It doesn't look that dangerous, does it? A simple Christmas globe. Set on a mock city of Bethlehem. With an adoring Mary, a protecting Joseph and a Jesus who is reaching tenderly for Mary's face - gazing in loving devotion. And, it plays "O Holy Night" to boot while the snow wafts slowly down upon the scene. What more could one ask for? What I suggest to you is that it is the most dangerous Christmas gift that one could receive. The most dangerous one you could receive. Let me say why, as a way of bringing us deeper into the mystery this morning.
 

1. It is historically inaccurate. If this is meant to depict the nativity, then why are Mary and Joseph's robes so immaculate? Where is the sweat and grime from the travel, much less the mess from the birth process? It is too neat and clean, and it leads us to believe that God's incarnation is always neat and clean and tidy. As my 9:37 visitor taught me again the other night- God seldom comes when things are perfect.
2. It is a complete and self-contained world. In this nice triangle of art - we are drawn from Joseph to Mary to the Christ back to Joseph - as if to say the entire mystery is right there. And though it is an amazing story and an amazing love and tenderness which is at the heart of our human race, there is no room for me in this world. Only the snowflakes have access to them. And I am outside of the mystery - a spectator, one who watches - but does not, cannot get involved.
3. Finally, it is dangerous because it makes the reality of the incarnation way too small. Something that happened in an obscure village so long ago. Something that can be contained in a globe - that I can wrap my thoughts around and completely understand. Now I hold the incarnation of God's love in my hands... Yet, it is so much more than that, so much more than that...

It looks so sweet. I'm sure the intentions were good of those who made it, but I still propose it is a most dangerous gift one might receive. The only redeeming item about the entire globe is not even meant to be that. It is the last words of the warning label. IT IS NOT A TOY... Ah, at last some truth to sink our teeth into. This is not a toy, not something to be admired from afar, something pleasant that happened over there but does not involve me... It is not something that I can be neutral about - playing with it for a while till I grow tired of it, and then putting it on the shelf with the monopoly board or packing it away with the rest of the Christmas decorations. The incarnation is not clean and tidy, not unlike our own world. Yesterday Jimmy Campese, a 16 year old kid from DeSmet who had had a heart transplant died from pneumonia and Everette Nance from the University dropped dead of a heart attack. Two families that I know of are now struggling to make sense of how God can be present in the midst of so much suffering. But isn't that what the prologue to Luke's account tells us - during the reign of Caesar Augustus, who waged more successful wars and controlled more peoples by a ruthless roman authority - during that time of strife and upheaval - God became incarnate. Our own Sept. 11th's remind us how needful we still are of the Jesus' saving love. Finally, this is not something that I will ever completely grasp no matter how profound my thoughts are - the love of a God who emptied himself to become us. The desire of one who created the entire universe so that we could be in relation with him through that universe, and when that was not enough, who took flesh so he could be more intimately united with us...

So we come to this morning to plunge again into the mystery which is at the heart of all that we hope for and dream of - God with us. God among us. God found in the muck and mire of human life. God who is wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of peace is now our brother. And no glass globe or nativity scene can ever capture that truth for us...

What is the most dangerous Christmas gift you can receive? Actually, it is not this glass globe at all. It is this bread and wine which is set before us today. In this, our communion with him, is the most dangerous gift. For it means that the incarnation continues in you and me. In you and me.