St. Charles Episcopal Church, Saint Charles, IL

Christmas Eve - Christmas I RCL Year B

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Isaiah 9:2-7 – Psalm 96 – Titus 2:11-14 – Luke 2:1-20

Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.

To listen to this sermon as it was preached at midnight mass on Christmas Eve, click here.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

“..to you is born this day in the City of David a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

It is with these words that the shepherds in the hills around Bethlehem received the announcement of the birth of our Lord on that night so long ago. They had gathered together in fear as the darkness gathered around them in the wilderness. And it was into this darkness that the glory of the Lord shone.

Christmas is our festival of light. It is a time when we are called upon to be generous and forgiving and to love one another without exception. It is a time when we try to make heaven on earth. It is a time of impossible expectations. And so it has become a time when the reality of how far we fall short becomes all the more obvious and painful. Finances are pushed to the limit, so too the resources of time and energy as we try to cram every activity we can into these precious weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years. The holiday season may be a time of joy, but for many, it is also a time of great stress and depression. Statistics tell me that as many as 15% of the people in church here tonight have toyed with the idea of suicide during this holiday season. The darkness indeed gathers around us. Like the shepherds so long ago, we too gather together in the darkness, afraid of what is to come. And to us is born this day in the City of David a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. The light of God breaks in upon us. The heaven we have tried so hard to make on our own is delivered to us as a child.

One of the sublime truths of Christmas, is that God always comes into our lives as a child. If you have ever been present at the birth of a child you know that it is a magical event, a mystical event. From a purely objective viewpoint, it is really just the passage of this little soul from the womb out into the world. But anyone who has been there knows, thankfully, that you can't be purely objective about it. It is deeply involving. God breaking into our lives is like that; truly a birth event. It changes you. It is at the same time exhausting and energizing. And the result is new life. New hope and renewed faith. In past years I have talked to you about faith growing in you like a child. This year I want to take a slightly different tack; the next step really. At the core of Christmas is the mystery of the incarnation... God actually being born into the world. It first happened when Mary, a young girl absolutely without any influence or power in the world, simply said yes, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Could it actually be just that easy? Might this be the real mystery of the incarnation? If we can find the courage to say yes, God will be born in us?

I remember when Nate, my first son was born. I was struck by how blue he was on arrival. No one had prepared me for that. He looked dead. I was terrified. And then he cried. And my heart broke... open. In a matter of seconds he passed from blue to pink, from dead to very much alive. The shock and relief and joy and more than everything else, love shot through me like a bolt of electricity. I have never been the same. An awareness of God being born in our lives comes to us in the very same way. It can terrify, shock, relieve, and thrill all at the same time. We see the world in a very different way, and it leaves us very different people then we were before.

What if the feast of Christmas is not just an annual remembrance of God breaking into the world long ago, but an annual opportunity to invite God to be reborn in each of us, in our hearts and our hands. We live in a world that has become industrialized and computerized. We want things fast, if not right now, and impatience has become almost a way of life. In the rush to move ahead, too many get left behind. In the state of Illinois, statistics tell us that 20% of children live in poverty. In Rockford it is 25% and in the city of Chicago it is 30%. The incarnation, God born and growing in us, helps us to see beyond these numbers to the people behind them. It is not a pretty sight. Children going to bed hungry. Families living in shelters or on the street. The stress and anxiety that comes from having to choose between paying for shelter, or food, or medicine because you can’t pay for all three, builds anger and mistrust as families come apart under the strain.

As our eyes see, our hearts break, and the God growing in us pushes us to action. All too often, we think of faith as an either or proposition; either you have it or you don’t. The mystery of the incarnation reminds us that God comes into our lives like a child and grows in us and with us, and in relationship to us. In this way, one part of the life of faith is the adventure of nurturing God growing in us and building that relationship in much the same way we raise children. It is far more interactive than you might think at first.

The truth revealed in the mystery of Christmas is that the God born in you grows like a child. When first born it has no personality. But with time and nurturing the God born in you grows and reveals more and more of its personality. The faith you practice in the world, what we sometimes call “good works,” flows from the living out of the unique relationship you develop between you and God. Like each human being, your life of faith is individual and unique and will reveal more of itself over time. It will grow and change as you grow and change, and as your awareness of God growing in you changes.

As I invite you to join me on this journey I cannot say that it will always be easy. In fact it may be the hardest thing you have ever done. When you invite God to be born in your life, you may find the peace that passes all understanding, but you will never be comfortable again. Though you will find in your heart a spring of living water, it will drive you to the parched places of injustice in the world to be a sign of God’s grace. Though you will know in your heart God’s love for you, you will also show God’s love in the world, and so none can be beneath your notice or your love. You will feel more keenly all the hurts of the world. Perhaps that is what Luke was trying to get across when he has Simeon bless Mary at the naming of Jesus with the strange blessing, “a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

I know what you are thinking, at least many of you are thinking. I know because I have been wrestling with it all week. Why bring all this up on Christmas? There will be people here who may be just visiting and you’ll scare them away. There will be people here who only come occasionally and want to find a place to feel better about life for a while and they may never come back. That may all be true, but there is something else that is true as well. What we do here, week in and week out, may be challenging and exhausting, and to some even frightening, but it is important. Vitally important. Not to us, but to the world. And most importantly to the people the world seems to be leaving behind. To a lot of people in the world the church is irrelevant, but the church is the love of God for a broken world, made incarnate in that fallen world. And that is never irrelevant. We may not always be the best we can be, but that is the hard part of being human.

The miracle of the incarnation is that when God is born in us, and grows in us, and lives in us, the kingdom of God comes very near. We may only catch a glimpse, but it is enough. It changes us, and it changes the world. And it all begins with a simple answer to the question of the ages. God is waiting to break into the world again, through you. God is waiting patiently to be born into your life. Like there is in every age there is much to do now and I can’t do it for you. It is your answer to make. Tonight as we gather before the altar in wonder, like Mary and Joseph around the manger, you may wonder what it all means. When it gets right down to it, it’s simple really. God is with us. God will be with you. So tonight, sometime before you drift off to sleep, take courage and enter into the mystery of Christmas. In your heart give to God the answer of Mary: The answer God longs to hear...“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”