In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
If the season leading up to December 25th is “the most wonderful time of the year” then the time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day is the most confusing time of the year. You all, of course, know that Christmas doesn’t actually begin until December 25 and lasts until January 5; but if you look around the world, it doesn’t seem like much Christmas is left. You can find trees that used to have ornaments adorning them discarded on the curb. You won’t find any Christmas sales or Christmas music on the radio – they’ve already got your money, so Christmas is no longer useful to the capitalistic machine; they’re already gearing up to sell you chocolate for Valentine’s Day or a mattress on President’s Day. Those who insist that we keep Christ in Christmas have moved on to the next culture war and are already feigning outrage about something else. The gifts, which for too many are the highlight of Christmas, have been given, and perhaps even already exchanged at the store. The parties are over and decorations have become passé. So what is left for us to do with Christmas as we bide our time until we get overly excited about getting to use a new wall calendar?
Christmastide is as counter-cultural as Jesus was. Just as the world didn’t know what to do with Jesus, nor do we know what to do with this season in which we celebrate his coming. So the question remains, now what? Part of the issue is that our faith is overly focused on doing rather than being. If you were to ask people what our faith is about, they’d respond with a list of duties, beliefs, or obligations. Far too many people think that Christianity is about doing works of mercy, promoting justice, or showing compassion. But it’s not. Those might be wonderful by-products of Christianity, but those are insufficient views of what faith is about.
One of the things in the Episcopal Church that makes me uncomfortable is our infatuation with the Baptismal Covenant – those questions to which we respond “I will, with God’s help.” Questions like “will you persevere in resisting evil; will you proclaim by word and example the Good News; will you love our neighbor as yourself; will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.”
Please, don’t get me wrong – those are absolutely good and holy things to do, and ought to be the manifestation of faith in us, but those vows mislead us into thinking that those promises, that our action, is what faith is about. Our faith is not about our actions, but God’s actions. If it were up to me, and it’s not, the Baptismal Covenant would come after the actual Baptism, not before it, so as not to seem as if being Baptized is the reward for correctly answering those questions. Too many churches though, and I fall into this trap more often than I’d like to, focus on the things we do: what ministries we offer, what things we do to attract new members, what things we are doing in our community. Again, these are all good things, so long as they are secondary. But more often than not, they aren’t; they are primary. And anytime something is placed before God, it’s idolatry.
Our culture is one of self-sufficiency, with a spirit of “don’t tread on me” and rugged individualism. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is the ultimate American success story. Our worth ethic demands output and profitability from us, and those cultural virtues have seeped into our religion. The issue is that things like independence and productivity aren’t virtues, but actually are vices when it comes to our faith. This is the very point that St. Paul is making when he writes in Galatians “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.”
This is one of the central claims of all of St. Paul’s preaching – that we are utterly dependent on God’s grace and there is nothing that we have to do in order to earn, deserve, or keep God’s grace. Any attempt to say that Christianity is about what we do, whether it be good works, or acts of charity, or thinking certain things becomes a work of the law, which as Paul puts it, is a disciplinarian. What we are justified by isn’t our good thoughts or our good deeds. But this is so incredibly difficult for us to accept. We live in a transactional world where nothing is free. We expect to get something out of every experience and relationship. We expect to receive compensation, whether it be money, respect, or praise for the things we do; and likewise, we expect to give those things to others in exchange for their services, their admiration, their love, their vote. But this simply isn’t how our faith works.
And so, invariably, the question always comes up – “But what am I supposed to do.” The Christian answer is “Nothing.” That’s the whole point of God’s grace and love – you don’t have to do anything. Isaiah notes that God has clothed us with salvation and covered us with the robe of righteousness. We already have everything that we need in God, so there is nothing else for us to chase after or pursue. As Paul writes “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” So, in Christ, we are freed to live in God’s goodness, we are enabled to receive the peace of God, we are shown the path of love – but these things are invitations, not demands. Of course, God absolutely intends and desires for us to do all of those things that I’ve already mentioned – taking care of the poor, loving our enemies, worshiping in community, giving generously – but those are not things we do in order to earn God’s love, rather we do them to enter more fully into God’s love.
I do want to be clear, this insistence on grace doesn’t mean that there is no personal responsibility. A gift can still be properly or improperly used, but it doesn’t change the fact that the gift has been given and will not be taken back. Grace is not an invitation to neglect God or others, rather it is the invitation to go deeper into our humanity just as God became deeply human in Jesus.
This is why Christmastide is so challenging for us – we want to know what we’re supposed to do in response to the gift of the Incarnation, of God’s coming to us. But literally, the entire point of the Gospel is that we don’t have to do anything to earn our salvation or God’s love. But it’s nearly impossible to quiet the urge that we all have – Yea, but what do I do? It’s the question that we’ve been trained to ask. It’s the question that we feel that we’re supposed to ask. But it isn’t the question that faith would have us to ask. The question of faith is not “What do I have to do” but rather “What do I get to do?”
St. Athanasius famously wrote on the topic of the Incarnation that “God became man that man might become God.” He didn’t mean that we’d replace God or actually become God, but rather that we would rise to divine bliss and receive the blessing of God. And in the epic poem that John begins his telling of the Gospel with, he furthers this idea when he writes “And the Word became flesh and lived among us… From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” This grace upon grace doesn’t come because we’ve earned it or asked for it, but because God has chosen to give it to us out of the fullness God’s infinite mercy and love made manifest in Jesus.
When Isaiah encounters this salvation of God, he writes “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God.” Praise is the natural result of this saving grace of God towards us. We do not praise God in order to earn more love or mercy, but rather the praise flows in response to understanding just how profound the gift of Jesus is. This is why Christian worship is marked by reverence, honor, and thanksgiving to God. Our whole being exults in the freedom that we have in God. And throughout the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth, praise is what we find. Today’s Gospel is John’s magisterial poem about God that sings reverentially about the light of Christ.
In Matthew, Jesus’ birth is followed by gifts coming from the magi. And in that story, notice that the magi don’t go to give the gifts because they were told to or because they expected to get something in return. No, they go simply to pay homage. If you could go back in time and ask them why they traveled to Bethlehem with gifts, I very much doubt that they could give a satisfactory answer. They’d say something like “We don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do.” Orienting our life to God is actually the most natural thing in the world, it only seems odd because the world has evolved to resist the notion that God’s grace abounds. The grace of God invites a response of praise from us, and in Matthew, the magi offer such praise.
And in Luke, we read about shepherds that come to give their honor. And if we kept reading in Luke, we’d encounter Simeon and Anna in the Temple when Jesus is presented, as was customary in Jewish culture. Both of them are overcome with joy when they encounter Jesus and offer songs of praise and worship. Throughout the gospels, an encounter with the grace of God in Jesus summons a response of praise.
What we celebrate in Christmastide is this: that in Christ, God has given us the freedom from this-for-that ideas of salvation, from the notion that we have to earn God’s love, from the need to serve other masters. And being freed, we are then able to revel in the glory, beauty, and grace of God’s love for us. So if there is anything to be done in Christmastide, it is simply this: to allow our souls to sing praise in response to God’s gift of Jesus. We offer praise not because God needs our praise, but because praise orients us to God’s grace and allows us to participate in it. The role of the Church isn’t to transform the world, that’s God’s work. Rather, it is ours to praise God and focus on Jesus. Faith isn’t about doing, rather it is about being in God’s glory which we have seen in Jesus Christ.
We don’t know what to do with Christmas because we’re not supposed to do anything with Christmas – it’s a gift, not an obligation. Our Psalm this morning says “Worship the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion.” Whatever that looks like for you, give yourself the time and space to come to know God’s grace in Christmas. And because praise isn’t a mandatory price we pay for our salvation, it means there is no right or wrong way to do it. Enter into the depths of Christmas by considering just how profound it is that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. What you’ll find is that your soul will start to sing, your whole being will exult in God. So let your soul sing. That’s the point of Christmas. That’s what we do with Christmas. We simply get out of the way and let our soul magnify the greatness of the Lord. So I’m going to sit down now so we can get onto doing just that – praising God.
