," and of persons with whom God is well pleased. Yes, I would go yet further to say, wherever human beings have been given to see even a little of God's salvation, wherever Christmas has really been celebrated in homes and communities, in churches and among peoples and nations, wherever human beings have been given to see something of the light of God with the eyes of God, all this has happened because something of Simeon's way of being was in them, something of that looking forward to the consolation of Israel. It happened because, as with Simeon, the eye of the Holy Spirit was on them, and that divine message was given to them that says, "First live, then die. First Christ this side of death, then death." There is joy because of those who have been given to say, "My eyes have seen your salvation." They honestly test themselves by the model of Simeon and ask whether they have deceived themselves, whether they may really think and speak in this way. Ever again they seek this one source, God, so that in the future they may and can see salvation. And in ever richer, fuller measure this must again be emphasized. Only as the answer to a life like Simeon's —a way of being like Simeon's—can Christmas be celebrated in the truth. It is something great to be given to say, "Master, now dismiss your servant in peace." After looking forward in anticipation and expectation, something new enters in, namely what was expected, but only where it was really expected. There is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but only where the Spirit is able to come near to human beings, as a friend comes near to a friend, there is a dissolving of that compulsion and an incapacity in which God holds us. The divine binding that held the prophets is not the final and the highest relationship to God that God wills for human beings. But this dissolving can only take place where we first truly experience and bear within us that first compulsion of God's Spirit. How should God will to dismiss us in peace as long as we have not in the least been God's servants, but have rather short-sightedly and defiantly insisted on our own thoughts and our own ways? The dawn of the day of salvation can only happen where the difficult and quiet work of Simeon has really been done. But this should not frighten us. For it is rather meant as an invitation. For the work of Simeon is not a bold venture of a human being based on self, no enthusiastic human striving, no feat of difficult thought or preparation for such a feat. All such requirements would receive the very human response: "I cannot do that, that is too difficult, I do not understand it." No, it is a work of God, a work that God does in us. And God wants to do this work in us. God wills to begin with each of us exactly at the point where each of us now stands. It is as if God said to each of us in turn: You begin your small circle of life, and you in your large, socially important circle. You keep more to your church, and you to your separatist chapel, and you, if you prefer to go to neither. You read more in the Bible, and you, if you think it helps you, read more in the newspaper. You be a liberal and you be a socialist. In comparison with what is most important, all of these are secondary and can be dealt with later. They are things every individual has to decide for oneself, and each will find the needed solution if a person is honest and upright. But what is more important is this: Be like Simeon. Do not resist when God wills to do a work in you, and be mindful that God can do more in you than ever before. As we wait for and hasten toward the coming day of the Lord, we do not want to avoid it, for we all hunger and thirst to see the salvation of God. If we do not turn aside, God will not turn aside from us. And if today we have recognized for the first time what it means to hasten willingly and joyfully toward the great God, and if there is in us only a small timid beginning of becoming like Simeon, truly we are not far from, but very near the moment when the light of Christmas will ascend brightly over us, when we will joyfully join our voices in the refrain: Christ the Savior is born.

Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website by clicking on the link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction. May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore.

Amen.