The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ:
Christmas Eve
Isaiah 62:6-12; Psalm 97; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:1-20
Christ Episcopal Church
Tacoma, Washington
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
The Rev. Janet Campbell
In the darkness of the expectant night
God came into the world:
Infinity become
finite,
Eternity narrowed
to a moment,
The uncreated Creator
become one created, very small . . .
The Mother-Father of all humanity
now humanity’s child.
Majesty, power,
glory, immortality
arriving
in
lowliness, weakness,
humility . . .
and subject to death.
The giver of all that is,
now given . . .
The One for whom a thousand names
are not enough,
now known by one alone:
Jesus.
In an infant, in an instant,
divinity becomes human
(yet still Divine . . .)
Why?
That God might know
from a human point of view
the world God has made,
see with eyes the starry sky,
hear with ears springtime birdsong,
smell with nose bread warm from oven,
taste with tongue rich red wine,
feel on skin warm summer rains,
love’s gentle touch,
nails’ piercing pains . . .
Why?
That, loving us,
God might experience
as we experience,
the life God has given,
the limitations
and the possibilities
of human be-ing:
The movement of time,
memory of moments and people past,
anticipation of the unknown future,
companionship and aloneness,
sorrow and rejoicing,
hope and disappointment,
suffering and delight,
laughing, crying, living, dying . . .
Why?
that God, loving us,
might know
the only thing we know
that God did not yet know . . .
enfleshment . . .
Incarnation.
The gospel writer Luke imagines,
in his story of the birth,
the very down-to-earth-ness
of God’s coming . . .
to working-class parents
far from home,
strangers seeking lodging
in an overcrowded town,
in a small occupied land
under the cruel rule
of the Roman empire.
In a particular place,
In a particular time . . .
In the particular reality
of that place and time . . .
In a stable,
among the animals,
with birth pangs,
and the flow of water and blood,
in the hay,
God lay in a feeding trough . . .
a red and wrinkled newborn,
wailing thinly in the night.
The one by whose providence
all life is sustained,
hungry for the milk
of mother’s breast.
Few knew of the birth . . .
some rumpled shepherds
startled into action
by a heavenly disturbance,
perhaps some townsfolk
attracted by a small commotion
around the birth-stable . . .
None knew its true
significance,
although Mary and Joseph
pondered remembered words
of angels . . .
All the same,
the birth was momentous.
It was an invasion . . .
a divine invasion
of love,
of mercy,
of grace . . .
shining into a
dark and sorry world:
the beginning
of the beginning
of God’s reign of justice and peace . . .
and the beginning
of the end
of worldly empires of injustice and cruelty.
The seed sown in Mary’s womb,
the infant nurtured at her breast,
the child working with Joseph
learning a carpenter’s trade,
“grew and became strong,
filled with wisdom,” says Luke,
“and the favor of God was upon him.”
[Luke 2:40]
The favor of God,
a divine urgency growing within . . .
stirring to life in him
a burning love of God’s people,
his people,
a burning desire for God’s kingdom,
his kingdom.
Three years he preached it,
taught it, enacted it,
loving and healing the lost and lonely,
the ostracized, wounded,
the poor, sick, hungry . . .
Three years of loving, liberating
words and actions
that challenged
the faithlessness and cowardice
of arrogant political and religious leaders
whose principal concern
was not their people,
but placating their Roman overseers.
It was a politically dangerous desire,
this burning desire of Jesus,
ending in his capture, torture, death
and burial.
But Love
cannot die forever.
God’s Christ rose
from the grave,
and God’s Incarnation,
once limited in time and space
to one man in first century Palestine,
ever after spreads
down the ages and across the world
in
the members of Christ’s risen Body,
his church . . .
entrusted with his kingdom mission
in every time and place . . .
in the particular realities
of those times and places . . .
For us, in this time and place . . .
in this sorrowing world
of anger, violence, pain, grief,
in the anguish of Creation,
gravely wounded.
God is ever being born into the world . . .
In the darkness of this expectant night,
in the new light of tomorrow’s morning,
and every day and every night,
born
in aloneness and in companionship,
in human yearning and hope,
in prayer,
in play,
at school,
at work,
in joy and sorrow,
in life and in death.
In the faith community gathered
for worship,
in the Word proclaimed,
songs sung, prayer prayed, music played,
the splashing water of baptism,
the Bread and Wine consecrated and shared.
God,
who once lay as infant
in feeding trough,
now food
for the life of the world.
In bread broken
cup poured out,
Christ’s very life is given
to live in us,
to be born, borne (carried)
by us
into the world.
Why?
That we might,
with Jesus’ great love,
do the work of Christmas.
That we might
with Jesus’ burning desire,
seek, love, and heal
the lost and lonely,
the cast-aside and overlooked,
the neglected and wounded,
the poor, sick, homeless and hungry,
That we might
with Jesus’ fierce courage,
stand in solidarity
with the powerless and vulnerable,
the ostracized and oppressed,
over against
the unjust powers and empires
of this world.
In the darkness of one expectant night
in a faraway place
in a long-ago time,
God came uniquely into the world
in the holy child Jesus.
In an infant, in an instant,
divinity became human
(yet still Divine . . .)
Why?
That we, fully human,
might be one with the Divine.
Tonight,
Infinity
Eternity
is uniquely born anew
in each of us,
in every Christian
celebrating the holy birth . . .
as Incarnation
spreads its way
across the yearning earth.