My brother-in-law, John, has this fascinating story he tells about an encounter he and some of his Army buddies had with this massive King Cobra when he was in Vietnam some thirty years ago.  Now, the story is a little too long for me to scale out for you in this setting.  But, suffice it to say that it is one of the funniest stories I've ever heard.  Nearly every time the family gets together I ask him to tell it again.  I have noticed that, each time he does, the snake tends to gets a little longer and a little meaner and the hood on the cobra always spreads a little broader.   But, the basic elements of the story remain the same.  The snake won and the four or five battle hardened grunts who tried to capture it ended up just being happy to live to tell the story.

I've also noticed that John's snake story is not the only one that gets told again and again each time the Heerwald clan gathers.  There is a whole collection of them.  Some are hilarious.  Some are sad.  Some are touching.  Some are stories that would sound a lot like yours.  Who doesn't have the summer vacation story about fighting with their brothers and sisters on the way to grandmother's house in the back seat of an overheated car?   Some of the stories are exclusively Heerwald adventures.  But, as with most family stories, the rough edges have been smoothed off with time and seasoned with the humor that only acceptance can bring.  Collectively, they are the story of the family into which I married and the story of which I have now become a part.  Which, in itself, is either hilarious or sad depending on which Heerwald you talk to.

Now, some of these stories would never make it into print and, if they did, would never sell because they have no meaning unless you're a Heerwald or married to one.  Yet, if you are a Heerwald, or married to one, your life makes no sense without these stories or the collective story they tell.  Whatever else they are, they represent the shared values and events that have shaped this family and the values and events by which this family continues to be shaped.   That makes them more than just stories because there is something about the telling of them that not only keeps the stories alive but also keeps the family together.

Like some of the stories I've heard you tell time and again around here about this church family.  I've heard the stories of noble sacrifices and great personalities who have walked these halls.  But, I've also heard a dozen times, if I heard once, about the time a whole row of men fell backwards together off the back row of the choir loft into the baptistery.  Some of these stories are much like any church's.  But, what makes them priceless to you and me is that they are, collectively, the story that has shaped this church and by which it continues to be shaped.  Stories have that kind of power because they are more than just stories, aren't they?  And, there is something about telling them that keeps the values and events they represent alive for those who come after us and, in time, become a part of the story, too.  Which is why we gather once a year and tell the same story over and over again.  The same story the angels told the shepherds two millenniums ago.  "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord."

There is, by the way, a subtle danger for the preacher in telling this story about the birth of Jesus this morning.  Christmas sermons can be some of the most difficult to preach simply because they are so predictable.  In some ways there is nothing more lethal to any sermon than predictability.  Before I say one word if you know where I'm going before I get there it's easy to let your mind drift.

Maybe you've heard the story of the new convict in prison who heard the other prisoners telling jokes and laughing.  However, he noticed that, sometimes, one of the inmates would just call out a number, for example, seven, and all the other prisoners would just die laughing.  He asked one of the long-timers what that meant and he said, "Well, we've been telling some of these jokes so long now that we all know all the details.  So, we've just numbered some of the jokes.  That way, we can just call out a number and everyone remembers the whole joke and still gets a good laugh.  So, one day this new prisoner decided to try his hand at standup comedy and, when a group gathered he just yelled out, "Seven!"  No one laughed.  So, he asked the old timer what went wrong to which he replied, "Well, some can tell 'em and some can't."

It would certainly be a sad day if the preacher's sermons got so predictable that they could just be numbered.  Ten would do for Christmas and Easter.  Zero for tithing sermons and so on, right?   Nonetheless, you and I both must be careful not to take the familiar details of Christ's birth for granted or we may miss their collective meaning for this unique day in all our lives.  Stories are always more than just the details that make them up and this story always has a new meaning each time we tell it, doesn't it?  For that matter, what other story should I or could I tell on this unique day?

Beside the fact that this is the day after Christmas this is the last time I will stand in this pulpit to preach in the 20^th century.  Here we are at what is not only the end of one century and the beginning of another but also the end and beginning of millenniums.  What else should I preach about today?  You would be safe in assuming that I'm not going to preach about tithing or start a verse-by-verse exposition of Leviticus this morning.  That would certainly be unpredictable but also deeply unappreciated.   No, on this day, there is no other story I can or should tell.   Despite the debate about what the most significant story of this century is, the Great Depression, the dropping of the first atomic bomb that ended World War II, the assassination of Kennedy or the Civil Rights movement, we all know what the real story is and has been for two millenniums and even before, don't we?  "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord."

That story is the story of all stories specifically because it shapes all other stories.  By the salvation and Lordship of Christ, all other history, personal and global, has and will be shaped.   That's something of what John meant when he wrote in his gospel that through Christ, "all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being."  (John 1:3)  It is the one story that, more than any other, has shaped us and by which we will ultimately be shaped because the child born in Bethlehem was the "Saviour" and "Lord" of all men for all time.  "Saviour" and "Lord" are not something we made Him.  They were something He was born.  Luke put it this way, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved."  (Acts 4:12)

When I was in eighth grade I won the leading role in the school play.  The drama coach had grown frustrated, however, because so many of us had been missing play practice.  She finally warned that the next person who missed practice without a legitimate excuse would lose his or her part in the play.  She was that angry and the punishment would be that harsh.  I can still remember thinking, "whoever misses next, it won't be me."  After all, I was too responsible, I thought.  For the record, the play in which I had the lead was The Absent-Minded Professor.

The very next morning after the fateful warning I awoke to this terrible, sick feeling sweeping all over me.  I couldn't believe it.  There had been a play practice the night before and, somehow, I had just forgotten it.  No excuse.  I just forgot.  I got so sick I couldn't go to school.  I stayed in my room and cried the whole day.  I wanted to die.  How could I face the teacher and the rest of the class?  Who would take my role in the play this close to performance?  My whole acting career would be ruined.  Maybe my academic future, for that matter.  I might not graduate from Jr. High.  I'd be stuck forever in eighth grade!  Do you remember how easy it was, or is, for a frightened mind to run wild?  Most of all, I felt humiliated.  The very thing I had promised myself I was incapable of doing I had just done, eyes wide open, or shut, as the case actually was.

The next day I gathered my courage, quivering Jello-like, and went back to school to face the drama coach from the place demons are born.   And, she stayed true to her word.  But, the punishment was worse than getting kicked out of the play.  In front of the whole class the teacher took me out in the hall and took a paddle to my backside.  There can be no sound as loud as a public paddling in an empty hallway especially when the paddle is making contact with your hindquarter.  Well, I got to keep my role in the play but not my dignity.

What the angels promised the shepherds that night was that our "Saviour" had been born.  The meaning of that story is that God sent His son to suffer our humiliation for us.  That was really good news about thirty years later for Peter who, standing by a fire one night, heard himself breaking the promise he had just made to Jesus a few hours before.  "Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you," Peter swore.  (Matthew 26:33)   He must have felt as though he was having some kind of out of body experience as he stood there just a few hours later and watched himself break a promise he just got through making.  Especially to Christ.

Well, this was a big one.  The big one, I suppose.  Denying Christ.  It doesn't get much bigger than that, does it?   Peter might have feared that he ran the risk of getting stuck forever in some place a lot worse than eighth grade.  Can you imagine the humiliation?  The fear?  It must have been overwhelming when Jesus, just three days later, came and found him, quivering Jello-like, in a room full of other frightened people and announced,  "Peace be with you."  (John 20:26)  Only on the other side of forgiveness can anyone appreciate the power of those words.  Because, what they mean is that when God gave us a "Saviour" He guaranteed that the story by which we would be shaped is not the story of our sins but by His power and willingness to forgive them.  Not our own self-humiliation but our humiliation that Jesus took on Himself for us.

So, for me this year and I hope for you, this is the unique meaning of the story of Jesus' birth.  It is not our promises to God and our incredible inability to keep them that ultimately shapes us but His response to us in our broken promises to redeem all who will come to Him in faith.  It is not even the promises we are making now even though we know there is no way we will keep them.  It is not our ability to keep our dignity but God's ability to restore it once lost that is the theme that ties all the other stories of our life together.  That is almost certainly what Paul meant when, facing his own humiliating inability to conquer sin in himself, he cried out, "I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.  I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."  (Romans 7:14-15, 24; 8:1)

The story that has shaped us is not our failures but God's response to them in the birth, death, burial and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.   That's what the story of the "Saviour" means and that is the story that now shapes us.  And, that's what the story of "Christ the Lord" means, too.  And, how it shapes us.  Now, "Lord" is an awfully big word for us.  It really doesn't fit our vocabularies well.  But, we know what it means, don't we?  Sure we do.

What "Lord" means is that Jesus and a snake had a run-in once, too.  But, that time, the snake lost.  And, that's why I keep telling this story.  Because it is not just the story of how Jesus saves all who come in faith to Him.  It is the story about how, one day, after I woke up and realized how many promises to Him I had broken, I heard Him say to me, "Peace be with you."   And, ever since I really believed He meant those words just for me, it has been more than just a story of salvation and Lordship that someone reads at Christmas.  Now, this is my story.  No matter what else has happened or ever will happen, it is what God has done for me in Christ and what God will yet do for me through Christ that shapes me and my life and all my hope.  This is my story.

Is it yours?