Christmas

One of the greatest illusions we all seem to share is that our lives are our own. That we can fully see and control our circumstances, that with just the right research and planning, with warding off those people and ideas, those rules and regulations and impositions of others on us, that we can determine not only our own fate, but that of others as well. The peril in believing this is that it keeps us from allowing the one who created us - God himself - to be borne in us. 

We see in Mary and Joseph this evening/morning a complete contrast to this Adam and Eve tendency we inherited. Joseph - against his own rational understanding and judgment of God’s law, even of nature itself - takes Mary to be his wife rather than divorcing her quietly when he is told she’s pregnant. He abides God’s Word told him through an angel. So he takes Mary to be registered and then finds a manger where she might give birth. Unto them is born the Messiah prophesied in their Scriptures. 

Yet when they look down, they see only an infant. A vulnerable infant born into a violent, tumultuous, and uncertain world. Born to them is a mere promise, not yet its fulfillment. A promise sustained only with hope, faith and love. Love poured out by God in coming to them, being with them. Hope in God’s capacity, and faith, in God’s faithfulness to his own promise. God comes to Mary and to Joseph, and before them, to people like Abraham, Job, Jeremiah, not because they are powerful or have everything right, but instead because they are willing to give themselves up - to give their hearts and minds and bodies, to become impregnated and so the bearer of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. It is not just that we see in them Christ’s likeness. It is that in them Jesus Christ himself dwells; for they have allowed him to join them to himself.  

This, it seems to me, is why Jesus came into the world, just as he did and to whom he did. Yes, he came in poverty rather than wealth and power. Yes, he came as a vulnerable infant who would suckle at his mother’s breast, while evading the murderous rampage of a leader who wanted to wipe out any challengers to his throne. But there is something more profound in this story that we hear on Christ’s birth: He is born in those and makes himself visible to those who recognize they need him and are willing to follow before they can determine with certainty, who exactly it is that they’re following. That is it. And it’s really everything. 

We hear this very story told again with the lowly shepherds: “Then an angel of the Lord stood before [the shepherds], and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord … When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us."

Imagine, for one moment, going about your daily lives, tending your proverbial sheep (writing code, analyzing financial markets or product specs or trying to get the kids you teach out the door, or running between your grandchildren’s hockey games) and suddenly you’re blinded by a light and a voice that speaks from within you so profoundly that the only words that you can say are, “here I am Lord, let us go now.”

Imagine, that is, that all time is stopped; that all the things you prioritized and that worried you and that you held onto, ceased to have place or purpose, for you are standing in God’s presence. There you are, naked as the baby Jesus emerging from his mother’s womb; standing before the mercy seat of God’s judgment with no skins to hide your sin. All that you have said and done set before you, no longer do you see these things in ignorance, in part, through a glass darkly, but instead how God sees them - every impact of every word and action - everything as it touches the lives of other people. And you can now choose: shall I go with my will be done, or not my will, but yours be done, Lord? 

Will you say with the shepherds, “let us go now too, so that Christ might be born in us for the sake of others”? For this is what is on offer, not in the past, and not in the future, but right here and now. Christ is born every time we are willing to open ourselves to him and bear his light in this world, not seeking our own good; but seeking the good of all those whom we encounter. For this is the very measure of human life.

When Jesus comes in judgement and mercy, “behold I stand at the door … open wide the gates,” he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat…” Jesus comes to you in the form of a street person, an immigrant, someone with mental illness, the jerk at your office, the enemy you see in the government or on your newscreen. Jesus is born to us as the one through whom God calls us, speaks to us and makes his demands that we respond with the same compassion and forgiveness he gives to us. Jesus is born in us as we open ourselves to him and he is born to us as we encounter him in others in our lives. Will you keep the door locked or open it to him? AMEN