Sermon for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024
Isaiah 9:2-7+Psalm 96+Titus 2:11-14+Luke 2:1-20
I am sure that we all have stories of Christmases past that maybe didn't go quite the way we might have liked for them to. As children, we have dreams of, if not sugar plums, then that most-longed-for toy. As adults, we want to make sure our children experience something of the magic of Christmas that we once knew. But it doesn't always come so neatly tied up in a bow, does it?
In my family, the legendary story of a Christmas fail was "The Stomach Bug that Ruined Christmas." Now, I am the youngest of six children which means that there were eight people living in my childhood home, and one year, two days before Christmas, it started. I think an older brother got sick first, and then it made its way through the rest of us and did not depart until two days after Christmas. To this day, we remember funny little details like how one sister with whom I happened to share a room, would not let me in, locked the door, and kept a window open so that it was about 40 degrees in there. She thought she could escape the plague, but she was wrong. A couple of us might have made it to church on Christmas Eve, but the annual tradition of eating breakfast before opening our gifts went out the door. It was a memorable Christmas, for sure, although I'm not sure how my poor parents survived it.
Even though my siblings and I remember that as the year of "The Stomach Bug that Ruined Christmas," it didn't really ruin anything at all. Christmas came anyway to our sick house even though it might have been different or less extravagant and joyful. But it came just the same.
Just as Jesus still comes just the same. We have spent the past four weeks preparing for this during the season we call Advent, but even if you did none of that kind of preparing at all, Jesus comes. Even if this is your first time at All Saints or your first time crossing the threshold of any church, Jesus comes for you.
The people of Bethlehem certainly had not taken care of proper preparations. They were not ready. And yet, still Jesus came, born of Mary and Joseph in crude surroundings while the livestock slept nearby. The first people to know anything about it at all were the shepherds with the vision of the heavenly host announcing Jesus's birth. They weren't looking for this or expecting this, but it happened anyway.
God is like that.
In the least likely of ways, to the least likely of people, in the least likely places, God took on human flesh and became just like us.
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
A few weeks ago, our reading from Luke's third chapter rattled off the names of various people as a way of situating the story in historical time. It was important to Luke to make an "orderly account" as he puts it, and his listeners would have known who Tiberius and Pilate, Herod and Philip, Lysanius, Annas, and Caiaphas were. They would have known who this Syrian governor named Quirinius was. Most of us either have or will learn something about the Caesars and the Roman Empire, so maybe we at least vaguely remember Augustus and Tiberius. But these other guys? Their names would mean absolutely nothing to us were it not for that name that is above every name, Jesus. Herod the Great and Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate would be mere footnotes in history were it not for their appearing in the Jesus story.
We may be looking around us at the leaders and rulers of our nation and our world, and all those popular figures who dominate the news, and we might be imagining that they are the ones that are important, they are the ones who count, who will be remembered. With very few exceptions, they are just footnotes. Joe Biden? Donald Trump? Aaron Judge? Patrick Mahomes? Taylor Swift (sorry, Swifties)? Footnotes. All footnotes.
The enduring story of our age will be the same enduring story it has been since Quirinius was governor of Syria. Jesus Christ was born and continues to be born in us and in our world, ready or not. Whether you show up every week or just on Christmas and Easter; whether you believe every word or have to cross your fingers when reciting some parts; whether you are as rich as a monarch or as poor as a church mouse; whether your house looks like something out of a magazine or is a one-room walkup; whether you are married, single, have children or not; whether you are gay, straight, transgender, non-binary, or simply don’t identify as any of those; whoever you are, Jesus comes for you.
Poet Mary Oliver wrote
Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice –it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances–but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And I still believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.[1]
Whether you have invited him or prepared for him, Jesus comes. There is nothing really you can do other than to say, "Come in. Come in." And when you do, get ready, because your life will never be the same.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
[1] Making the House Ready for the Lord from "Thirst" (Beacon Press, 2006) 13.