CHRISTMAS EVE 2008

This sermon was preached by the Rector at th early service on Christmas Eve.

After the angels left, God remained, "wrapped...in bands of cloth, and laid...in a manger." After the shepherds left, God remained, poor and weak and vulnerable.  After the angels and the shepherds left, God remained, incarnate in Jesus, fully human and yet still truly God, sharing fully, out of love for the world, our humanity.

Our Christmas Gospel from Luke states this truth about Jesus, but in Luke's own special way, including elements in the story which are intended to make quite clear to us the good news about God's entry into human history in the Child of Bethlehem.  The story begins with an imperial proclamation, a proclamation from Emperor Augustus, whose reign was seen by the Romans as one of great blessing, and who had been hailed by some Romans as the "savior of the whole world."  Under Augustus there was Pax Romana throughout nearly the whole of the civilized world.  It was a Roman peace, admittedly enforced by the imperial troops stationed throughout the empire, but it was seen as peace nonetheless.  Luke tells us that a proclamation from that Emperor brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, a town nearly a hundred miles away from their home in Nazareth.  Paradoxically, a proclamation from the one who had brought Pax Romana to the Mediterranean world would play a part in the birth of the One who would bring Pax Christi to the entire world, the One who would truly be the Savior.

And so it was, Luke tells us, that Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem, that small town where King David had been born, but a town which had never claimed to be the City of David, a title applied only to Jerusalem.  But now, with the birth of Jesus, that would change and the ancient center of Israel's religious and political life would be supplanted by Bethlehem, the city not of David's royal power, but of David's more humble beginnings.  If Luke wants us to look back to David, it is not to the conquering king, but to the shepherd boy who was the least likely of Jesse's sons to be anointed king by the prophet Samuel.  And in Bethlehem the Child was born and laid in a manger.  For this One, there was no birth in a royal palace, but in a stable, for this One was not to rule as earthly kings did, but to establish his kingdom as a suffering servant, laying down his life upon Calvary's Cross.

And when the Child had been born and laid in the manger, his birth was announced by an angel, because this birth was no ordinary birth, but one in which God had taken the initiative.  Mary had responded in faith to this divine initiative, accepting her role in God's plan of salvation.  Indeed, as Martin Luther put it, had Mary not believed she could not have conceived.  But what she believed was that God could and would work through her obedience and faith to bring to fulfillment this plan of salvation.  And when the angel announced the birth, we are to understand it as the proclamation of the unique nature of this particular birth.  As strange as it might seem, this little child would stand at the turning point of human history, changing the course of this world's history, for God had sent him to be this world's savior.  And when the angelic announcement was made, it was not to King Herod in his palace, or to the High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem, or even to some rich landowner, but to shepherds, who, though they shared the noble heritage of David the shepherd king, were not at all people of power or prestige.  The message came to shepherds, to people who were no better than us, no more ready than we are to welcome the Messiah into our midst.  And so this Christmas message of "good news of great joy for all the people" is truly a message from God and truly a message for us.

The gospel proclamation, the proclamation that the world has been reconciled to God, and not by the action of some third party, some neutral mediator, but by the action of God, who was in Christ fully present, fully involved in our humanity, that proclamation is the good news which we celebrate this Christmastide.  That is the good news which is for us both "comfort and joy," the solid comfort and the profound joy that there is nothing in our lives, in the world with all of its pain and suffering, nothing which "will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" because there is nothing at all which has not been embraced by God in Christ. 

For some of us, and for many of our neighbors, Christmas is not an easy time.  It is a time when the disappointments of our lives, the losses that we have suffered, the pain of sickness become even more acute in contrast to the mood of celebration all around us.  It is harder to be poor at Christmas, harder to be homeless, harder to be sick, harder to be without a loved one who has died, harder to be without work.  As much as we might like to change that, we can't; Christmas will always be a sad time for some people.  But what we can do is get it clear in our own minds and in our own lives that that kind of sadness is not something apart from Christmas, something for us to brush aside if we can, but is a reality which God came to deal with in Christ.  The grief of the widow or widower at the first Christmas after the death of a beloved spouse - God in Christ shares that grief.  The sorrow of the mother whose husband and children were killed when their village in Darfur was destroyed by a troop of Janjawid militia - God in Christ shares that sorrow.  The disappointment of the laid off worker who can't afford presents for the children - God in Christ shares that disappointment.  The pain of the person who spends this Christmas in a hospital bed - God in Christ shares that pain.  There is nothing which we experience as members of the human community which God in Christ does not share fully.

In a world which is still darkened by violence and hatred and war and injustice, a world which is in some ways no different from the world into which the Christ Child was born, in such a world we who have been claimed by God in Christ join the angels and the shepherds in proclaiming this holy birth.  We join Mary and Joseph in welcoming into our lives the One whose love can transform those lives and the lives of all people everywhere.  In this darkened world, we proclaim and share the light of Christ, the light that streams forth from the manger and the Cross.  We proclaim that contrary to all the world's notions of power, the true power at the heart of creation is the power of the manger and the Cross, the power of suffering love.  We proclaim the eternal and unchangeable power of God's love, a love which broke into human history at Bethlehem and which will break into our hearts if we will let it.  We proclaim the power of that love to establish justice and righteousness in all the world.  We proclaim the power of that love to heal all the heart's wounds. We proclaim the power of that love to make "all things new," for it is the same love which made all things in the beginning of creation.  We proclaim the power of that love which became incarnate that first Christmas, the power of that love which God wishes to be yours and mine. 

"O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today." Amen.