A
blessed, joyful, peaceful, hopeful, loving, Christmas to you!
We’ve been waiting and preparing for
this night, this holy night, when the Christ-child is born again. It comes every year, and we repeat this
traditional cycle, of Advent, of anticipation, to be reminded, again, of the
mystery of God with us. Of Emmanuel.
Many of us bustle around, creating
lists, shopping, crafting, wrapping, decorating, baking and cooking, anxiously
waiting for this night, for tomorrow morning, for this Christmas season, to
share at this special time, gifts. Gifts
purchased, gifts made, gifts found within us.
We wait for this holy time of the year
to vividly, extravagantly, beautifully, perhaps raucously and loudly express to
one another what it is we believe God is expressing to us: Love.
Love comes in many packages. We wrap it up, tie a ribbon around it and pop
a bow on it this time of the year, hoping that with it, others will know of our
affection and devotion to our relationships with them and with others. Some can give much and others little. Some of us may not be very good with the wrapping
and need to be reminded or to remind others that “it’s what’s inside that
counts.”
We say it with stuff or with meals or
with donations to worthy causes. We say
it with promises, actions, travel and time.
We say it with cards and annual letters, phone calls, Facebook messages
and texts. And we look for all these
things, too, because all of us—the givers and the receivers—want to know that we
are thought of, respected, loved.
So we wait for this time of the year,
these 12 days of the Holy Christmas season, to share the love, to express our
love, to receive the love of others. And
while it might energize and excite us, I bet many of you are tired and weary
because the preparation, the anticipation has exhausted you.
So let’s take a moment and just stop. Let’s be quiet with one another. Listen to your breath. Focus on a candle flame. Listen to the gift of peace.
Here you are, tired after a long day,
maybe you are full after a special, traditional meal. You are here because this is where it all
began, where love began, and here is where we are reminded of the stories of
hope that are found with this miraculous birth.
A birth that reminds us that God loved all of creation so much, that God
longed for a deeper relationship with humanity so much, that God sent Jesus to
live among us.
This birth of a Jewish baby boy was
the greatest gift wrapped in the unlikeliest
package: the womb of an unwed
teenager, a maiden, Mary, promised with a dowry to marry the carpenter,
Joseph. The times were frightening. The birth of a King predicted to overthrow
the tyrannical governmental structures caused a census to be taken, counting
every man, taking inventory of who could change the political course.
We know, looking back, that the Jews,
the chosen people of God, were hoping for this kind of powerful leader to
emerge from their ranks. They hoped
someone could change the course of the politic and create a fairer and safer
place for them to live. They hoped for a
savior who would transform the way of the world.
Even they could not predict that who
was chosen for this transformation would not be what they expected. Even they would not understand that to turn
the ways of the world upside down could not, would not, come from a seat of
political power.
No.
The world could only be upended by God.
The world can only be changed when we learn and live with God. When we know God’s love, when we live out
God’s love. When we love God. Because when
we love God, we also and especially must love one another.
We celebrate what we Christians
believe is God’s ultimate gift of love tonight.
We celebrate the birth of Jesus.
We remember that the angels came and sang their “Alleluias!” into the
sky and it was the shepherds who first heard and responded. They came, dirty and smelly, to where Jesus
laid, to meet this child in the most unlikely of places. They met love there.
We meet love here, in the memory, in
the stories and the hymns of this amazing birth. We, who, over 2000 years later, still seek a Savior,
still seek change, still seek to be transformed. We seek to know the love embodied in this
babe.
Many of us are parents and we know
that the birth of a child changes nearly everything in our lives. Well, the birth of this child, changed the
world and continues to change the world.
Knowing Jesus as a baby is just the
beginning. Following the example of his
life gives us the blueprint for transforming the world, one heart at a
time.
It’s all about love, and as our
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry likes to say, “If it’s not about love, it’s not
about God.”
Love came down that night, but love
didn’t stop there. Jesus showed us,
throughout his time on this Earth, how to make love never end.
How?
When we love God, when we know the teachings of Jesus and we walk
through life living the examples, as Jesus Followers, in other words, living as
Jesus taught us—by caring for the lost, the lonely, the sick, the dying, by
seeing all others, even those we do not know or understand or who we may fear—when
we see them as beloved children of God—we, too, can transform the world with
God’s love.
Remember, it doesn’t matter much what
the package looks like. It’s what’s inside, it’s what’s inside YOU that counts. So…love God.
Love your neighbor. Shine the
Light of Jesus and transform the world.
Amen.