December 24, 2021

Luke 2: 1-20

Christmas Eve Sermon

With Luke’s nativity story, we can find ourselves immersed in the scene … a shepherd staring at the wonder lying before him … or we can feel a tinge of guilt because we have acted like the innkeeper from time to time … or maybe we’re just some passerby whose curiosity led them to stop and look in through the door …  and not quite understanding what’s in front of us.

Perhaps, we feel like Mary or Joseph … new parents who are awe-inspired by the miracle of birth and unsure what gifts their child will bring to the world … but filled with gratitude and anticipation for what is to come in their child’s life.

Tonight, Luke tells us what happened in Bethlehem … it’s a story we all know so well and we know it ultimately leads to the cross.

Luke brings a sense of the extraordinary to a very ordinary scene. God comes to us in the most common of situations … to a young couple … scrambling to make ends meet … finding themselves in the most unlikely place far from home … living their lives … having a baby.

Tonight, we find Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem … days later they will head back to Nazareth … to raise the child … watching him play with other children … maybe even soothing the pain of scrapes and bruises that children get from time to time … watching him experience the world … witnessing its inequality and injustices … all the while remembering the words of the shepherds … Mary holding them in her heart years after they were uttered.

… words that brought amazement and joy.

Joy lies at the heart of Luke’s story … joy to a weary world … a world where life is filled with uncertainty and where darkness can grip a person’s heart … a world where joy can be a rare and treasured commodity. A world where it’s normal to feel vulnerable.

Luke’s story is one about … and one for … the vulnerable among us.

God chose to come into the world as an infant … the most vulnerable, dependant and … during that time … the least likely to survive.

In the field, the shepherds are among society’s outcasts and marginalized … they too were among the vulnerable. Yet, they are the first to hear and feel the words of the angel.

The angel tells them not to be afraid … but you have to think that the shepherds are still a bit scared by what they saw and heard in that darkened pasture.

Still, they travel in from the fields to an unfamiliar place … a town where they were not welcome … to a place where they found Jesus … wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger … in a place of nourishment … a table if you prefer.

There they share the Good News they have received.

Afterward, the shepherds returned to their lives and to their community and proclaimed that love had come into the life of the world … and they proclaimed it with great joy … and all who heard it were amazed.

So, where do we see yourselves in the story this evening? Who do we connect with?

Are we the parents … loving and nurturing those around us? Are we perhaps an observer … who is trying to understand what we witnessed and experienced?

I think we are called to be the shepherds … sharing the Good News … the joy … we’ve have received and witnessed … proclaiming through our words and actions God’s unconditional and unwavering love … what we call grace.

Last Christmas Eve, we gathered in worship, sang the final hymns outside on the patio and then the church closed its doors and we gathered online for nine months. Tonight, feels sadly reminiscent of that night.

After this service, we’ll not gather in-person again for a bit. It will be at least a month … or perhaps longer.

The final hymn we sing at this gathering … Joy to the World … should serve to direct our hearts in our relationships with one another and the world during the coming days whether we gather in-person or virtually.

This joy comes from the knowledge that God is with us … the name Emmanuel means that … we need to remember that the birth in Bethlehem so long ago … the birth that ultimately brought us grace … brings us joy, as well.

A love-filled joy that we are called to share not just during this season, but each day.

God’s love is not confined by brick and mortar … the joy offered by a love-filled heart can’t be confined … it is life-changing … it’s world-changing … it’s joyous. It takes us … calls us … to a place beyond the boundaries we have set for ourselves … it takes us to places where … like the shepherds … we can be surprised and overwhelmed by love.

God’s love overwhelms the past and opens the future to us … it calls us to do a new thing … to quote Isaiah.

Tonight, the twilight that has enshrouded our hearts loosens its grip … the light that comes into the world … and into our hearts … pushes back the threatening and uncertain darkness.

We are called to be a joyous people … so in this time of great joy … we should allow ourselves to embrace and embody it … and in that joy find peace for ourselves and for those whose lives we touch.

God’s grace, peace, blessings and joy be with you this day and all your days.

AMEN