This is it! The most magical time of the year, the most magical night of the season, the most wonderful service in the church’s lexicon. The candles, the flowers, the magnificent music, the timeless liturgy all combine into exactly what we expect: a beautiful, memorable Christmas Eve service. Those of us who have some part in making it happen work hard to provide the same sort of event year after year. None of us want it to change. We want Christmas always to carry the same sense of comfort, peace, and joy that it has provided for us, and for generations of humanity.
The centerpiece of our observance, of course, is the gospel reading from Luke. Out of all the canon of scripture, this story must be the most familiar. The scene is firmly fixed in our mind’s eye: stable, manger, baby, Mary, Joseph, animals, shepherds, wise men and star. We know it so well that the words skip through our minds in pictures and it really is hard to listen to the reading. We know what comes next. The problem with such familiarity is that it risks the possibility we will miss the point of the story entirely. In fact, such familiarity allows us to miss the irony that in the midst of our efforts to keep things from changing, we are tonight, celebrating the greatest change in human history. We are celebrating the moment when God chose to enter this world as a human being, and nothing has ever been the same since.
That truth is so dazzling, so amazing, so difficult to comprehend, that artists, writers, poets, musicians and countless others have made myriad attempts to tell the story differently, each one intended to provide the meaning in a way that connects with the hearers. Gian-Carlo Menotti tried an opera, which told the story from the perspective of a little peasant boy, his mother, and the three kings who came from afar. Musician Katherine Davis wrote a song about a poor little boy who had no gift for the baby and so played his drum. Charles Dickens gave the story new characters, and called it “A Christmas Carol.” All of these, and thousands more, are attempts to communicate the meaning of the great change contained in THE story, the one told by Luke two thousand years ago.
I’ve always loved the tale written by a man we in
It’s a simple story about a young couple in love. They are married, and very poor. The time is Christmas, and both yearn to give the other something really fine, a wonderful gift, a gift full of meaning. As O.
I imagine you know or can conjure up the rest of it. Della sells her hair, and uses the money to buy a beautiful platinum chain for her beloved husband’s gold watch. Meanwhile, Jim sells his watch to purchase a magnificent set of hair combs for Della.
O.
Here is the essence of Luke’s gospel story. God loved us so much that God gave us his greatest treasure, his only son. Sacrificing everything, knowing that human birth could only end in death, still God gave his son to save us from ourselves.
Here is the thing that changed the world, changed the universe and keeps it changing to this day: Christmas is about a God who loves us and deems us worthy. God who is pure light and glory chose to leave all that and become one of us, bounded by time and space to save us from death, darkness and fear. God deems us worthy of such a sacrifice. God gave us the gift of a savior.
We, of course, did not know we needed such a gift. The Romans who ruled and oppressed the people of
Humanity has long clung to that idea. That was the notion that caused Eve to take a bite of the apple. Fast forward two thousand years. At the beginning of the 20th century, we were pretty sure we had it all together. The world was at peace. We were on the brink of major scientific breakthroughs. It seemed there was nothing humanity could not do. We could fly to the sky – maybe even further. We could build skyscrapers and bridges, we were in charge of the earth.
One hundred years, two world wars, countless revolutions and conflicts later, we began the 21st century with a new sense of how inhumane we humans really could be. Massacres, genocides, AIDS and malaria pandemics, world-wide economic crisis and natural disasters of epic proportions and the real possibility of global ecological trauma all leave us faced with the truth. We cannot save ourselves. We-can-not-save-ourselves.
The night is dark. We are hurtling through space past galaxies and nebulae, at warp speeds, toward black holes and an uncertain end, and we are sore afraid.
We need a Savior.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
It was not just a baby. Eternity itself, the Great “I AM” who is our God transcended the barrier dividing time from space, and came as light and life and hope, to save us from the darkness.
For unto us a child is born, a son is given.
That’s what Christmas is about: The people who lived in darkness have been given light.
On this night pure love has spiraled downward into our black hole, coming to rest in a manger.
This is what we celebrate, this gift which is all of God’s love.
And what do we do with such a gift?
Well, the gift came in the form of a baby, which I think was a real inspiration on God’s part. I mean, if Jesus had stepped forward out of the darkness, fully grown, and said to the people of
And when that baby became a man, love was his primary message: Love one another. Love each other the way you have been loved by me, and by God, who is our creator.
That is the work of Christmas. The work of Christmas is not baking and shopping and wrapping. The work of Christmas is to love one another.
A poet named Howard Thurman said it this way:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace (among brothers,)
To make music in the heart.