"To you is born"-Sermon for Christmas Eve, Luke 2:1-14:
Twenty-nine years ago, this very night, I was participating in my very first Christmas Eve service, not as a member of the congregation, but sitting up front as a newly minted youth minister at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston. And, I will never forget the story the Rector, the head priest at St. Martin’s named Larry Gipson, told that holy night at the very beginning of his Christmas Eve sermon. The story begins on a Christmas Eve morning in Chicago some years before. A husband and wife, Bill and Susan, were doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. They had one last gift to buy. They were looking for a handbag for Susan’s mother. They stopped at Saks Fifth Avenue, which is located on a very busy, downtown street in Chicago. They felt sure that they would find just the right bag there. And, along on the shopping trip with Bill and Susan, were there two young children. Elizabeth who was about seven and John who was about five. And, while Susan and Bill rifled through the handbag section of a very full department store, they realized, with that almost parental sixth sense, that Elizabeth and John were no longer with them. For those, like me, who have had that experience of losing a child in a crowd, you know that almost fight or flight, deep seated feeling of fear the second you realize your child is not there. The two froze for a moment and then began frantically searching the area…under tables and racks of clothes…but could not find their kiddos anywhere. At almost the same instant, the two parents had the same thought. The children might be heading for the great glass doors that lead to the busy street packed with people and distracted drivers headed to Christmas parties and shopping centers. The two immediately bolted for the front doors. They ran without thinking…doing their best to dodge fellow shoppers along the way.
Then, just before they reached those great glass doors and leapt out into the street something caught the corner of Susan’s eye. Directly to the left side of the store’s entrance was a life-sized Nativity scene. Joseph and Mary stood staring down with looks of adoration into the face of the Babe of Bethlehem lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. And, nestled in the hay on either side of the manger were there children Elizabeth and John…sound asleep. The two at complete peace in the very midst of the madness swirling around them in that store…deeply connected to the Nativity…as if they were part of the manger scene…as if they had always been a part of the manger scene from that glorious night of old to that very moment…forever a part of the Holy Family. Bill and Susan took a collective deep-breath and then, taking in the wonder of the scene before them, they slowly stepped into the Nativity themselves…to retrieve their sleeping children. And, at that very moment, they too took their place in the Holy Family.
Perhaps you recall the words sung out by the glorious chorus of angels to the shepherds in the fields announcing Jesus’ birth [that our own children just provided such a sweet image of…for us]. The angles proclaimed, “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.” To you is born…this day…to you Mary and Joseph…to you shepherds in the field…to you Miles and Demery…to each of you gathered here this night…all of you…every one of you…moving forward and backward in time from forever to forever…to you is born a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. Friends, Christmas is an invitation to you, to me, to all…to find and to take our place in the Holy Family…in God’s family…to find our place in the Nativity…to nestle ourselves around the manger…to find our own lives lit up in the love birthed into the world through the very Babe of Bethlehem.
I have always believed that God chose to come to us as a baby…a vulnerable baby whose very life was utterly dependent on the care and nurture of others…a vulnerable baby entirely subject to the diseases and dis-ease of this sorely divided and often death-dealing world…to remind us…that God, in Jesus, comes to the vulnerable…is born into the lives of vulnerable people just like us…all of us…who are also utterly dependent on the care and nurture of others…who are also entirely subject to the diseases and dis-ease of this sorely divided and often death dealing world. Whatever pain you are carrying tonight. Whatever grief you might be holding tonight…whatever fears beset your heart this night…heaped upon you by a world full of violence, loss, deep disagreement and suffering…it is into our vulnerable lives that Emmanuel, God with us, comes to be born…the first fruits of love’s victory over sin and death…and hope remains undiminished…real power is found to keep putting one foot in front of the other…pushing back on this present darkness. Thus, on this night, our own vulnerable lives join with God’s Holy Family in heaven and on earth…join with the chorus of angels singing out, “Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to his people on earth!” Love has come down…God’s love has come near…the dear Savior is born to us…light shines in the darkness…and nothing…not sin…not even death our ancient foe…shall overcome it…shall overcome us, God’s Holy Family, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And…and, I have always also believed that God came to us as a vulnerable baby…born into a family…a human family…to, again, invite us…to call us into family…God’s Holy Family…made up of broken and beautiful and vulnerable people just like us. For it is in family…whether those of our birth…or those of our choosing…or families of faith like St. Julian’s…where we find nurture and care, hope and healing…where the love that created us, sustains us, and that overcomes all that seeks to oppress and diminish us…is discovered. For God’s love we share…one with another…God’s love we give and receive…one with another…is, through time and space, a continuation of…a living expression of…God’s Holy Family…where God’s love in Jesus is continually birthed…in, through and between us…not just some 2000 years ago but right now…in this very moment and each that follows. Thus, the Holy Family we share, in our homes, communities and in our church, is always a living Nativity, whatever the day of the year, with a manger set at the center from which the light of love is always being birthed and kindled among us in the face of Jesus. And, our work, on this night and each that follows, is then is to join the angels’ songs of Glad tidings inviting others, especially those who need us the most, to step into the scene…into the Holy Family…to find their place among us…their place to nestle their vulnerable lives into the soft hay around the manger, around the Babe of Bethlehem…and find care and nurture, hope and healing, peace and rest…at the last.
When Mary…and I am not referring to Jesus’ mom but another person named Mary…when Mary was a young girl in the 1960’s her parents divorced. Her father had been unfaithful and left her mother, Jo…short for Josephine…so, again, not a reference to Jesus’ parents…but he left Jo all alone to care for Mary and her three sisters, one older and two younger. Jo worked hard…real hard…often more than one job at a time…to keep her girls fed, clothed and a roof over their heads. They had no car and were dependent on the goodwill of friends and neighbors and public transit to get to all the places they needed to go. The church they belonged to shunned them following the divorce, as that particular church, some six decades ago, considered a divorced and single mother to be scandalous and unwelcome. So, life for Jo was, at times, lonely and really hard…surely harder than she let on to Mary and her sisters. They ate simple food, made their own clothes, lived without much that we often take for granted…and they loved each other fiercely through all of it.
Well, one day at a visit to the doctor’s office, of all places, Jo tearfully confided in her physician, who had become a close family friend over the years. She shared her struggles to keep her head above the water and keep her girls cared for and well. And, on the very next Sunday following that conversation, that same doctor showed up at Jo’s house and loaded her, Mary and the other three girls all up into his car…to take them to his family of faith…his church…St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. And, friends, they were welcomed into that Holy Family. Though not Christmas, they were welcomed into that living Nativity to nestle in and find their place around the manger where the light of love is continuously kindled in the face of Jesus. Their own vulnerable lives were nurtured and cared for. They found hope and healing in the midst of their own joys and great challenges that would follow. They found their place in God’s Holy Family.
Mary would often say that her family at St. Bartholomew’s helped raise her and her sisters…helped fill their lives up with the very same love birthed at the first Christmas. She said a home in that family opened so many doors and utterly, utterly transformed their lives. Many years later Jo and the girls would go on to be founding members of another Episcopal Church called St. Mark’s…where Jo would spend the rest of her life and where Mary and her sisters still worship today. They helped birth a new family of faith, extending God’s Holy Family to many, many more people, just like we have done together in birthing St. Julian’s. And, I wanted to save this till the end, but, if you haven’t figured it out, Mary is my mother-in-law. [She is here worshiping with us tonight]. Mary met Glenn, my father-in-law, in the youth group at St. Bartholomew’s as a teenager. So, it could be suggested that my own family…me, Ashley and our two girls Amelia and Mary Ellen…and maybe even St. Julian’s, for I don’t know, I really don’t, if my life would have led me to begin St. Julian’s without Ashley in it…were also birthed at the moment that kind doctor and St. Bartholomew’s welcomed Jo, Mary and her three sisters into God’s Holy Family.
Friends, Christmas is our invitation to take our place in the never-ending, ever-expanding…Holy Family…God’s family…to step into the living Nativity and nestle our vulnerable lives into our place of peace around the manger from which the light of love is continuously kindled in the face of Jesus. And, our continuous work, to which we are called this night and each that follows, is to join the angel’s songs of Glad tidings that the Savior is born to each of us and to all…inviting all, especially those who need us most, to step into the scene…into the Holy Family…to find their place of peace among us in our homes and in our church…their place to nestle their vulnerable lives into the soft hay around the manger, around the Babe of Bethlehem…to find care and nurture, hope and healing, peace and rest…at the last. Amen.