Be with us, O Lord, for if
you are with us, nothing else matters; and if you are not with us, nothing else
matters. Amen.
A happy fourth day of Christmas to you all, your four
calling birds are on the way. Those of us in the liturgical churches are counter-cultural.
Radio stations have stopped playing Christmas songs, many decorations have come
down, and come tomorrow, it’s back to business as usual. But not in here. The
decorations remain and we sing songs of the Savior’s birth. It’s a question of
how you celebrate Christmas. And I don’t mean what you did on December 25.
Christmas is the season in which we celebrate that the Lord is come, that earth
has received her King. So how do you celebrate that transformational event? Is
Christmas something that you delicately handle, wrap in tissue paper, and store
in the attic for 11 months out of the year? Or is Christmas something else?
The
first Christmas was wildly disruptive. Mary and Joseph now have a child.
Shepherds were visited by angels in a field. Magi came from the East. And King
Herod became consumed with suspicion and jealousy. On that first Christmas, the
King of Heaven was born as a meek and mild child who would forever change the world.
Sometimes our familiarity with the Christmas story can hinder our understanding
of it. The idea that God, the One who creates and sustains all of that is, came
to earth is radically subversive. The unknowable became known, the unlimited
took on limits, perfection took on messy flesh and blood. I’ve quoted Will
Willimon on this before, but it is worth repeating in Christmas- the birth of
Jesus is not about us getting what we want out of God, but instead is God’s way
of getting what God wants out of us.
As we heard in the gospel this morning, “The Word became
flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a
father's only son, full of grace and truth.” In Christmas, God got specific,
very specific. No longer can we argue and debate about what God would have us
to do. Jesus showed us what God would have us to do: feed the hungry, minister
to the sick, lift up the oppressed, clothe the naked, visit those in prison,
stand against oppression, share the Good News of God’s love. That is not something
to celebrate for a few weeks and then pack away until next year. Christmas
forever changed Mary’s life, it forever changed first-century Israel, it forever
changed the world, and ought to forever change us, too.
Christmas is the season in which we celebrate the rebirth
of hope. Our reading from Isaiah this morning speaks to that hope. You’ll
remember that Israel was overrun by the Babylonian Empire around the year 600
BC. Many Jews were held in captivity in Babylon for more than a generation. But
by the time we get to the 61st chapter of Isaiah, Babylon had been
conquered by the Persians and the Hebrew people were anticipating their
liberation from captivity. And so the prophet joyfully exclaims, “I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has
clothed me with the garments of salvation.”
Their hope is to be ours in this season of Christmas. On
Christmas, we celebrate the miracle of Emmanuel, of God with us. Hope, though,
is not the same as optimism. Optimism is based on the possibilities of things
as they have come to be; while hope is based on the possibilities of God,
irrespective of how things are. Optimism might see the glass as half-full
instead of half-empty, but hope is knowing that our cup will be running over
through the love of God.
You may or may not have reason to be optimistic today.
For some of you, perhaps the sun is shining brightly and there are no rain
clouds on the horizon. Others of you though may be looking back on 2014 as a
year to forget, or are dreading the start of 2015. Maybe you are concerned
about a health crisis, an income shortage, or a strained relationship. But
through the gift of God’s presence, there is hope and light to be found, even if
optimism is hard. I find it interesting, and sometimes frustrating, that Jesus
was not the sort of Messiah that everyone was expecting. It really would be
nice if the birth of the Messiah had meant an end to hunger and violence.
What we do see in Jesus though is that love has the power
to conquer sin, death, and fear. That Incarnate love that came down at
Christmas is what we celebrate this season. As I’ve said, Christmas is a season
about hope more than it is optimism, and it is also a season that is more about
joy than it is happiness. Being happy is not a bad thing at all, but as we all
know, happiness comes and goes. Happiness might be defined as thinking that you
have everything that you want- a good paying job, a nice house, your favorite
sports team doing well, a really good dinner. Joy though is what comes when we
realize that we have all that we need.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my favorite Christmas
movie is It’s a Wonderful Life. In
it, George Bailey, played by James Stewart, was immensely happy. But through
the circumstances of life, that happiness soon turned to despair. He was on the
brink of ending his life, when he received a Christmas miracle in the form of
an angel who showed him the value of his life. His despair soon turned into the
joy of knowing that through this family, friends, and community that he had all
that he needed. And you can’t take away that sort of joy.
On Christmas we sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is
come!” Is there joy in your life? If so, then celebrate and share that joy. If
not, what stands in the way of you grasping the joy that is being offered to
you through God’s abundance? Do you need to be reconciled with someone? Are you
captive to an addiction? Is fear over money keeping you in a job that you hate?
Sometimes to fully receive joy in your life, you have to clear out the clutter
of sin.
The miracle of Christmas is that despite the sin and brokenness
of this world, God comes to be with us. And remember, God comes through the
scandal of an unwed mother, through the uncleanliness of being born among
animals, and into a broken political system. Christmas loudly proclaims that
God will stop at nothing to bring hope and joy to our lives. And for those
moments when God’s hope is made manifest, we give thanks and exult, as did the prophet
Isaiah.
Notice, though, how Isaiah exults in this hope. The text
says that Israel will greatly rejoice in its whole being. What would it mean
for us to celebrate Christmas with our whole being? With all of our energy, all
of our focus, all of our resources? We often say that Christmas is about peace
on earth and giving to others, and that’s true. I wonder what it would look
like if we did those things with our whole beings. What it would look like if
we were single-mindedly focused on doing the work of Christmas?
Something I learned well when our daughter was born is
that births are messy, painful, and life changing, but through all of that, you
find a love deeper than you could have ever imagined. The birth of the Messiah
at Christmas is no exception. But at the birth, the work is just beginning. A
lot of people will say that “Christmas is over.” But can you imagine ever
saying, just a few days after the birth of a child, that the work is over? I certainly
can’t.
The Prophet says “For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like
the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.” There remains a task for us
to do in response to the rebirth of God’s hope. We will not keep silent and we
will not rest. There are yet enemies to be made friends, empty stomachs yet to
be made full, oppressed yet to be liberated. As much as Christmas has been
co-opted for commercial gain, can you imagine what the world would look like if
we always took extra time to wish each other greetings of the season, if we
took time to let people know how much we appreciated them all the time, if we
reached out to those in need and donated to charities year-round? What if
Christmas isn’t over, but is just beginning? Then perhaps we could sing “Joy to
the world, the Savior reigns,” not as a prayer for things yet to come, but as a
victory shout.
We rejoice that “a child has been born for us, a son
given to us.” In Christmas we celebrate that God comes to us, giving us a
reason not just to be optimistic, but hopeful. The birth of the Messiah is not
about giving happiness that fades, but joy which endures from being given all
that we really need. We are invited to exult God with all of our being, to
further the Good News of God’s love coming to us. What will the legacy of
Christmas 2014 be? Will it be packed up in a box and forgotten until next
December? Or will Christmas 2014 be when hope and joy were born anew into our
lives, transforming us into heralds of the Good News that God is with us?
