Online Sermons
Christmas Eve: December 24, The Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter
Well, we’ve done it. We’ve made it to Christmas Eve and to Christmas Eve services. We certainly have a white Christmas. Every year we all wonder if we will be ready with the preparations we think are important—prayer, presents, people. And of course, ready or not, here it comes. Just as it happened the first time, God comes. Were people ready for Jesus? Are we ever ready, truly ready, to hear and believe the Good News of God becoming human, one of us, for us?
Have you heard of Blue Christmas? I don’t mean the song, although I think that’s where the name comes from, but of the services that have become popular in recent years. They are held for people who are not able to share the joy of Christmas because of heavy hearts due to loss or fear or depression. So the service is an attempt to let people have a Blue Christmas and then let everyone else have a Merry Christmas, I guess.
As I understand Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation of God as Jesus was especially for people who were blue, discouraged, fearful and grieving. This is exactly what the birth of Jesus was about. All the prophetic readings we have been hearing on Sundays and reading during the weekdays of Advent have to do with God’s desire to help the people of Israel in their lonely exile, whatever the cause of their sorrow, both for individuals and for the community.
Jesus came to people who had been conquered again and again for hundreds of years and were now dominated by the latest power, the Roman Empire. Israel’s own religious officials were in collusion with the peace of Rome, which was peace through force. It was a dark time when people who had lived on family land for generations lost it and with it lost a source of dependable income and livelihood. It sounds rather similar to today, doesn’t it?
It was to these people that hope was born, in a child born in humble circumstances as compared to Caesar’s and yet, the claims made about this child and the change that this child would bring were far beyond those of any emperor. In Jesus, peace with justice was promised, hope was born that this could become a reality on earth, and light was given to all who would see.
We start every Christmas with blue, the blue of Advent and move into the white of rejoicing light. For there is not one of us here tonight who is more than 10 years old, perhaps, who does not have some blueness in their hearts, no matter what else. It doesn’t take long for us to realize that a lot of life involves uncertainty and loss. Think of the people who have gathered around Christmas trees and Christmas dinners with you in years past. Remember from your early years to your more recent ones. And think who is no longer able to do that gathering with you physically, people whom you have loved and can no longer see and embrace.
No matter how many children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren you may be fortunate to have, you have lost some people who have been important to you. And perhaps you have accepted this and moved on, and perhaps you have not.
But the circle of life keeps turning. In our family this year, my son-in-law’s mother died and his brother and his wife had a baby. In another part of the family, my sister-in-law’s husband died and three children were born to the family. This got me to thinking about my own childhood. My great grandmother, the one who I remember as the knitter and mender of the family and who is my image of the healing maternal God, died on Christmas Eve when I was three. My mother would have been pregnant with my sister.
This is the way of the circle of life.Just as my great grandmother will always be the image of the healing and mending God, my brother-in-law will be the picture of Simeon. I will treasure always the last picture of Jerry, a laconic, sometimes dour man holding up his just born grand-daughter, his third, and smiling at her and studying her as intently as ancient old Simeon must have held up the infant Jesus in the temple before he said, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou has prepared before the face of all people, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.”
Simeon is someone who had waited his whole life in the prayer of longing and hope. He fervently believed that it was God’s intent to come among the people, to be a light for the whole world. And here is completion in the form of an infant.
If you have been reading the Old Testament lessons this Advent you distinctly got the idea that when God did come to earth, and God would indeed come some time, it was going to be a time of terrible judgment, of doom and destruction. It was a time of expecting something so awe-full as to terrify us. And yet when God came among us, he arrived as an infant. It would be like opening a door expecting the devouring lion and finding instead an infant kitten, in need of protection. Our fear would melt into tenderness as we knelt down to cradle it.
And perhaps that is the hope, that our hard and fearful hearts will melt into tenderness. There is much to be concerned about in our world, in our community, in our lives. We all share massive concerns about the future of the earth, we all share concerns about our country in the year to come. We individually have concerns about our health or members of our family or our economic well-being. We could wake up every night during the night and be afraid if we chose, or, as it happens with night terrors, even when we do not choose.
Yet the message of the angels is always “Do not be afraid.” I bring you Good News.
The awesome God has come among you in the form of an infant in need of tender care and love. God has chosen to be vulnerable and appeal not to our fear, but to our love, to our desire to protect and nurture life. Hopefully in your giving this Christmas, you have given alternative gifts to those who are in need of protection and nurturance, for they are all children in the eyes of God.As people who live the baptism of Jesus, we know that each time we baptize a new baby we are welcoming the spirit of Jesus into this child and that this child is a reminder of God’s presence among us.
Immanuel, God is with us. There is no better news than to know we are not alone, ever. We can’t be. Christ dwells within us and among us. God is in the love that we share with one another, God is within us in our own loving heart.
So this night, as burdened as we may be with our own earthly concerns, we are invited to look up: to view the heavens as the realm of the glory of God and to see earth as just a speck of the glory of God. We are invited to know that just as the earth turned toward the sun on Sunday, there is hope and light coming for us. It may not be in the ways we would order it, if we could place an Amazon.com order, but it will come. Look up, our redemption is drawing near. The morning star is about to rise in our hearts.
Our invitation is to live as Christmas Christians. And so we are invited to live these 12 days of Christmas remembering our past, experiencing our present, and hoping for our future.
I received a Christmas card from an old friend—literally. He will turn 80 very soon. He was my pastoral counselor when I was dealing with a dark time in my life, and I am thankful he has remained a friend. He is in the Caribbean to celebrate Christmas and his birthday, and he says in the islands they say, “God is good—all the time.”
Yes, God is good—all the time. Thank goodness.
May you have a good Christmas. May it partake of the joy that comes from love and hope. May you have people you love to share it with. May you let your heart be opened and let the Christ-child be born therein, once again.
Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic, wrote:
“…in the heart of the Trinity
the creator laughs and gives birth to the child.
The child laughs back at the creator and together they give birth to the Spirit.
The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to Creation.”And one day, that child came to dwell among us, for God so loved the world.
So it is time to rejoice and to carol. The words “rejoice” and “carol” both mean to dance. Whether it is your body or your heart, may the Spirit move you into joy, the joy born of tender love. Amen!
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