God completely With Us

  

Luke 2:1-20

Would it be utterly tactless to admit on Christmas Eve that I am a teensy bit sick of Christmas? For the past month the soundtrack in our house, and car, and on vacation, and during dinner, has been Christmas classics. And while Bing and Ella and Frank and Mariah and are great, there’s a point when it all turns stale. 

 

And because Christmas classics are playing all the time, we’ve naturally had many conversations picking apart the origins and meaning of everything from the culturally shifting read of “Baby, it’s cold outside,” to the weirdly morbid lyrics of “Frosty the Snowman,” to the sketchy relationship dynamics in “last Christmas I gave you my heart but the very next day you gave it away” to the debatably patronizing misunderstanding in “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.”  Interspersed among these empty, sugary treats are the delicious and filling songs we’re singing here tonight, telling a story of mystery and wonder, of love and joy. But it’s all mixed up together, the deep and the stupid, and it’s relentless. 

 

But I am not here to rail against the commercialization of Christmas, which I happily join in every year. Instead, I want to invite us into that story of mystery and wonder by being here in the presence of God and each other.

 

The truth is, I am not really sick of Christmas, so much as I am craving to know the truth of it, to feel the real of it, to be drawn back to the hope of it. I want to peel back the shiny paper and see Christmas for what it is, not a dreamy, cheery, fix-everything event that makes us feel all warm and cozy and ends all strife and strain. 

 

The birth of Christ is untidy and uncomfortable, and at least here, tonight, we need not pretend it’s anything else. The actual Christmas moment is just like the rest of life: it’s awkward and messy, tiring and scary, a little exciting, a little confusing.  

 

And that’s how God wanted it. God wanted to be human, so God came human -  vulnerable, needy, loveable and infuriating – to humans, into the arms of ordinary, conflicted people struggling to do the right thing and wondering even what that is.  

 

God trusted ordinary people to welcome him in and care for him like one of our own. Love came in to be loved. This is the beginning of the story of Jesus Christ, and it’s the new beginning for the whole earth and everyone in it.   

 

God chooses to be with us, as we are, in this life, as it is.  And so this Christmas, like every day, our sadness is as welcome as our happiness, our anger is a gift that points us to truth, and no matter what we do, even when we lose sight of what’s real and bury it in layers of false cheer, even when we hurt others or ourselves, even when we’re drowning in regret, desperate for forgiveness, or numb with fatigue, nothing can separate us from the love of God, who heals what’s sick and mends what’s broken and welcomes home what’s lost.  

 

This little baby Jesus will die, that guaranteed when he draws his first human breath and cries his first tiny tear. God takes all suffering and death into God’s own self. Addiction, estrangement, illness, pain, injustice, cruelty and loneliness, there is nothing God does not bear with us, nothing can be greater than divine love coming in. The cross is there, in the manger. So is the empty tomb, so that, even now as we celebrate his birth, we can say with confidence, No death, no matter how big or small, gets to define who we are, or decide where all this is going. In Christ Jesus, we are forgiven, connected and made whole. You and I, the earth and everything in it, this whole story from beginning to end, belongs to God. 

 

No wonder the angels busted the sky open with joy, and the shepherds’ fervent words caused awe and amazement in all who heard them, and Mary eternally ponders these things in her heart.  

 

God took on flesh and God crept in beside us. Suddenly the ordinary is miraculous. This human living, astonishing. Every breath we take, a gift.  Bodies that grow, and learn, and smell, and taste, and sweat, and break down and need tending, minds that solve complex problems, imaginations that conceive breathtaking art, hearts that discover little ways to make each other laugh, and uncover just what will comfort another, all of it, miraculous. All things God is utterly delighted by. All things God wanted to know from the inside. 

 

Christmas invites us to be present, then.  Not to have answers, or have it all together, or to be cheerful or even introspective. Simply to receive the presence of God, right here, in these ordinary, miraculous lives we’re given, and to receive these lives too, with all our limitations and misdirections and all our mystery and wonder, love and joy, our beloved, holy, ordinary lives as conflicted people struggling to do the right thing and wondering even what that is, called to be here in this gorgeous world God is always making new.

 

And honestly, God loves us so much, I think God probably finds it cute when we make such a big, fancy, obnoxious to-do out of stuff, inevitably mixing up together the deep and the stupid,even so much that we sometimes lose sight of the treasure underneath. No matter, because when this turbo-charged season ends we remain forever inside the story of Christmas, of God-with-us nevertheless, fully, always leading everything eternally toward life and love.  

 

Amen.

The Lord is Come! (Aka, God's non-compliance)

To use this as a take-home service for Christmas Day, follow the red.

Isaiah 9:2-7 

Luke 2:1-20, Matthew 1:18-25

John 1:1-5

I have a stupid tree this year. It looked so great at the lot, the guy held it up and it was glorious and full, the perfect tree. We debated between two, and finally chose this one for being even more perfect than the other one.

But we got it home, and it turns out it doesn’t sit right in the tree stand. It has this thick branch too low down but hacking it off would leave a huge bald spot on the bottom so we left it on. And it was too tall, so we had to saw off the tip of the top with a meat knife and jam the star on the sticky, prickly nubs.  The lights just didn’t go on well; they are clumped in some parts and missing in others, and a few days after its arrival it became the setting of an epic stuffed animal battle so there are bent branches and still the occasional stuffed dog or hamster forgotten deep in the branches. But even if all these things were fixed, it turns out that the trunk itself has a weird bend in it, so it leans dramatically to the side no matter how much time we spend rearranging it, and we’ve spent far too much time rearranging it.

Usually this time of year I love getting up in the early morning and turning on the tree. I will sit by the fireplace, the room lit by the tree’s soft glow, and feel peaceful and hopeful.  This year I wake up and sit with my coffee glaring at this belligerent mess, brazenly slouching against my wall like it’s trying to pick a fight. I wanted to love this tree, even ironically, but I can’t muster anything but irritation for it.  It is not cooperating with my plans.

Apparently I expect Christmas to make me feel cozy, sentimental and serene. But to be honest, I’m not sure Christmas can take the pressure this year. And my tree leans defiantly in my constant sightline as an irksome reminder that things are not quite right.

Today people are going to sit around not quite perfect trees, eating not quite perfect food, opening not quite perfect gifts, having not quite perfect conversations.  And between the joyful moments of laughter and connection, for lots of reasons, lots of people will also be feeling mixed up, anxious, and sad, and then they’ll chide themselves for not being in “the Christmas spirit,” even though the weather isn’t really in the Christmas spirit either.

Christmas is not cooperating with our plans for it.

But guess what? Neither does the first Christmas, actually. 

And neither does God, almost never, in fact.

So let’s step out of a shallow dependence on holiday cheer, and into a different story, one that has very little to do with a jolly version of Christmas contentment -  God’s story of deep darkness pierced by unquenchable light, of expectations thwarted and salvation glimpsed, of love born into in a tense and weary world.

Read Isaiah 9:2-7 

Read "When the World was Dark"

Write on a bit of paper, Where do I want God to come in?  Collect and set aside.

(Read Luke 1:26-38)

We all belong to God, and we all belong to each other. This isn’t trite and shallow: a plea to “just be nice,” or a campaign slogan lying in a muddy puddle under people’s departing feet.

It is the very lifeblood of it all. 

And it looks like this: Mary, Don’t be afraid; You belong to God.  So does the whole world and everyone in it.  Because this is so, God is coming to share life with us, to set us free from everything that tells us otherwise.  And you, Mary, are going to be part of this.  Don’t worry about how it will happen; it will break every rule, because God loves to do impossible things. And because belonging to God means we belong to each other, you wont be alone  - even now, in fact, your impossibly old and undeniably pregnant relative is part of this too.

(Read Matthew 1:18-25)

And then there is Regular Joseph with his regular life, comfortably stretched out before him, predictable and planned, now suddenly shattered.  She is not mine after all, and I am not to be hers. Dear, brokenhearted Joseph, resolving to quietly, in the least harmful way, sever ties, pick up the pieces and start over. 

Don’t be afraid, Joseph. Don’t be afraid to belong to her. God is coming share life with us, to set us free from everything that divides us from God and each other. And you, Joseph, are going to be part of this. God will come as a helpless baby in need of belonging, and you are to love him as your own son.

(Read Luke 2:1-7)

A hugely pregnant Mary and a stressed out, worried Joseph make the trek to Bethlehem, one little, inconsequential family among the masses, traveling under orders of a powerful empire that dominates the people’s lives.  But when God’s celestial army assembles, instead of wiping out the oppressive enemy in the blink of an eye, it forms a giant choir, and belts out God’s persistent, undermining promise of peace on the whole earth to all who belong to God and each other, into the stunned and terrified faces of simple shepherds in a nowhere place. Don’t be afraid, the angels will joyfully holler. You are going to be part of this too! Go and see!

God doesn’t play by the same rules as you and I do. The world wants strength; God comes in weakness. The world values status and power, God chooses the ordinary and unnoticed.  The world praises shiny and slick, God prefers broken and real.  God chose to come in scandal and shame instead of honor and admiration.

Nobody in the Christmas story got to keep their armor. Their illusions about where their strength or purpose or value or identity come from have to die, because really belonging to each other means that all that separates me from God and from others has to die in me. It means all that buries my true self and yours, all that makes me feel like I have to earn my esteem or defend my worth, and all my reliance on things in the world to guarantee me security and stability, that dies.  It all gets taken away to make way for the real. Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Shepherds, Magi, all of them get reduced to their simple humanity before they are brought into the Kingdom of God with the words, Now Don’t be afraid!

(Read Luke 2:8-20)

A different story is unfolding, even now, within and through your life, this life, this world. In this reality, everything seems upside down; shepherds become preachers and virgins are mothers, and in a dark and smelly stable, with no doctor or place for them in the inn, the God of the universe lays aside invincibility to be born as a defenseless human baby.

  

The Kingdom of God is here, grown up Jesus will later say, It’s right here. Among us, within us, between us. Hidden and backwards, it comes in weakness, asking us to let go of all that we use to protect ourselves from our most basic humanity and divide us from each other. God’s Kingdom is seen when we step out of our strength and stand with someone else in their brokenness. When we name our own brokenness and need and let someone stand with us. That’s where Jesus already is, already has been, always will be. That’s where we can feel that primal and permanent belonging, to God and to each other, that we were made for and are returning to.

Sometimes we call it love.  And nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Darkness is real, but Love is the deepest reality and the final word.

(Take out the papers you wrote at the beginning. Read them one at a time, For each one, say, "God is with us in this."  Or, "Into ______ God has come.  Response: God is with us.")

Right into the very mess of it, God comes. 

Into a tense and weary world braced for worse, God comes, thwarting expectations and upsetting plans, threatening power with undermining peace, and piercing the darkness with unquenchable light. 

This is the story you belong to. 

Now, don’t be afraid.

Amen.