A Christmas Eve Message in Carols

 

Isaiah 6:2:6-7, John 1:1-5, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-20 Christmas songs are the most eclectic collection of music that exists in the same genre. Streaming Christmas music you’ll bounce through tragic break-ups, saucy hook-ups, light-hearted dust-ups, and adorable mix-ups. You’ll go from anthropomorphized snowmen and catty reindeer to ancient magi, alarming angels, and imagined drummer boys. Whiplashing from glee to longing, wistfulness to punchiness, and superficiality to scripture with ho, ho, hos, fa, la, las, and glory-alleluias, the whole thing becomes backdrop soup that we stop really hearing.   But it’s also true that some of the most poignant and powerful lyrics ever written are sung at Christmas. Christmas songs can preach!   I recently came across all the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Bing Crosby croons a few verses but skip others. I did not know it was a Christmas poem written amidst the horrors of the Civil War.    Listen to what Longfellow wrote:   I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play,  And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom  Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South,  And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;  "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men."   Every year Christmas comes around, interrupting our human stupidity and hatred, whatever current versions of awfulness we are engaged in this year.    Long lay the world in sin and error pining.   (O Holy Night)   Nevertheless, throughout time, when the bells ring Christians gather on this night all over the planet. In the midst of world wars and regional famines, through times of personal loss and communal tragedy, we take up our candles, our silence, and our songs to share again this sacred story, and trust again that the God who comes in will meet us here.   No ear may hear His coming, But in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.    (O Little Town of Bethlehem)    This is a holy act we do this night.  Because if Christmas has any real and lasting meaning, it can’t just be a bubble bath of nostalgia, or a Netflix binge of escapism. But neither can it be positive platitudes or religious head-patting.    Life isn’t messing around. We have 15-year-olds with guns and countries invading each on a dying planet. Right this moment in the very place our little Lord Jesus lay asleep on the hay, people are suffering and dying, their homes and lives destroyed. And in-between our holiday shopping and wrapping, people are logging online to cheer for a murderer,  because we’ve stopped seeing the human in one another, and in the world’s richest country people can’t get the healthcare they need. And millions of our siblings live in poverty because we also happen to live in the country with the greatest wealth inequality. We’re not crushing it, you guys.   We’re angry and lonely, anxious and scared, hurried and stressed, sad and mean. And in an unstable global environment armed with nuclear weapons and massive egos, the future is unknown.    So, if the best of what Christmas has to offer is the warm winter wonderland of fuzzy appreciation for family and friends, and a once-a-year emphasis on kindness, it’s not going to cut it.   For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!     (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)   So, also, it seems if we’re clinging to the delusion that we humans are somehow capable of righting this ship, we are not. Let’s admit it right now. We are not capable of restoring our wrongs. This world is broken, and we cannot fix it. We are hopeless. It is impossible.    But nothing is impossible for God.   And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing: O, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.    (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)   And now, something must happen that we cannot make happen. Something uncontrollable, transformative, and undeserved must break in and change things. It must be both cosmic and personal, universal and particular. We must be met here and now, by something entirely outside of ourselves that embraces our whole selves and everyone else too. We must be found.    The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee to-night.     (O Little Town of Bethlehem)   And so, a voice from the heavens announces to us – to each of us and to all of us ever –FEAR NOT!      Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!    (O Come, All Ye Faithful)   Eternity breaks into time! God comes into this life – not as a mighty force overthrowing evil, as much as we may wish that were so, but as a helpless, displaced child into the arms and care of unprepared people in a broken world.    Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed, Where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.   (Once in David’s Royal City) Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.   (Hark, the Herald Angels Sing)   God comes into this life, this darkness, this impossibility, the one we are living in right now. This, here, is what is being redeemed by love, flooded with the light no darkness can extinguish.    Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings!    (Hark, the Herald Angels Sing)   What we are incapable of achieving on our own, the life of wholeness and connection, belonging to God and all others, is given us in Christ. This world, and everyone in it, is claimed for redemption.   For lo, the days are hastening on by prophets seen of old, when with the ever-circling years shall come the time foretold  when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,  and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.  (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)    History on its inevitable course is interrupted and rerouted by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. The whole trajectory now points toward love that will never end.     A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!  (O, Holy Night)   We are not on this spinning ball alone fending for ourselves. The destruction we’ve done and keep doing is not our end. Death, in all its terrifying separation, is not the final word. God has come. There is now nowhere Christ is not actively bringing salvation. The middle of the story is messy, but conclusion has already been written. The world is God’s! The end is love!   Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men."  (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)   Christmas calls us to walk alongside each other in impossibility, to watch for God’s in-breaking. This is God’s world, and every one of us has a particular place. We will see Christ when we welcome each exquisite human being here beside us with reverent care. When we tend the complex, fascinating earth with humble wonder. When we join in God’s ongoing creativity, merciful justice, unwavering forgiveness, and potent healing, by accepting all the small moments of connection as invitations into miracle, given by God’s Spirit in our ordinary days.    So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heaven.  (O Little Town of Bethlehem)    We are loved by God, always and no matter what, here briefly to love one another.  We can’t control most of what happens around us, or even to us, but we can receive our ‘one, wild precious life’ in with the defiant delight of joy. We can live in trust, gratitude, and anticipation for what God will do next.   Let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room.   (Joy to the World!)   Christmas not a happy distraction from the pain and suffering of life and the darkness and brokenness of this world, it’s the main event. God comes into the brokenness, and through the life, death, and resurrection of God-with-us that begins right here, the world will never be the same.  Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise His holy name!       (O,Holy Night)   What we do this night is a holy act. With our glory-alleluia good news songs of great joy for all people, we take up our candles and our calling, to share again this sacred story, so that with confidence and hope, we may go out from this place into the darkness of this night, trusting that the God of light who comes in is indeed redeeming this world, and even now has met us here.   Amen.

The Lullaby Sung Over Us

A Christmas Eve Sermon in Two Parts...

Last February, our family went to visit the Holy Land. We stood in the town where Elizabeth greeted Mary and the child in her womb leapt for joy, and walked the streets where Joseph led the donkey through the darkness with his pregnant wife.  We looked up at the same sky that was filled with angels on the night Christ was born, over the very hills in Bethlehem where the shepherds were keeping sheep.  I brought back olive wood crosses for the congregation carved by people who trace their Christian ancestry back to those same shepherds, and we used them to pray with during Lent.

I say that because tonight, we cannot gather here apart from the poignant pain, violence and anguish people are suffering in the very place where Christ came into the world to bring peace to us all.  We belong to each other, all of us. All of us. And Christmas is shallow and stupid if it doesn’t have something to say to the real horrors of life, and the evil we human beings can do to one another.  

 

I have no more energy left for polite cheer, sentimental tradition and shallow “good will.”  If this all doesn’t mean something bigger and more powerful than death and destruction, then it’s just a mockery of those who are suffering, and I’d rather skip it.

 

So I want to begin tonight by saying, that it does. That what happens here, and all over the world this night, is a strange, subversive and upside-down power.  We’re here tonight to claim that God comes not with might and muscle, to destroy enemies and rule by force, but in weakness and vulnerability to be loved by we who love one another, to be killed by we who kill one another, and to take all the world’s suffering into God’s very being, so that nothing – not the worst that can happen – can separate us from love.

 

This Advent we’ve let Lullabies lead us. They’re sneaky, lullabies, unlike their gentle and sweet sound, lullabies’ power is fierce and grounding, linking us to the ancient song of joy that the universe still sings, giving shape and structure to our hope, and keeping us connected to God and each other because lullabies come from love, and trust in love, and lay over the tired beloved a blanket of love.

 

So all through Advent, we’ve been singing. We’re singing to stay connected to hope, to seek peace and justice, and to remember that this whole world and everyone in it belongs to God.  We’re singing to counter despair, cynicism, and meanness, to stay soft and open to the world that God loves, ready to be used in the service of love.  As we sing tonight, I want us not to be the one bearing the message, but the ones hearing God’s lullaby sung over us.

 Tonight we are here to receive the God who comes in. God comes into this moment. And in this moment when God comes in, we are joined together with all those who’ve gone before—from those we’ve each loved and lost, to those who lived these moments thousands ago that we’re recounting this evening, through all those in the centuries in-between, the ones who wrote these carols from the 4^th to the 19^th centuries, and all those who sang them through the world’s wars, storms, and tragedies, along with quiet and contented Christmases gone by, to all those who are singing them around the world this very day. We’re all connected, and we are all held in the love of the One whose story we this story we sing and tell tonight. 

 

So we receive that gift too, in whatever way it appears. Tears, laughter, ambivalence, silence – it’s all welcome here, as we, and they, and God, celebrate God breaking the barriers of life and death and coming into this life alongside us, with us, and for us.

 

Now, to prepare our hearts to receive, I want to turn to the carols, or, as we are hearing them tonight, the lullabies, themselves. 

 

A few years ago, when the world was feeling particularly exhausting, I was driving down the freeway with carols playing on the radio, and the line jumped out at me, “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” And I felt such longing arise in me that it brought tears to my eyes. Yes! I thought. I want this.

 

Because these songs that have been sung in the world for centuries, have become the background sound of shopping and movies, we’ve largely stopped hearing the words of truth and comfort about who God is and what God is doing. 

 

So we are going to pause a moment and prepare ourselves to really hear the words of these familiar carols. We are going to listen to the cosmic lullaby that is coming at us in many tunes tonight. 

For the next couple of minutes you’re invited to page through the bulletin with your highlighter and highlight some lines that resonate with your soul – a few messages you need particularly to hear, lines that ignite longing, or hope, hunger, or gratitude. Anything that has energy around it for you or jumps out at you, highlight it now. 

 

And then we’ll begin.

Following Lessons & Lullabies...

When our son Owen was born, the nurse handed Andy the tiny, swaddled child, red-faced and crying. Andy instinctively began bouncing him, and then spontaneously sang what was to become Daddy’s bedtime lullaby over Owen for years to come, “Owen dear, do not fear, do not fear, your Daddy’s here. You might be sad, you may be scared, but you’re not alone.

It is a fearful thing to live and one day die.  As my young nephew quipped to his mother, “I did not consent to being born.” We just begin, and one day, quite regardless of whether we consent to it or not, our earthly life will end. And from our first breaths, we already sense how precarious all this is. Even before we can say so, we already feel scared, and we feel sad, and we feel alone. 

Being human is fundamentally, existentially, terrifying.  If we’re not currently afraid, we undoubtedly have been, and we most certainly will be again. We are united in this human experience with Mary, with Joseph, with the shepherds, and the vulnerable Christ Child. With Palestinian children, and Israeli grandmothers, with Russian moms and Ukrainian dads, with all who suffer starvation and war, and all who are trapped in depression or entombed in addiction, with beloved ones whose minds and memories are slipping away, and with all those whose bodies are ravaged by illness, with those teetering on the threshold of unknown, and those grieving the loss of what was. All people, throughout all time, are, very often, afraid.  

Two thousand years ago, a child is born into a time of upheaval and strife, under the shadow of an oppressive empire, into an insecure and unstable moment, in a less than ideal delivery room far from home. Ready or not, the child comes.  His parents welcome him in pain and joy, acutely aware of their perilous circumstances.  

And what a dangerous thing it always is, bringing a child into this heartbreaking world, filling our hearts with love, and guaranteeing our lives will know loss and sorrow and so will theirs.  

Two thousand years ago, in the darkness a new mother sings a lullaby over her newborn son.  She does not know what lay ahead for him.  Shushing his cries as she bounces him in her arms, in her own mixture of wonder, exhaustion, and fear, the young mother gazes into the face of her tiny son and sings, Jesus, dear, do not fear. Do not fear, your mommy’s here. You might be scared, you may be sad, but you’re not alone.  

And in the way of human children, our God is welcomed in.

"The crux of our Christian faith is this mind-boggling story that the Almighty crept in beside us. Came into this world as a helpless baby, into the arms of those he came to save, to share this life with us, to be with us. And then Jesus dies, taking all that separates us from God, all destruction and brokenness, even death itself, into God’s very being. Then Jesus rises from the dead. And the power of death and division is shattered by the unquenchable light and incarnate love of the world. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus."

There is nothing stronger than this. No army can defeat a mother’s love for her child. No technology or weapon is stronger than the bond between true friends. There is no terrorist or demagogue, no corruption or evil, no illness or suffering, of any kind, that can stop love.  All over the world, through next door neighbors, and kindergarten teachers, and great uncles, and little sisters, and strangers reaching out to help each other, the transformative power of love leaks between the cracks, and spills over the edges, and rises up between us with healing and tenderness, and even in the midst of terrible bondage, love sets us free.   And as anyone who has lost a loved one can tell you, not even death itself ends love. Love cannot be stopped. 

While nations rage and powers shake, in every place at every moment, love is breaking through, people are sitting with one another in their suffering, celebrating with each other in their joy, listening, seeing, sacrificing, embracing, joining God right where God already is. God’s love is embodied. We are part of that love. We are held in that love. This is God’s way.  From love we came and to love we will return. And in between, when we love, we are joining in the greatest force on earth.

Like a lullaby in the darkness, love holds us fast. This doesn’t make it feel any less like darkness.  But in that darkness, the light shines.  Because into that darkness God comes.  

Do not fear! The angelic chorus proclaims over the whole world, Do not fear, your God is here! You might be scared, you may be sad, but you’re not alone!

PRAYER

Holy One, we entrust ourselves, 

those we love dearly, 

all those we belong to throughout the planet, 

and the very world itself, 

into your arms, you who holds us all in love. 

Help us receive your love and care, 

and let your love shape our living.

Attune our hearts to the infinite and unbroken lullaby, 

sung by the Spirit over all the earth, 

embodied in God-with-us. 

Amen.

Merry Christmas: God is here!

 

May your day be filled with joy and connection.

Reflection on the Christmas Story, Luke 2:1-20, 

from Rev. Kara Root and Rev Lisa Larges, shared on Christmas Eve, 2021.

Luke 2:1-7                                                                                          

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

A first century Middle Eastern home design show would be big on the open concept.  House hunters would follow a large family with their animals, looking for a place for them all to be comfortable.  The homes they would visit would all be variations on the same theme: a split level with two entrances.  It would consist of one large room, where all the life happens, with a portion of the room several feet lower than the rest, and a small set of stairs going down to it. This portion would be open to the outdoors, because of course they would want their animals to be able to comfortably crowd into it at night to bed down safely next to the family.  

 

The savvy designers of these homes ensured there was a classic manger – a dugout feeding trough in the floor of the main room near the edge where the floor dropped lower, so that a hungry cow could easily reach forward and eat.  

Then, because hospitality was so central and important, on many of these homes a guest room was built on the roof or the side of the house. The word Luke uses in our text that we’ve translated as “inn” is not the word Luke for inn later on. It’s the word meaning guest room.  Perhaps the house hunters would find or build such a home, and our show would end with the family happily settled into life in their new digs in Bethlehem.

 

A few months or years later, Mary and Joseph came to the small town of Joseph’s ancestral family.  While they were staying there in this very home, the time came for Mary to deliver her baby. Elizabeth and Zechariah did not live not far, and since Luke begins the whole story of Jesus with them, it’s not unlikely that they came too, baby John strapped to Elizabeth’s chest, to be for Mary and Joseph what Mary had been for Elizabeth in her own time. 

There was no place for them in the guest room, we’re told, or perhaps our family had selected a home that did not yet have a guest room, so right in the center of the home, Mary labored and birthed her baby and laid him in the manger.  The animals looked on.  The women of the village, the midwives and the aunties, assisted with the birth.  

 

Not apart but alongside, not beyond but within, right into the center of a world in upheaval, right into the center of a crowded room, in a peasant home teaming with life, into a neighborhood rallying to the needs of a birthing mom and an anxious dad, fetching water, offering food, neighbors clapping shoulders, sharing joy, strangers lifting voices in thanksgiving for the baby’s safe arrival, the Lord of the universe entered into this world: Jesus Christ was born.

Entering a world already in motion, interrupting narratives already unfolding, just like every child born in every time, God came in.  

 

Luke wants us to see this:, Into a hungry world comes the Bread of Life, his first bed a feeding trough. Into the chaos, with no privacy from other humans or animals, and no capacity to be treated as an honored guest, comes the Word through whom God speaks into being all order and design, life and light, animals and humans alike. 

And into a corrupt system that takes advantage of the poor, under a government that wields power personal gain, comes the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, ushering in a different kind of kingdom. An empire of kindness and belonging, justice and equity, love and forgiveness, and power through sacrifice.  And he shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.

 

Instead of turning the Almighty face away from our hunger; Jesus becomes for us the bread of life. Instead of recoiling at our dread, Jesus says Fear not, I will be with you. Instead of shunning us in our arrogance and ignorance, abandoning us to our violence and hardheartedness, God comes to us in humility and weakness, a helpless baby, needing us to show up for him and take care of him, knowing all the while we would then betray and kill him, and coming all the same.  

Instead of concocting a way for a few very good people to escape dying, God came to die alongside, with and for us all, to end the power of death over us, and give us Christ’s life of unbreakable belonging to God and each other as our own life.  

In our chaotic, unprepared, unwelcoming, unsuspecting and unjust world, God’s home is with us, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our circumstances, whatever they may be. God makes our ordinary holy; God makes our everyday sacred.  Because the first and final word is love. And by the power of God’s love this world is being redeemed. Our lives are being redeemed.                                     

 

- Pastor Kara

 

             

Luke 2:8-14                                                                                        

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 

¹⁴ ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,

   and on earth peace among humans, whom God delights in!’

 

There’s a layer of earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere. The ionosphere, for a certain little slice of human history, connected late-night romanticists and restless spirits with faraway places.

Back when radio was a thing, for the news or the weather, or the baseball game, or the latest top forty hits, or for companionship on a long road trip, there was the radio. There was FM, with its clear signal; but before FM, and then alongside it, there was AM

At night, some of the less powerful AM stations would go off the air, and a handful of bigger stations with more powerful signals would own the airwaves. After the sun went down, AM radio waves would behave differently up there in the ionosphere. They would get bounced around, and returned to earth, and be scattered far beyond their normal daytime range. And so you could, and still can, sit up late at night, and with patience and focus, slowly, incrementally, turn the tuning knob  on the AM band of any old radio. Maybe you’ll get Detroit, or Denver, or Madison. You’ll hear late night preachers, and sports talk radio, and late-night callers with their theories of how everything works. The signal, bouncing around up there in the ionosphere, will be clear for a while, and then fuzzy, and then go away altogether; but you can twist the radio dial a little to the left or a little to the right, and maybe you’ll get that station back again, or maybe another, from another town not close to here.

Shepherds, on a night that was no different than a thousand nights before or a thousand nights to follow, got tuned in to a cosmic frequency. The music of the universe, which hums at a frequency just beyond human hearing, was suddenly audible to them. The cosmic glory, which continues in a range beyond human seeing was suddenly visible to them.

God’s love and human love collided on the earth, and the realm of grace and glory was especially electric that night. It danced in the skies. It hummed and reverberated, until at last it connected. It broke through on a patch of open land on a hillside, where sheep were gathered, and shepherds watching.

Why shepherds? Was it because they were awake and watching, alert, as a habit of the work, to any anomaly? Did their work of caring and tending predispose them to the announcement of newborn love? Were they lonely out there, and did that cosmic song come as a salve to their spirits?

However it was, the song of the universe, with news of God-with-us, came to shepherds, in the middle of an ordinary night. And the signal was so strong, so clear, so persistent, that not only could they feel it, but they could hear it, and not only could they hear it, but they could see it, and not only could they see and hear it, but they understood it, and not only did they understand, but when at last the signal faded, they got up, and went searching for that source of love.

Here we are this night. And there is music in the air.

The song of the universe is singing for you. Not just here, not just this night, but always. The song of the universe sings around you.

One day, you, and I, and everyone else in this room and with us across the invisible spaces, every one of us will be taken up into that cosmic song. We will return to the song, be enfolded by it. The ground of our being is love. We have come from love, and to that love we will return.

And here, in this life, maybe, not unlike the shepherds, a few times in our life we might actually hear the song. Maybe you have heard it? Maybe there’s been that moment when the joy was so strong in you, or love was so powerful, or your very own deep longing welled up from the core of your core and suddenly you were palpably connected to a signal – a field force – a shimmering – an awareness of love and grace that is the music of the spheres.

Sometimes, some of us are just that lucky – lucky like the shepherds, to hear the music. But whether or not we ever hear it – whether or not it ever breaks through and sings in glory around us – that music, that song of love is still there. It holds us. It renews our hearts for love. It gives us strength. It is always and forever singing the good news: God is with us. God is here.

 

- Pastor Lisa

 

 

Luke 2:15-20                                                                                    

15 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.’ ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

    

                                                                                                               

In our rotation of holiday music the other day, while I was baking cookies, Go Tell It On the Mountain began to play.  Maisy said, “This isn’t a Christmas song!” and I assured her that, indeed, it was, and we paid attention to the verses, which turn out to be about the angels telling the shepherds and the shepherds telling too.  

Having been drawn into the cosmic celebration, inducted by a stunning angelic pronouncement into the growing collection of humans in on this world-changing scheme of the Divine, the shepherds rushed to share in the reality alongside those who were also experiencing it.  Just like Mary did when she went with haste to find Elizabeth and Zechariah. 

 

This is a truth that must be shared, a mystery to be treasured and pondered in our hearts, a reality to join in, a message to be told (Go tell it)

on the mountain, over hills and everywhere: 

The trajectory of the universe is shifted, 

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Because

In our dark streets shineth the everlasting light,

a light that no darkness can put out! 

The hopes and fears of all the years are met 

tonight in God-with-us,

and in his name all oppression shall cease.

God crept in beside us, 

and the soul felt its worth.

Love is born! Come share in the wonder,

Love is God now asleep in the hay.

Love is Jesus within and among us

Love is the peace our hearts are seeking.

 

So

come let us adore him!

 

So the breathless shepherds go! And they find the baby swaddled tightly in a manger, in a regular peasant home not unlike their own, his tiny black lashes resting on his soft brown cheeks as he sleeps, reminding them of their own grandsons, their own sons.  And they excitedly share what the angels told them about this child.  And all those who hear - Mary and Joseph, all those neighbors celebrating in the yard, and our proud little host family, in whose living room this miracle took place, and by whom visiting hours are graciously extended as the wee hours of the morning begin to break around them all – they were all amazed at what the shepherds told them.  And Mary treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. 

 

And just as their message changed all those who heard it, the shepherds went away changed too. They were transformed by the experience and also by the sharing of it. Altered by both the supernatural encounter with the music of the cosmos, and by the sight and smell of the baby in the feeding trough. 

Beyond the bounds of daily routine and rhythm, even beyond time and space and life and death, the shepherds eyes were lifted to a further horizon. 

By witnessing heaven leaking into earth and earth invaded by heaven, angels and strangers and God-with-us sharing in this extraordinary ordinary event together, 

their awareness was opened to the vast interconnectedness of all things. 

In praise and gratitude for all they had seen and heard, 

their hearts were turned toward God. 

 

God comes in.  Nothing stops God, nothing deters God, nothing hinders God from coming in.  God’s love and salvation are for the whole world.  

Not a perfect world, this world. Not ideal lives, these lives. 

Right now, in the midst of every single thing happening on the earth, every life, every death, every moment of joyous celebration, every cry of devastating loss, 

any and all chaos and upheaval, 

into weariness and despair, 

corruption and violence, beauty and simplicity, 

in all of it, 

God is with us. 

We are every day invited to join in the world-changing schemes of the Divine.  Because the first and final word is love. And by the power of God’s love this world is being redeemed.

 

So tonight we turn our hearts toward God, and we lift our eyes to a further horizon. Tonight our awareness is opened to the interconnectedness of all, and we are too drawn into the cosmic celebration. Christ has come.  

Glory to God in the highest heaven! And peace on earth, good will to all!

- Pastor Kara

Great Joy! (aka, Do not be afraid!)

Isaiah 9;2,6-7

Luke 2:1-20

Do not be afraid. That is the most often used phrase in the bible. Fear not! It’s what angels say every time they come to tell someone what God is up to. It’s what God tells the prophets, and tells the prophets to tell the people; it’s what Jesus says to his disciples, Don’t be afraid!

I suspect it’s the thing most often said when heaven meets earth because here on earth, it’s the thing we most need to hear.

From a human vantage point, there is a lot to fear—a lot that feels big, and scary. The world feels shaky and distressing right now.  Globally. Politically. Socially. Economically. Geo-thermally.  And that doesn’t even begin to touch the anxiety about what happens inside our own bodies, minds, hearts or homes.  Everywhere you look, it seems, there is something we could be afraid of.

And if we wanted to give in to the fear, it’s easy to do - it’s right here, tapping us on the shoulder, ready to whisper an ominous “boo” in our faces; and right now there are plenty of folks letting it in the door, pulling out a chair for it at the table, handing it the mic. 

And yet, whenever God breaks in, whenever the story of God is told in human language, the very first, and most frequent, words are, Do not be afraid!

We gather here tonight to hear again the story of God with us.  And it’s so human and haphazard, so messy and joyful, so irrational and unreasonable, it doesn’t seem like it would be a effective weapon against big, scary fear at all.

And yet, it turns out that this is the most formidable force of all. It turns out that hope, love and light joyfully and stubbornly refuse to let the darkness prevail.  God sees our scary darkness and raises us a baby, a poor, homeless, baby, born in an awkward pit stop on the road, to rookie parents in an ominous political time. From a human point of view, this is a ridiculously vulnerable and doubtful way to take on death and fear. And yet, this is how God puts his money where his mouth is on the whole Do not be afraid thing. God comes. As one of us – right into the mess of it. Right into the darkness. The fear. The shakiness and unknown.  Not to rescue us out, but to share this life with us.

God says, I will go there with you. I will bear it for you. You are not alone. Fear and darkness will not triumph. Love is the deepest reality and the final word. And here I am in person to bring it into being.

Do not be afraid! The angel tells a random bunch of baffled, ordinary shepherds. For see? I am bringing you good news of great joy! For all the people!  God is with us!  God is right here!

This week has been hard for me. The sadness, and the fear, have felt close by.  But there is something we’ve learned here together, and we keep on learning it, and at this point, I would bet everything I have and my very life on it, and it’s this:

When we stop, God meets us.

God is already here. Waiting for us to arrive in our own lives.

To pause the CNN stream with the reporter’s mouth wide open, to silence the ring and shut off the computer. To look up at the life you are in right now, the people you love right now.  To take a deep breath into your body and feel it reach all the way inside, and feel the whole entire exhale too.

God is here right now. That is never not true. 

And yesterday, right when I needed to hear it most, someone said to me:

You know what? When you look closer at fear, it diminishes. And when you look closer at hope, it increases! 

I want to look at closer at hope. I want us to watch for hope and dwell in love and let gratitude be where we make our home. I want joy to define us- irrepressible, in the midst of, nevertheless joy.  I want us to help each other remember.  To tell each other the truth.

So, sisters and brothers, here is the truth:

Horrible things happen.  There is more evil and pain and suffering than we can humanly bear.  And God sees and holds it all.  More than we ever could.

But there is also more love and peace and joy than we can even begin to fathom. And it’s everywhere. All the time. Even in the darkness and the suffering. It’s the fabric of reality, and the future toward which this whole thing is heading –the light has come, it’s permeating the whole world.

God is with us. This is the most true thing of all.

And despite having wireless, instant access to every piece of information, news story, and competing opinion about every troubling thing happening everywhere in any moment, as a human, mortal person, we are not supposed to bear the weight of all the hard and heavy things in all the world.

We are each called to live fully and joyfully this one, precious, life we’ve been given, to live in the light and let the light live through us.

Because the promise of Christmas is that God has come. In the flesh. God is here right now.  God’s light is breaking in, shining through, every place on earth, through ordinary people joining their simple, vulnerable, messy lives with the love of God-with-us, love that never stops coming in spite of, and into, everything. 

And we can actually see the God who came to be human alongside us, when we are human alongside each other.  We meet the Jesus who shares this life with us, when we share life with each other. When we carry each other’s sorrow and welcome each other’s joy, we encounter God with us, Jesus Christ, here, actually, tangibly, right now.

And so in simple, vulnerable, messy, and ordinary ways – paradoxically powerful ways like tears and laughter, hugs and arguments, listening, learning, and loving, grieving and giving, we are joyfully, defiantly, living toward the future when all fear will fade away and only love will remain. 

The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light. 

We are some of those people, you guys. That’s us.

So, beloved ones, Do not be afraid.  I am bringing you good news of great joy! For all the people! God is with us!  God is right here!

Let us rejoice!

Amen.