Christmas Eve 2015

Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1—20

Christ the Savior is born on a Silent, Holy night. For most of us, probably, this is a familiar story. A comfortable one about the Son of God, love’s pure light, sleeping in heavenly peace on the night of his birth. (Though, as a parent of a toddler, I’m really suspicious of silent, heavenly peace when it comes from a child.)

But I’m also really attracted to the story of a peaceful, serene night, when Mary and Joseph and these other strangers that get wrapped up into the Christmas story must have all known in that moment that everything was going to be OK. Destructive toddlers aside, I have had the experience of holding newborns and knowing that at least this part of the world is good and pure and wonderful. As a pastor, I get the privilege of holding babies at their baptism. It has a way of fixing your perspective on just about anything.

The beauty and serenity of the Silent Night almost makes you wish we didn’t have to read the actual Gospel that we just read because the words that are in it also remind us of the parts of life that are not so serene.

Just two verses into the Christmas story in Luke and we get:

“This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” (Luke 2:2 NRSV)

Why, year after year, do we have to read about some governor whose name nobody can pronounce, and that nobody even cares about, and why, this year, do we have to hear about Syria…a country that has been in the news a lot recently? Syria is a place that, for us, is mostly associated with terrorists, with beheadings, with war. Wouldn’t it be easier just to skip that part — to just have one night that we don’t have to talk about stuff like that?

I mean…it’s Christmas Eve! We’re in church! Christ the Savior is born! For Christmas’ sake, can’t we skip that stuff?

I want a Silent Night…but the text of the Gospel gets real. It talks about politicians. It talks about places where there has been, and still is, unrest. Of all places, it talks about Syria, from which today millions of people are fleeing as refugees.

Luke’s Good News story also mentions Augustus, the Roman emperor at the time. Because the late Julius Caesar was considered a god of Rome and because Augustus had been adopted by him, he actually called himself the ‘Son of God.’ As emperor, he was portrayed as a deity. This is who was leading the world at the time — a man who thought he was a god. It’s no accident that our beautiful Gospel story lists the emperor by name right at the very beginning — he was very much a part of the real world when this took place.

And believe it or not, this is where we begin to find the Good News for us. Because just like Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, we, also, live in the real world. Even though it would be really nice tonight to pretend that all the challenges of our world didn’t exist, it would be just that: pretend.

Of course the Christmas story is about a God of joy and peace and hope. About newborns and gifts and laughter. But the Christmas story is also about the real world. We also need a God that helps us deal with cancer, depression, losing a job, getting a divorce.

When the world gets real, we need a God that does, too. The Christmas story is about God getting real. This story is about God breaking through the barrier between what is and what should be and entering the real world in the last place we’d expect but maybe the only way we could ever understand…as a child.

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One of the weird things about the Christmas story — maybe the most weird thing — is how specific it is. Do you ever think about that? That, of all the times and places to get real, God chose the Ancient Middle East — that particular time and place — to do it.

Because our culture is so different from the one that Jesus was born into, it seems weirder and weirder that we still tell this story about the savior of the world being born in what was a mostly boring town of Bethlehem in what is now modern day Palestine. It could almost seem embarrassing that Jesus came to that one particular time. But hear these words of the Gospel:

“… the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2.10–11 NRSV)

God’s love for all the world begins with love for its specifics. God doesn’t love ‘everyone’…God loves each one. God doesn’t love you ‘in general’…God loves you specifically.

This truth becomes challenging for us even to imagine because it means that God loves each person with that radical particularity — whether we have the heart for it or not. We are called to share what we have and to share God’s concern for each of these neighbors…even ones we don’t want to have to care about.

God loves each person that we see struggling in the world. God loves each refugee fleeing violence and poverty in today’s Syria. And most challenging of all…God also loves the people chasing them.

It’s one thing to say that God loves our enemies and other to say that God loves our specific enemies.

That’s hard. In other words, God doesn’t just ‘love your enemies’…God loves your Aunt Lindsay who always has to ruin your family get-togethers with her drama. And God loves your boss Michael who’s always nitpicking your grammar. God even loves your least favorite presidential candidate. God specifically loves the people that want to bring you harm.

It messes with us that God loves those people, so specifically. But it also means that God specifically loves…you, too.

God loves you in particular. In your time and place. Since the day that you were born. (Even if you weren’t born in a manger.) Your particular strengths and gifts. Your particular quirks. You, in particular.

This is the good news of great joy for you, me, and our whole world; this is news that, when you hear it, you’ll just know in that moment that everything really is going to be okay:

To you — yes, you! — is born this day — today, now — in your life — in your household — a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.