Christmas Eve 2024

Text: Luke 2:1-20
Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
What does the message of Christmas speak to? Why is the birth of this poor child in a manger thousands of years ago relevant to us, on this night of 2024? Christmas is the fulfillment of a great promise, it was the ushering forth of hope to a people in despair. That hope, that God would deliver His people from the oppressive powers of this world, took shape in the birth of this vulnerable baby, the one named Jesus, that was announced to be God with us, the Savior of the world. The power of Christmas resides on the fact that God is not far-off, God does not look away at human suffering, God does not hide from us when we need Him. Because He is Love itself, God cannot keep Himself from us and our well-being, and so much did He care, that He came down to us in Jesus, to be face to face with us in our humanity. Not only has He come close, but in being born as He was, He reorients the whole world and its values. Because He did not come with a sword, He did not make the Heavens thunder and the earth to quake, He came down to be wrapped in swaddling clothes. His coming down, was not a royal or military event, but an intimately human, and vulnerable moment. God came down in such a way that He needed Mary and Joseph to tend to Him, that He needed the shepherds to witness and proclaim, even the animals are needed as they are also witnesses and included in this moment of transformation. Thus, he shakes up the foundations of the world’s security and power. In light of the Lord Jesus being born in complete vulnerability and poverty, in God reaching to us in lowliness and humility, how can the world justify its claims of grandeur or it’s way of life spent on lording power over others like tyrants? How can might make right? How can wars be waged, and injustices tolerated? If we believe the core of the Christmas story, that God is in the manger, this God that formed and calls each and every one of us, how should our worldview change? How should our lives be unsettled in light of this reality? In this, the Christmas story continues to have its world-turning effects upon us.

In Luke’s account of the Nativity, each character is transformed by the birth of Jesus. New life and purpose springs forth from the good news that is received. Divinity was appearing in all the unlikely places. The shepherds, often living in the margins of society, were called forth and they went out of their fields to journey and see the Lord surprisingly dwelling among them, the forgotten. Mary and Joseph, these two unknown people from nowhere important, another number on the census performed by the Caesars of the world, through them God was fulfilling His promise of salvation. They were nowhere near the room where things happen, they had no seat in the halls of power, and yet in the poor manger, among the smells of the animals, and the vulnerability of poverty, God ushered His Kingdom there. And thus God in Christ’s Birth calls life away from the rat race of power and success. It calls them away from the structures of competition, of ambition for its own sake, and instead says look into the manger. What matters most in life, the cause of ultimate hope, is present and grows from here. What matters is this tenderness, Mary pondering and treasuring the words of divine hope as she looked with love upon Jesus, what matters are these forgotten shepherds whose lives have been uplifted because God has seen and embraced them where they were; what matters is the beloved community that gathers around this child, for hope has arrived in the form of gentle mercy, and it calls all people to its feast, and the darkness and its dominions cannot overcome its light.

So if God is in the manger, then today where is Christ being born? Where is God calling our attention right at this moment, entering into our history of despair, becoming vulnerable and announcing His Gospel? The manger where Christ is born is not absent in our world. There is a manger right here in Massachusetts for example, made of tents for migrant families. There is a manger made of rubble since last year in the homeland of Jesus Himself, in Palestine. I would like to heed the call of the Rev. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Lutheran theologian and pastor from Bethlehem, to not be silent on Gaza, especially on Christmas. Like the shepherds in Luke’s Gospel, we are tasked to find and witness to the Christ child and proclaim where and how God makes Himself known. Christmas hope is spread when our hearts are moved by God’s compassion and universal love for all of humanity. Rev. Isaac delivered a powerful Christmas sermon a few days ago that I invite everybody to listen to, where he declared that “Christ is still in the rubble”. As he delivered the sermon, the church had a nativity scene on display since last year, in which the figure of the baby Jesus was surrounded by debris, with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds attempting to tend to the baby. I was very moved by this present day manger. There’s been artwork and iconographies being inspired by it, where we see the holy family or a lonely baby Jesus depicted alongside the background scenes of war, destruction and violence as witnessed in Palestine. The sentiments carried over by such scenes, reveals to us that Christmas cheer is not a commodity, it can be pernicious if we do not take account when atrocities are being committed with our assent, and if not, then with our silence. Christmas joy is the fruit of hope, the reality that God is with us in our pain and that a new world is possible. At this very moment, Christ is still in the rubble. He has sent His messengers for us to listen, and for our lives to be transformed by a compassion that is inspired to journey towards solidarity and justice for the oppressed. As the Rev. Isaac affirmed in his sermon: “while there are some who talk about the “Roman Empire” or glorify Herod as “great,” we are the ones who think of a child born to refugees escaping a massacre”. For if we believe that God is in the manger, how much so should our hearts be with God in the rubble. If God is in the manger how much so should we insist to our leaders, and witness within our communities, and testify with our stewardship, that God’s reign in our midst calls us to a compassion that commands us to abolish war and stop genocide, to uplift those brought down with injustice, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to have mercy and love of neighbor, to embrace and protect those who are suffering. That is the radical call of Christmas, beloved. The good news of God entering into our history in Christ is that our history might be saved from its darkness with the light of love. We are here celebrating that the world can and ultimately will be made just, because we are in the hands of a just God. How can we expect to remain the same, when God has made a new world possible?

Christmas joy and hope should not come at the expense of forgetting our siblings in need. On the contrary, it shall propel us forward into deeper love and communion with them. That is the greatness of Christmas, the ever expanding love that embraces all of humanity. This love that shines from God in the manger makes everything come alive with the sacredness it was created with. God’s love is meant to be shared with all of Creation. So as you leave this place having lit the light of Christ into your hearts, remember that God with us means also that we become one with others. God with us means your life can be a conduit of grace. God with us means that our lives, and our neighbor’s lives, are precious to God. Rejoice in the fulfillment of this promise beloved, rejoice and be glad, proclaim the Lord’s peace and His love for all. Everything beams with the light of the manger. Let us pray: