Lessons:
Christmas brings us joy, but is anyone else tired right now? The demands of visiting, travel, and gift-giving associated with Christmas, combined with the ordinary obligations of life, can drain the wonder and meaning from the season and leave you weary. Christmas Day may start to feel like a race with a finish line rather than the beginning of a feast. And yet – some of you know this, because Epicopalians like that they celebrate this way – the season of Christmas in the Church actually begins on Christmas Day and runs for twelve days, up to the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6.
Christmas is hard.
“Making time for God” feels like one more exhausting thing on our to-do list that we’re gonna fail at. But here you are. And here we all are. I’m going to quote my current favorite Christmas song a lot in this sermon. Like O holy night says, truly he taught us to love one another, his law is love and his gospel is peace.
As Rev. Laura Jean Truman says, “This is the season of God becoming vulnerable.”
A tiny baby – not one that just makes his parents and aunties happy, but that brings a new light into the life of everyone on the earth. This one special human being was sent to give us a glimpse of God, a glimpse of what God is like and what God sees, and a glimpse of ourselves from the point of view of God.
There’s a lot of part s of having faith that seems like it’s out of our control, and sometimes it even feels like we don’t have a say in what is happening. if I say yes to God’s plan for my life, does that mean I’m still me? If my sins are erased, what’s actually left? Do I have a personality? Monastic communities, and even ordained people in our church, take vows of obedience and agree to submit to Christ, and to the church. What if…now, go with me here, what if God becoming fully human in Jesus and being fully vulnerable, is God’s way of having faith in us? Of submitting to us? God wants to work with us, and to live with us, and to die with us. As Rachel Held Evans says, God stoops.
And as Rev. Jes Kast says, I love the thought of human God so much.
The one whose heart hurt. Who got splinters in his hands when he was working as a carpenter. The one who had crushes. The one who needed hugs as much as I do.”
When God becomes Jesus, God is asking us to stand beside Jesus, as Jesus stands beside us. And oh what light reflects on us from standing by Jesus Christ! When we stand by him, so something of that light also reflects from us. Then we can turn to the world and, we bring light in places and situations of darkness. And ever since the first disciples, that light of Christ has traveled near and far, around our world, been passed on and magnified. Where the light of Christ shines with truth and honesty, it has brought healing out of brokenness, hope out of despair, peace out of hatred, and joy out of sorrow.
In the Nicene Creed we say: God from God, Light from light
Jesus’ light is the search-light cutting through the night sky.
Jesus’ light is the candlelight burning gently in the room where you let down your guard with someone you love.
Jesus’ light is the light of the stars under which we dream of a better society built on a common good where all may flourish.
Jesus’ light is the Northern Lights that dance in the sky and allow us to wonder at God’s creation.
And Jesus’ light is the beam of a lighthouse, so we know where we are and where we are going in a world with many dangers.
When you stand with Jesus, and see the light, what light does that shine in the darkness of our world?
Back to the hymn O holy night: Til he appeared at the soul felt its worth. What does it look like when a soul feels its worth?
When I was trying to answer that question, in preparation for talking to you all here today, I kept thinking of Harriet Tubman. What a great example to us of how to live a life bravely, no matter what everyone else is doing. She followed a star, it led her to freedom, and she believed that she had a right to be treated with dignity and respect, on the same level as any other person, right? Absolutely. What she believed about her soul and its worth, seems to me exactly like what God is showing us through Jesus. We’re lucky enough to have some words from her that remain through time, telling us what she thought about her first journey after walking about 90 miles in the cover of darkness, what crossed her mind when she stepped across the Mason Dixon line, which separated the slave states from the free states as the sun rose “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven” And then when she was safe, she did the unthinkable. She went back. Back into the slave states to free her brothers, her sisters, her mother, her father and her friends.
As I said when I began speaking, today is the beginning of Christmas. And, maybe that’s actually a great thing, because you already bought all the presents, and did all the stuff that society expects you to do on Christmas. A lot of other people consider today to be the end of Christmas. But now, with all that out of the way, you can focus on Christmas. Between now and Epiphany, I invite you to have, well, an epiphany. As you stand in the darkness and behold the light of Jesus, what does it mean to you? What does it call you to do, or to be? What are the things you can do, because God is with you, vulnerable, like a tiny baby, and ready to lighten the world with you? You can weave the old stories of the gospel into something new this year, as you go. Jesus did it. Mary did it. You are just as wondrous as them. So, Now you.
Again, O Holy Night: A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.