Christmas Eve 2014

From heav’n above to earth I come
to bear good news to ev’ry home!
Glad tidings of great joy I bring
to all the world, and gladly sing:

Those are the words of a beautiful Christmas hymn now some 500 years old. There are 13 more stanzas, too, but I’ll spare you from most of them. The hymn begins with the voice of the angel that told this Good News to the shepherds out in the fields.

By now, most of us have heard this story many times. Of course, there are children among us for whom this is a new story, and there are others among us who have lived through dozens and dozens of Christmases. And, this year alone, some of us have been preparing for the Christmas season since October… a full quarter of the year. So, by the time we’ve reached this point, it almost seems normal or expected that this news comes to us from Heaven above.

After all, we’ve put together all the pieces of the manger scene ahead of time. We’ve carefully arranged the Mary piece, surrounded by the Joseph piece, the angel piece (maybe above), and all those interesting animal pieces (some of them historically appropriate and some of them just because we like those particular animals.) Maybe you have the Wise Men out already, or maybe you are waiting for Epiphany to be more biblically accurate… and now, tonight, we get to place the baby Jesus into the scene: right where we’ve made room for him, probably right where he was last year, you know, just the way it should be. To celebrate the Good News of the birth of Christ, that we know so well.

But on that first night, those shepherds in the fields never saw it coming. For them, the whole Christmas story was unknown, unplanned, shocking — and — when they first heard it, terrifying.

On the night the angel announced to them glad tidings of great joy, the shepherds were right in the middle of doing their job. And, not an easy job either. While most ‘normal’ folks were safe and warm at night in their homes, the shepherds worked out in the open. This put not only them in danger, but their whole family, back home alone at night, in danger, too. You’d think most people would cut the shepherds some slack since this was, you know, their job, but actually, a lot of people looked down on the shepherds since they didn’t have a ‘normal life.’ Whatever that actually is.

So, surrounded by people and an environment that wanted to hurt the poor shepherds and their sheep, you can imagine that a strange angel, (or ‘strangel’, I guess?) approaching them out of the darkness had the shepherds feeling defensive and scared.

But the message the angel brought was something different… the angel told the shepherds not to be afraid. The angel told the shepherds that their savior was being born right in the middle of everything, interrupting the everyday fear of life with the news of everyday joy of life.

I wonder, can we hear the Good News in the same way the shepherds first did? Not as a given, not as the next part of our regular programming, but can we hear it fresh and unexpected. Can we hear it as it was read aloud this evening: right in the middle of everything.

As if to say: “We now interrupt our regular programming for a Word from God.”

Now, maybe you like your regular programming, maybe you’ve found some comfort in your life, and you don’t particularly want to change it up. Or maybe, you don’t like your regular programming…maybe you feel a bit like the shepherds — that you don’t have a ‘normal life,’ that you have things you aren’t proud of, or things you wish were different, pain you carry from childhood, or new pain. And so you might feel a little defensive, and a little scared to have an angel, or God, or anyone else show up right in the middle of your life, announced.

When the shepherds had their God moment right in the middle of life, they were initially scared. Maybe they had learned to live with their fear. Maybe it was their ‘normal.’

But what the Christmas news did to them, and what it can do to us, too, is to turn our fear into joy. It announces that God is showing up right into the middle of our fear. Right into the middle of our everyday lives — and giving us everyday joy. News that God loves us not just on special days, or in special places, or when we’ve arranged our lives into perfect manger scenes — but that God loves us by showing up right in the middle of whatever we’ve got going on. That God doesn’t stay ‘in Heaven above’ but comes down and is born into blood, and sweat, and tears, and emotions, and pain, and shame, and even death, and says there is news of joy here. In this life, in this world.

Ah, dearest Jesus, holy child,
prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,
a quiet chamber in my heart,
that you and I may never part.

This is what we celebrate at Christmas: fear turned into joy. Tonight, people of different ages, from different places, with different experiences, all gather to prepare a place in their hearts. All huddle in the dark to see this light that gives hope. Hope that shows us that, despite our differences, God is here: in our world; right in the middle of our lives.

Turning our fear into joy.

I say ‘our’ because something — whether it was family, or tradition, or the need to hear and sing a word of hope — something has drawn us here tonight so our fear can turn to joy. But we also know that there are many others who are longing to hear Good News of some kind, but won’t find themselves in a church tonight, and won’t find themselves singing these hymns of joy surrounded by others, because they are right in the middle of something else going on. But now we know that is exactly where God loves to find us.

My heart for very joy now leaps;
my voice no longer silence keeps;
I too must sing with joyful tongue
the sweetest ancient cradle-song:

Once the shepherds followed the angel’s directions and found the baby Jesus, savior of the nations, lying in a lowly manger, they knew that not only was the Good News of Joy true, but that it was true for them. For their not-quite-normal lives. That it was joy for their stories, for their families, for their pains. It was joy that found its way right to the middle of their own hearts.

And once God’s joy has broken into the middle of our life, we share it like the shepherds.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

On their way home from Bethlehem, the shepherds must have encountered many others who were in the middle of their lives. Many others who also knew what it was to live with every day fear. And that’s right where the shepherds would be able to tell them of the good news that God finds us right where we are and turns our fear to joy.

As we leave from here, we’ll no doubt encounter folks in the middle of their lives. We’ll run into people who feel a little defensive about their not-quite-normal lives, whether they care to admit it or not. We’ll find ourselves in the middle of something that causes us fear and aggravation.

And all we can do is share the Good News that God’s love for us shows up not when we’ve accomplished perfection, not when we’ve organized our details correctly, not when we’ve had perfect church attendance, but right in the middle of whatever is going on in our lives. And there, there God loves us.

From heav’n above to earth he comes
to bear good news to ev’ry home!
Glad tidings of great joy he brings
to all the world, we gladly sing.