Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
God looked at the world, the world full of anger and jealousy, the world full of people hurting one another and failing one another and ignoring one another, and chose to come closer. God looked at the oppressed peoples living under violent regimes, looked at the earth he made to shelter us being turned into battlefields and graveyards, and chose to come closer. God looks at this world we seem hellbent on making unlivable, and chooses to come closer. Our God is not distant, not aloof, not some mythical clock maker who set all things in motion and then walked away. Our God is Immanuel, our God is with us. Our God comes closer, so close that at first sight we could not pick him out in a crowd. Our God comes so close that a woman once felt him kick and dance and hiccup inside her. Our God comes so close that little children clambered onto his lap for a blessing. Our God comes so close that a dozen young men in an upper room felt his calloused woodworker’s hands as he washed their feet. We do not worship a distant God, we bask in his nearness.
This is what we come together to remember tonight. We huddle in close against the cold, we lean in toward the light of the candles in the dark night. We come closer, to peer into the face of the God who comes close to us. We come closer to be reminded that God would not, could not leave us alone, but chose to be with us in the ordinary joys and extraordinary struggles of life. Tonight, heaven has come to earth, and earth has been made new by the light of a single flame flickering to life.
This is the beautiful intimacy of Christmas Eve, when we choose to be here of all places. Just as the world lumbered on unbothered as Mary wrapped our savior in bands of cloth that night so long ago, the world continues outside these walls. Planes fly through the sky, perhaps for a moment looking like stars leading us someplace new. Factories run through the night, and fishermen haul in their nets, and innkeepers hand out room keys and fresh linens, and midwives tend to women in labor far from home, and the flocks still need guarding even now. Out there, people are working and resting and cooking and cleaning and laboring, many of them having no opportunity to see the incredible thing that has happened, is happening, for them. We are blessed, by birth and faith and circumstance, to be here to witness the moment when heaven breaks through.
But the private moment with the Holy Family does not stay private, as no great miracle ever has. While the new mother and son rest from the ordeal of becoming, heaven bursts forth in light and sound in another way, in another place. The shepherds keeping their flocks by night see the glory of the Lord in technicolor, as startling and joyous as the first cries of a newborn in a stable. The angel comes close, standing before a group of children and teens in their blankets, more accurately portrayed in church pageants than we might realize. The shepherds and goatherds and field hands hear the news before kings and emperors and priests, all of whom lay safe and warm in their beds in bigger, more important cities. When God comes close, again and again we find that God comes closest to the ones forgotten and discarded, the ones on the margins and the outskirts. When God comes close, he draws us closer to one another in the process.
So we draw near tonight to the nearness of God, as we receive the body and blood of our Savior and light our candles and sing our songs of joy. We remember the moment when earth and heaven were joined, and we relive the miracle and anticipate the moment when there will be no separations left. We look into the darkness and see a great light, and we carry that light with us as we go. The angels came to the shepherds, and the shepherds came to Jesus, and in seeing him their honest response was to glorify God and tell everyone they encountered the good news of great joy. Because of them, and some fishermen and tax collectors and tentmakers and faithful women, we know this story. Because of them, we know God is with us, as close as close can be. Now it is our turn, as we carry the light back into the cold world outside. Open your eyes as you go forth from this place, look at the world that God has chosen to be born into. Allow God to draw you closer. And with this weary and beloved world, rejoice.
Mother A Writes 