Christmas Eve
Year A, 12/24/13
University Lutheran Church- Palo Alto, CA
In
the darkness we have stumbled. Walking
through the hallways of our lives at night we fumble, searching for a light
switch or maybe a simple night light. We
run into end tables and stub our toes on doorposts. Again, we search for any sight of light. The darkness is messy, it’s painful, it’s
lonely. Our world is messy, it’s
painful, it’s lonely.
The
Christmas story doesn’t make any sense.
It’s not rational. It’s a story
of how God comes into a world that looks suspiciously like our own world—and
why would a God ever do that?! It’s a
story about a poor, pregnant and unwed teenage girl. It’s a story about the girl’s fiancé, who is
not the father—and there have been rumors, off-handed comments, and judgmental
stares. The story takes this disheveled
couple on an 80 mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The terrain is rough, emotions are tense, and
the girl is 9 months pregnant. And not
only is the girl pregnant, but she’s in labor.
And there is nowhere to go. They
are outsiders and not welcome. So the
Christmas story continues in a barn. And
it smells, and the animal feed is itchy, and oh no, the girl’s fiancé just
stepped in something. Unable to escape
the reality of their situation, the girl gives birth. And as if the situation needed any more of
the extraordinary, the child of whom the girl gives birth is said to be the Son
of God, the savior of the world. Really?
God comes to the world in this situation?! The Christmas story just doesn’t
make sense.
Let’s recap—God comes to earth in the form of
a weak, vulnerable infant, born to a poor teenage mother under some really sketchy
circumstances. That’s not what Gods are
supposed to do! There were a lot of people expecting a savior in Israel at this
time, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind. The savior of the world was supposed to be an
authoritative warrior king; triumphing over enemies, crushing oppressors. Instead, this God chooses to come into the
world in the most innocent of ways and unattractive of circumstances.
The Christmas
story is not sterile. It’s messy. It is literally messy but it also emotionally
messy, politically messy. And it is in
this messy situation that God comes into the world. The Christmas story is a story of how God
comes into a messy world that looks a little too much like our own messy
world. And what kind of God would want
to get involved with that?
For my Clinical
Pastoral Education, I served as the chaplain of a shelter for women escaping
domestic violence and chronic homelessness.
The situations that bring women to places like these are testaments to
our world’s great darkness. I worked
with women who suffered in ways that humans should never have to suffer. I heard stories that I wish no one would ever
have to tell. While I was working at the
shelter, I got to know a woman who wanted to learn more about
Christianity. In particular, this woman
wanted to read the bible so every other day we would meet and read stories
about Jesus and his followers. At one
point in our time together, I was trying to explain how Jesus was both God and
a human-- human just like us. I was
stumbling over my words, trying to explain something that I thought just didn’t
make sense, when I noticed this woman’s eyes were welling up with tears.
She looked at me, silent tears
rolling down her cheeks, and said “So, if Jesus was both human and God, then
that means God must know what it’s like to be me. God knows what it’s like to suffer, because
God was a human.” This woman, who had
lived in one of the most darkest and messiness of worlds, was overcome by the
light of God’s love for her. In an
instance, she got it. She got it so
completely. God knew what she had been
through. God cared enough to come to earth and experience what is like to be
human: to have a messy life, and to suffer, and to cry, and live through broken
relationships, and to witness darkness first hand. This woman who had walked in darkness, saw a
great light in a God who cared enough about her to come to this messy
earth.
This is what is at
stake in the Christmas story, Emmanuel—God with us. At Christmas we celebrate a God who breaks
into darkness. A God who is not separate
and distanced from the world, but active, and involved. A God who was born as a human child and
walked this earth and ministered in ways both ordinary and extraordinary. A God who loves and cares for us so much that
this God chooses to come into the messiest of our lives and dares to speak of
hope, even when there seems to be none.
This is the God who reveals Godself in Jesus. This is the God to whom you belong. This is what we are celebrating.
No, the story
doesn’t really make sense. We can’t use
rationality to explain it. This kind of
love is beyond rationality. It’s a kind
of love that seeps into our brokenness and heals what was thought was beyond
repair. It’s a kind of love that risks
everything to know relationship. It’s a
kind of love that is threatening to traditional structures of power. It’s a love worth dying for. It doesn’t make sense but this crazy,
irrational love is worth putting our hope in.
Tonight, we do not
only celebrate the birth of a child; but tonight, this Christmas Eve, we
celebrate that light has come into darkness; Bringing peace, orientation, and
hope for a time when no one need stumble through darkness alone. Living into this hope, may we set rationality
aside. May we live daringly in the hope
that God dwells among us. And, as people
who have walked in darkness, may we experience the liberation that comes with the
arrival of long expected light.
No comments:
Post a Comment