Christmas Eve Luke's Christmas Gospel December 24, 2005
Let me ask you a simple question. How many times have you heard the story that we just read from Luke’s gospel? How many times have you heard the story about the shepherds in the field watching over their flocks by night, when suddenly comes an angel and the heavenly host proclaiming good news for the whole world in Bethlehem. The shepherds go to Bethlehem and find Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus lying in the manger, as the animals look to see who has invaded their feeding trough.
How many times have you heard that story, or gazed fondly at a Christmas cresh ? It’s been portrayed on Christmas cards, in pictures on television, in magazines. It’s a warm, tender image, isn’t it? It a lot like the swaddling clothes, the cuddly bands of cloth in which Jesus was wrapped. Christmas is like that for me, and I assume for you, as well. Christmas is a time for Christmas lights that adorn our neighborhoods to shine just when winter gives us the shortest days of the year. It’s a time to go back to my childhood, and recall the warmth of my family. I’m sure you have your own fond memories, too.
As for me I can still smell the roasted chesnuts. Shoppers who go Christmas shopping in New York smell them on every corner, and buy some from the street vendors. Even where is seldom snows, like Texas, people dream of a white Christmas, and the song that has sold more copies than any other song in the world. These are a few of the Christmas images that we treasure and hold dear, that we wrap around ourselves every Christmas. They help us feel the comfort and joy of Christmas, year after year after year. I venture to say that no matter how old we are, how forward thinking or progressive we may be as Christians, most all of us turn into traditionalists. If you are like me, we are absolute sentimentalists whenever the Christmas holiday season. I don't want my Christmas to ever change. I don't want to ever stop hearing this story in Luke. I never want to stop seeing that image of the baby Jesus in the manger. I want to feel that again and again and again. It is so comforting to me. I never ever, ever, want my Christmas to change. But then, a wave comes over me, like steeping into a cold shower. The nativity story itself shows me the great irony of our faith. Just when we to hold on to the sentiment of the old time Christmas, the story in Luke’s gospel is tells us that the moment of Jesus birth was the greatest change God could make in all of human history. Once Jesus is born, God enters into history and nothing is ever the same again.
Jesus showed us God’s heart and love in ways that changed people. He changed sick people and healed them. He changed common fishermen like Peter, James and John into men who would fish for people with the news that they had heard and seen God messiah tell them the kingdom of had arrived. He changed the heart of a Roman tax collector name Matthew who spent his life ripping people off into a man who gave water to the thirst, food to the hungry, and shelter to the homeless. He made his shameful execution the place where he assumed God’s throne of glory. the He changed women like Mary Magdaline who the world regarded as nothing, and she became on of the first people to hear that he rose from the dead. His own mother, Mary, was a simple peasant girl, and God’s angel called blessed among all women as she became the mother of God’s Son. As soon as she heard the news, she knew that God’s promise was true. God had come to send the rich away empty, and fill the hungry with good things.
In that time in history, the Romans made war and occupied Jerusalem. They killed anyone who threatened their power. Their government allowed the poor to starve, women and children were considered like objects men owned. Jesus came as the prince of peace to restore Israel and make a new Jerusalem, God’s Holy city. The first Christmas was the beginning of the biggest change the world had ever seen because Jesus was born.
Let Christmas be a reminder that Jesus still lives, and he will come again to rule the heart and the earth. Let us wait of the second Christmas, when Jesus returns to claim the kingdom God he has already begun. Let Christmas allow Jesus to be born in us. Let us be pregnant with expectation that the baby will soon be born again, this time to rule the world forever!
I say to you, do not let our sentimentality for this Christmas season hold us back the other 364 days of a year. Do not let the walls of our Christmas traditions to hold back the change that will come when Jesus comes again. Do not be fearful when the things that we do in the church and the things that the church does in the world around it suddenly seem to be different. Let us proclaim God’s peace in our families, and in our community.
So what do I suggest that you do this Christmas? What do I suggest that you do to celebrate this wonderful moment of change in your life? I suggest that you wrap yourselves in all the traditions of Christmas, like I'm going to do. That you once again enjoy those visions of angels and shepherds and the manger and the baby in the straw and the animals and Mary and Joseph and keep it exactly the way it's always been for you.
Just for this one day, let it be comforting, traditional, familiar and warm. Simply celebrate the incarnation, God’s nativity. Let us sit together in God’s holy peace, and remember the sounds of angelic voices drifting through a starry, cold night. Let the Holy Spirit work in and through your hearts, minds and soul this Christmastide. See the glory of God shining tonight.
But in the days ahead, be ready to go out in our own incarnation and use our gifts to work for change for the glory of God's name. God ut into the dark places of sickness, hunger, broken families, death and war, armed with the full promise of Christmas. Amen
Amen!