Christmas Eve 2007

Isaiah 9:2-7

Psalm 96

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-20

Let’s be honest here. This is place and the time for it. Let’s be honest, let’s be real.

Christmas is hard. It can be a very tough time for oh so many people. It’s hard for me this year, I know how hard it is for some of you.

There is so much out there that says Christmas should be merry and bright, joyous and white. A time of laughter and love.

But let’s be honest. This is the month that has the greatest disconnect between the ideal Norman Rockwell/Hallmark picture and the way life really is.

The perfect family singing around the Christmas tree before opening the perfect gifts.

The reality of missing loved ones, people who have died who used to be part of the party, the countless young men and women fighting a war with no end…

And then there is the first time of gathering with redefined families, shifted households, or missing those you love who just can’t be with you tonight.

It’s hard. How many many tears are shed in the month of December, privately, as gifts are wrapped and people are remembered.

So what does this evening mean for us? For those of us whose lives have changed dramatically since last Christmas?

I look at this scene, the nativity set where Mary and Joseph are settled in, adoring the precious gift of new life. The mangy smelly shepherds arrive after seeing those sky messengers….

It isn’t neat and tidy. Mary and Joseph are far from home. Mary is away from her mother, probably scared to death as all new mothers are at the first contraction of labor. The setting of the stable, the cave is less than ideal for bringing a baby into the world.

And Joseph? Joseph not the Dad is probably out of his element here too. Wanting to protect and provide for this sacred moment, this sacred gift. And he falls short, can’t even find a real room for the birth.

And those shepherds, the dregs of society. Practically homeless men who are also far from family on this night. The angels overwhelm them. And then they leave the sheep to find this baby.

The first visit to a newborn comes from dirty stinky shepherds, guys who wouldn’t even be allowed to enter a modern hospital. They come running into town and see this baby. A tiny vulnerable newborn, wrinkled and red-faced: This? The savior of the world?

Jesus? Emmanuel? God with us?

God with us. That’s the hope of this night. God cares enough about people. Not just important people or wealthy people or people whose families look perfect.

God cares enough about us to break into the world, to be born a human baby child, flesh and blood and pain.

God breaks into a broken world. Born of a scared little girl, who is being watched over by a nervous Joseph. Born among the animals…visited by common shepherds.

Far away from home. Far away from family. Far away from the perfect world we would long for.

Instead, God arrives into the world we have. Into the pain of our lives and the brokenness of our hearts. God arrives into the grief and longing, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

God knows. God knows. God knows the brokenness and the longing. God knows the messiness and the reality. And chooses, chooses to be born into the midst of it.

A fact witnessed by a rag tag messy group of odd folk.

Oh the peace and the hope that comes from having a God that isn’t afraid to be with us, to live with us and love with us and hurt with us and grieve with us.

One who does not turn away from a world in pain, but embraces it.

So, tonight, on this holy night. We are reminded that God remains with us. God still enters our worlds, our lives, our realities.

And fills us with peace.

Breath of heaven, fill us with peace.

Your love, o God, fills us with peace.