The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
Isaiah 9: 2-7 Ps. 96 Titus 2: 11-14 Luke 2: 1-20
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, who has come to earth on this very night. Amen.
In the small hamlet of Ashville, Ohio during this Advent season, where my good friend Marie is the pastor at First English Lutheran Church, they had a bit of a baby Jesus crisis. As Marie tells it, she came into the office one morning early in December to find the person in charge of their large, plastic outdoor nativity scene, with the large, plastic baby Jesus upside down on the counter. “Pastor” he said “Something is wrong with baby Jesus. He doesn’t light up like he’s supposed to. Mary and Joseph light up, the magi light up, the angels and shepherds light up. But something is wrong with baby Jesus.” And so he set about trying to determine why the light inside the baby Jesus was not working.
“Aha!” came the cry mere moments later. “I’ve found the problem! This isn’t OUR Jesus! This Jesus belongs to someone else! This Jesus doesn’t even have a light bulb or plug.” Mystery solved.
In many ways, this holy night is all about mystery. They mystery of the incarnation, of how the God who created all things could take on flesh and come and live among us as Emmanuel…God – with- us. The mystery of why that birth would happen, not in a palace or a place of power, but in a feed trough, surrounded by beasts and angels. The mystery of why the news wasn’t told to kings and princes, but to shepherds keeping watch in their field.
Recent weeks have found us shaking our heads at the mystery of unimaginable events. Why would this happen? What would cause a person to do such a thing? It’s an all too familiar refrain…a mystery we have considered many times over until we can no longer bear the weight of it and so we stop asking the questions or searching for the answers.
In these darkest days, it almost seems as if the light has gone out. That Jesus and all that he came down to live among us for has been extinguished by hatred and violence, by tragedy and disaster. That those are the things that burn brightest in our headlines and in our hearts. And we search for good news in unlikely places.
Jesus was not born into a world that was any brighter, any better, any more hopeful than our world is now. The empire was oppressive. People were marginalized and abused and cast aside. Even the reason for Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem was government based…so they could be counted for purposes of taxation.
Somehow, we have taken that harsh reality and turned it into soothing carols and joyous songs and picture perfect cards. Even though we know, because we know the rest of the story, that this tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, will teach and preach a message so radical, so extraordinary that he will be called a heretic, that even his family will doubt his sanity, and that even his friends will deny and abandon him. Even though we know, that he will eventually die at the hands of the Roman government. How we are able to gather in this night, of all nights, is a mystery in itself.
A part of the mystery of Christmas, of the Incarnation, is the way that it happens once and then happens over and over again. Not that this night comes every year, that we know…but that Christ inhabits the world in each day, in each moment. That the coming of Christ into the world was not something that would happen once and then be complete, but that it is something that, once it happened, it meant that the world would be forever changed. That goodness would always be stronger than evil. That light would always be brighter than darkness. That hope would always overcome despair.
There has been much talk about God’s presence with us these days. There has been the absurd suggestion that God is somehow not present in some places, just because we have said that teachers cannot lead their students in prayer. There has been talk of God’s utter absence on college campuses, and movie theatres, and in high schools and in Sandy Hook elementary school.
But we kid ourselves if we think that God is ever absent from us.
This is God’s answer to the big question, to the question that we think is the mystery. “God!” we cry, “Where. Are. You?”
And the answer is born this night and every night and every day and every moment. God is as close as our very breath. God is in each moment of each day. God is in each beat of our hearts even unto the final beat and the final breath. God was in that hospital room and that earthquake and that tornado, and that movie theatre and that school. God is with us, in every question and in every answer. God is with us in all of the darkness and in each new dawn.
The prophet Isaiah writes that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. Of course, Isaiah does not write about us, but the words resonate deep within us each Christmas Eve. We can relate to those who lived in a land of deep darkness because many days we seem to inhabit that space ourselves. We understand what it means to walk in darkness because too often we have not been able to see the light shining across our paths.
It is into the darkness of this world that Jesus came. And this Jesus is the savior of all the world. He is not “our” Jesus or “their” Jesus. He is Immanuel, God incarnate, God with us, enfleshed and embodied.
Beloved community, the light of Christ does shine. Even in the long days of winter, even in the darkness of sorrow, even in the dimness of doubt….the light of Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. And as people who, as the reading from Titus notes, are zealous for good deeds, we are sent out to share the light of Christ, not because it will save us, Jesus already saw to that, but because it is how the darkness will subside.
God has come among us as a tiny child, bringing a message of love that is for all people. Not just a few, not just us. But for all people. And every time we share that love, the light of Christ shines more brightly in us and in our world.
God came among us so that we would not sit in darkness, but that we would walk in the light of Christ’s love. Mystery solved. Amen.
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