Isaiah 9: 2-7 Ps. 96 Titus 2: 11-14 Luke 2: 1-20
It is good to welcome you here on this Christmas Eve. This congregation joins me in wishing you and those you love peace and hope, which was offered to us first by the Christ child. Amen.
In the small hamlet of Ashville, Ohio at First English Lutheran Church, the decorating team had gathered on an early December morning to put the nativity scene out on the front lawn. The coffee was brewing and there were donuts, because, after all, it is a Lutheran group! One by one they pulled the large plastic figures out of the boxes they’d been stored in since last year. They wiped them off, and then they plugged them in for a test run, because these weren’t any ordinary Mary, Joseph, Shepherds and magi and Jesus….these were light up figurines! With just 120 volts of electricity, passersby could get a glimpse of that very first Christmas. The problem was that no matter how hard they tried, no matter where they looked on the plastic body of the blessed baby….there was no plug. No lightbulb accessible by a hole in his back. It was clear. There was an imposter in their midst. This was not their light up baby Jesus. What had happened? It was a mystery.
In many ways, this holy night is all about mystery. The mystery of the incarnation, of how the God who created all things could take on flesh and come and live among us as Emmanuel…God – with- us. The mystery of why that birth would happen, not in a palace or a place of power, but in a feed trough, surrounded by beasts and angels. The mystery of why the news wasn’t told to kings and princes, but to shepherds keeping watch in their field.
With all that we endure, both personally and corporately, with the pain of difficulties and brokenness, it almost seems as though some light has gone out. That Jesus and all that he taught about love for neighbor and all people, has been extinguished by fear fueled hatred and violence. That Jesus, and the hope he brought is eclipsed by every tragedy and disaster.
But the truth is, the world Jesus was born into wasn’t any brighter, any better, any more hopeful than our world is now. The empire was oppressive. People were marginalized and abused and cast aside. Even the reason for Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem was government based…so they could be counted for purposes of taxation.
Somehow, we have taken that gritty reality and turned it into soothing carols and joyous songs and picture perfect cards. Even though we know, because we know the rest of the story, that this tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, will teach and preach a message so radical, so extraordinary that he will be called a heretic, that even his family will doubt his sanity, and that even his friends will deny and abandon him. Even though we know, that he will eventually die at the hands of the Roman government. How we are able to gather in this night, of all nights, is a mystery in itself.
A part of the mystery of Christmas, of the Incarnation, is the way that it happens once and then happens over and over again. Not that this night comes every year, that we know…but that Christ inhabits the world in each day and in every moment. That the coming of Christ into the world was not something that would happen once and then be complete, but that it is something that, once it happened, meant that the world would be forever changed. That goodness would always be stronger than evil. That light would always be brighter than shadow. That hope would always overcome despair. And that love would be always be stronger than hate.
It’s easy on some days, to look around….at the news or the world or our own hearts and wonder if God has left us. But we kid ourselves if we think that God is ever absent from us.
This is God’s answer to the big question, to the question that we think is the mystery. “God! Where. Are. You?”
And the answer is born this night and every night. God is as close as our very breath. God is in each moment of each day. God is in each beat of our hearts even unto the final beat and the final breath. God is present in those places that are too much to bear and too hard to walk through. God is with us, in every question and in every answer. God is with us in all of the darkness and in each new dawn.
The prophet Isaiah writes that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. Of course, Isaiah does not write about us, but the words resonate deep within us each Christmas Eve. We can relate to those who lived in a land of deep darkness because many days we seem to inhabit that space ourselves. We understand what it means to walk in darkness because too often we have not been able to see the light shining across our paths.
It is into the shadows of this world that Jesus came. And this Jesus is the savior of all the world. He is not “our” Jesus or “their” Jesus. He is Immanuel, God incarnate, God with us, en-fleshed and embodied.
Beloved community, the light of Christ does shine. Even in the long days of winter, even in the shadows of sorrow, even in the dimness of doubt….the light of Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. And as people who, as the reading from Titus notes, are zealous for good deeds, we are sent out to share the light of Christ, not because it will save us, Jesus already saw to that, but because it is how the light shines in the world.
On that cold December morning at First English Lutheran Church, the committee finally figured out what had happened. You see, when Wanda and David arrived, they reminded everyone else that last year they’d loaned out the light up baby Jesus to the Baptists, so they could use him on the float in the town Christmas parade. One quick call to the Baptist church and just like that, light up baby Jesus was back, and another cup of coffee was shared and neighbors wished one another the glad tidings of the season.
I like to think that it’s just about that easy to share the love and the light of Jesus. We don’t have to change the world, we just have to shine some Jesus light into our corner of it. Ghandi said “A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.:”
This is a reminder to us, that in an age of the polarization of peoples and the unwillingness to hear one another, our small acts of light will not diminish us, they will only shine the light of love into the world. A love that has come among us as a tiny babe, bringing hope for ALL people. A light and a love that is never overcome by shadow or evil. That is the good news. That is the mystery solved and yet still with us. That is Jesus, born this night.
Thanks be to God and let the Church say…Amen.