Christmas Eve 2018: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
The other night I heard something being kicked around (or in this case, pawed) all over the downstairs by my cats. At first I wasn’t all that concerned, figuring it was one of the many cat toys that I seem to only find when I accidently step on them in my bare feet. But then I thought, this sounds like something different. As I got up to investigate, I noticed something else…my nativity – so neatly displayed with lots of animals, shepherds, Mary & Joseph, and angels – was a mess. Sheep were missing, shepherds were on their sides (one precariously near the edge of the table), an angel was missing, and the crib was overturned. I immediately yelled for my cats, while also giving a suspecting look at Lexi, my dog, to see if there might be something hanging out of her mouth. She just looked at me with those sad puppy eyes saying “who, me?,” while pointing a paw toward the cats.
It turns out that the cats had managed to knock over everything, and it was a sheep they were batting all around the house. How do I know for sure it was them? Later that night, after I had returned everything to its place, one of them forgot I was in the room and jumped into the nativity scene, and jammed her head right into the manger, staring at the empty crib. Apparently, she was looking for the baby Jesus, which thankfully I don’t put in there until tonight. I can’t blame her – because I think we all are, most especially on this night – though I think our intentions here tonight are a bit different than those of my cat (or so I hope), and I also suspect I will be looking for the sheep of my nativity set until next Christmas.
Nevertheless, as I said, I think many of us are looking for that baby Jesus too – the one tucked into a beautiful nativity scene, on a silent night, all wrapped in heavenly peace. It’s that perfect Christmas card image many try so hard to make at home – you know, just like the movies on the Hallmark channel. The thing is – that isn’t where you are going to find Jesus….because the perfect Christmas isn’t real. It can’t be. Because Christmas is about something so profoundly unexpected, so intensely amazing, and so very chaotic, that perfection isn’t the point.
That’s why our pageant yesterday was everything a nativity play should be. Because we have an abundance of little ones, but not as many old enough for speaking roles, we did an “All Parish Pageant” in which anyone who came to church – kids of ages from 1-92 as they say, could take on the roles of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, innkeepers, the Magi, Herod, or anything else in our play. It was crazy fun, a bit muddled and disorganized, and the whole congregation was a part of the story. It’s the way it should be, if you really think about it, because we really are a part of this story, and it is about something that is anything but ordinary.
Perhaps that is why the angel Gabriel is always saying “Do not be afraid.” Have you noticed that? It’s true – whether to the shepherds as we heard tonight, or to Mary, or for that matter, earlier in the gospel of Luke to Zachariah. I wonder sometimes what good old Gabe must have looked like to warrant this reaction. Did he come all ablaze like the character in Dogma, played by the late and beloved actor Alan Rickman (aka. Professor Snape)? ‘Cause THAT would be scary, right? Or, maybe Gabriel appeared flying high and about 10 times larger than any human. Maybe. But perhaps it is because whenever one of these angels appears, it means things are going to change. Change can be good…but it also means that we don’t know how it will all turn out. We can’t control it, and that can make one fear it. It would be so much easier if things would just go exactly as we planned, or wanted, or prayed for.
But, life is not neat and tidy for us any more than it is for my nativity or Christmas pageants. The economy is on shaky ground with some losing jobs, loved ones may be sick or have died this year, there is violence in our streets and bigotry on full display across our land, natural disasters have claimed the lives of thousands, and our nation seems on the brink of crisis. Maybe that is why we want our Christmas to be perfect – because in that we can have what seems elusive to us in our daily lives. If we can just know where we can find God…find Jesus…right there in that manger where we expect him to be – then everything will be okay. Then we will know that God exists, or at least knows that we exist, or cares.
I have a friend who recently lost her job. I’ve known her for a long while, and things have not gone well for her these past several years including the death of loved ones, and the job wasn’t exactly the best either. She told me a few weeks ago when she could see this layoff coming that God must hate her, because none of her prayers are ever answered. So, when we had dinner a few days ago, and she said that she felt like God finally answered her prayer because she got what she hoped for in the exit package from the company, I was a bit surprised. As she talked, she saw something in my face, and said “What? You don’t think He answered my prayers?” I said, “Yes, I do, but I also think that God answered your prayers all along – just not in the way you expected.”
My friend reminded me of the Christmas story – not the full tableau seen on our tabletops, or here in our church – but, the deeply personal engagement of real people with angels, with God, that changed them, changed us, forever, even when it isn’t how we expect it to be, or when we don’t realize it at first.
I think if we just look at the three times in the opening chapters of this gospel of Luke, when the Angel Gabriel makes his awe striking appearances, we will see this clearly. First, it is to Zachariah. Zachariah was, as you all know, the father of John the Baptist, the older cousin of Jesus. Zach feared that his prayers for a child were to go unanswered because he and his wife Elizabeth were now far beyond child bearing years. The angel Gabriel appeared, implored him to not be afraid, his prayer would be answered. He couldn’t accept it at first– nothing was as he expected it to be with God – so, he was made mute until the birth. Now, that might not seem so bad, except I can tell you, good ole Zach was a priest, and we priests do like to talk (though I am sure his wife Elizabeth wasn’t too unhappy). In the end, he came to know the reality of what was happening, proclaiming it to the world.
Then there is Mary, the teenage mother of Jesus, who encountered that same angel, who again said “Do not be afraid.” Yet the annunciation was a message that would strike fear in the heart of any young unwed girl in her time – that she would become pregnant, and not by her fiancé. This could get her killed. If that weren’t enough, she and Joseph had to hit the road, give birth far from whatever comforts home, friends, and family might bring, and deliver that child in the lower level of a stranger’s home where the animals were kept. Some others might have said “If this is how God answers my prayers, then never mind!” But Mary said “Yes!” Joseph too had received a message from God, and while it also wasn’t the news he likely prayed for, his ability to receive the unexpected call of God made it safe for Mary and the baby she carried into new life. Neither Mary or Joseph were living into any kind of neat, tidy, perfect birth story – Not to mention what the shepherds told them on that night too …what were they to make of all of that?
And then there are those shepherds – the ones folks don’t want in polite circles. They are the outcasts, the forgotten…the ones who might fear that God has abandoned them. The angel tells them also to not be afraid. God does see them, and delivers to them before all others the good news of Jesus. What must that have been like for them? What must it have been like to be the ones who work while others sleep, doing the job no one else wants, being the ones others push to the margins, and yet it is to them God comes? It could not have been anything they would have imagined, not anything they might have even thought to pray for. And the reality was, that it would be 30 years later before Jesus begins his ministry in the world…would these folks still be alive to see it?
Here’s the thing, perhaps the reason that angels start out by saying “Do not be afraid,” is because God enters into our lives most profoundly and deeply when things are not perfect, when we might be most afraid – afraid that God isn’t listening, isn’t there, or doesn’t care, and with a message that will confound us, engage us, push us, while delivering us – whether we know it or not. The Hebrew people wanted their prayers answered – prayers for a warrior messiah to overturn the Roman occupation and deliver them from oppression. They got the baby Jesus, who grew up to preach of love and peace, and who was crucified by those Romans. Yet, they got exactly what they prayed for in the end – a savior.
And you can bet that for those shepherds, for Mary & Joseph, for Elizabeth & Zachariah, their fears of unanswered prayer, of difficult times ahead, of being forgotten by God, were met by God in ways they could never have imagined possible, in ways they never thought to pray for – with a child born in old age, with a willingness to say Yes to a possibility that is scary, with God’s grace in love and care of those in our lives, with a promise of good news of great joy for all people, including and even first and foremost, those others don’t see.
We are no different than they. Like my friend, we pray and we want our prayers answered, but we expect God to work in our lives in a particular way. We look for Jesus, but when and where we expect to find him. But here’s the thing – God is looking for us, or at least, looking for us to see the Jesus that is standing beside us, imploring us to open our hearts to Him, and to know He is there when things are most uncertain, most difficult, and when we are most afraid. To allow him to be born anew in our hearts, most especially at Christmas.
So, we shouldn’t expect our nativities, or for that matter, our Christmases, or our lives, to be neat, tidy, and perfect. That’s just not how it was, or how it is, with God. God entered the world because it was everything but that – after all, light isn’t for a room filled with light, but to illuminate the dark places, right? God became incarnate in this way – as a vulnerable baby born at the fringes of society, into the cracks of our broken hopes and dreams, among the lonely, the lost, the poor, and the forgotten – because God wasn’t looking to make a Hallmark card! God was looking to change things, to shake up our world, to challenge our assumptions, to propel us forward into a faith that is deeper and more powerful, into a life in Christ that can change the world.
“Do not be afraid!” We need to hear this now more than ever. Don’t be afraid, for it is when things we hope for seem lost to us, when news shatters our world, when things seem chaotic, when we seem to be forgotten and pushed aside – it is there that God is most present, there that God will appear to us, there that God will tell us “do not be afraid” for I hear your prayers, I am with you in this moment, I see you on the margins, and in the darkness of your night, and I have come into the world that you will know you are loved – deeply and for all time, just as you are.
So tonight, let us remember that we too are a part of this crazy wonderful Christmas story, and embrace the message of the angels to not be afraid, but to hear what they proclaim – that God is born to us in Jesus – born to set us free from fear, to set our hearts on fire with love, and to send us as shepherds out into the world to proclaim the good news!
It won’t mean a life without pain.
It won’t mean things we want will always happen.
It won’t mean our Christmases, or our lives, will be perfect.
But it will mean we have received the greatest gift ever given – all the love we need – for all time.
And the best part is…
if we come to know it as Zachariah,
if we say Yes to it as Mary,
if we accept it as Joseph,
if we proclaim it to the world as the shepherds,
…it will be the gift that keeps on giving.
And that, will truly be “good news of great joy” for you, for me, for all the world.
Merry Christmas!
For the audio from the 10:00pm service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
December 24, 2018
Christmas Eve –Christmas Day Selection I
1stReading –Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
2nd Reading –Titus 2:11-14
Gospel – Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
