Luke 2:1-20
Here we come once again to our
Christmas in July service. As you may
remember, we celebrate Christmas in July as a time to step away from the deep
commercialism that has taken over our Christmas and our Advent, in December. Instead, we use this time to truly focus on
what is behind our celebrations of Christmas, what the story has to tell us,
what the message of Christmas is for people of faith.
And what is that message? It really comes down to one word. And that one word is “Emmanuel” – God with
us. The Story of Christmas is a story
that tells us that our God loves us so much that God wants to be with us, here
in this place. God wants to understand
us in fullness, and through that understanding to have compassion, to offer
grace, and to do whatever it takes to bring us healing, peace, and salvation
(whatever that means to you).
This is incredible news for
us. It truly is. During these very dark times when things are
unsure, when even getting prescriptions is cost prohibitive, when inflation is
so high that just daily living can be a challenge and something as basic as
education seems to be a luxury, when we are becoming more and more divided as a
country, when we are still dealing with a pandemic; finding good news,
something to hang on to, can just feel beyond difficult. But it is into this world that Jesus comes,
that God comes to be with us. At the
time when Jesus was born, the Israelites were under intense oppression by the
Romans. They were struggling as a people
and the Roman “punishment” for just about anything was crucifixion, a horrible
nasty execution. That is when Jesus
came. That is when Jesus showed up. And he offered words of wisdom, he offered
kindness, he offered healing, he offered compassion. He offered grace.
On
this day in July we celebrate Christmas.
And it is a joyous and wondrous thing that we celebrate. But that doesn’t negate all the struggle or
trauma that we also witness in this world.
This world is a messy, broken, tragic, and yes, beautiful place into
which we have come, into which God comes.
On Christmas in July we remember that.
We remember the mess, but we also remember the beauty. We remember God’s grace and God’s compassion,
coming to us in the middle of this. And
we remember that our call is to follow Jesus: to be that voice of grace and
compassion in the midst of the mess.
In
the wonderful mystery story, Aunt Dimity’s Christmas, the main character, Lori,
found a stranger, a dirty, disheveled stranger, passed out in her
driveway. She got him help, reluctantly. She didn’t want to help. She didn’t want her Christmas to be taken up
by this homeless, disheveled, mess of a human being. But she did it. She did the thing that needed to be done, she
dealt with the mess in the midst of a time when she only wanted to see the
good, the beauty. She got him help, she
got him the medical help he needed, she researched to find out who he was and
what his story was. She helped him to
get back on his feet, and in doing so, she helped him to remember who he was,
to come into his own again. Again, she
didn’t want to do it. But it was through
helping him that she saw the truth of Christmas. She found that the deepest gifts came in
being that voice, in not denying what was ugly or mean or difficult, but in
stepping into that pain and offering grace, offering healing, offering
help. It was through her stepping into
the darkness, that she brought her own light, and God’s light into those dark
places. In lighting those dark places,
she then saw the glory, the beauty of the cave that had been hidden before she
brought her own light in. The gifts that
came back to her far exceeded what she had given to him. She said, “He forced me to look at things I
didn’t want to see, and remember things I wanted to forget. If Kit hadn’t come to the cottage I wouldn’t
have gone to St. Benedict’s (which included the homeless shelter). And if I hadn’t gone to St Benedicts, I
wouldn’t have realized how much I have in common with the homeless men there.
…I fought it tooth and nail….I’d gotten too fat and sassy... I’d paid my dues, so I thought I was entitled
to my blessings. Kit reminded me that
blessings aren’t a right – they’re a gift.
I’m no more entitled to them than the homeless men, and I’m ashamed of
myself for not remembering it sooner. “
Her choosing to help this stranger led her to gifts that were
uncomfortable at first, but which deepened and strengthened her and made her
more whole.
It
is our job, it is our calling to bring God’s presence into the light, into a
fullness that others can see. It is our
calling to bring that beauty, the innocence of a new born baby, the presence of
God into fullness. It is not always easy
when things are going wrong, when we are struggling. But that is the call that we have been given.
So as we rejoice, as we celebrate
Christmas now, here, in July, may we do so not from a place of denying what is
wrong in the world, but instead with a commitment to be the bearers of the
light into the world.
I think about Simon and
Garfunkel’s version of “Silent Night.” Have you all heard it? We will play it in a moment because it is
powerful, deeply powerful. These two
Jewish men wrote a version of Silent Night that I think expresses the deepest
truth. It is into this broken,
suffering, struggling world that God comes, that God shows up. The contrast between the beauty of a newborn
baby and the poverty into which he was born; the contrast of a beautiful
newborn brought to a displaced couple, far from their homes, with no proper
in-room in which to stay reflects the current contrast of God’s beauty in the
midst of fires and climate change and pandemics: all of this is the story of
Christmas. All of this is the beauty of
Christmas that we celebrate today.
I invite you to listen as we
play Simon and Garfunkel’s Silent Night.
I want to end by reading you a
piece of a story I shared with you many years ago now. It is one of my favorite stories and so I
share it with you again: from “It was on Fire when I lay down on it” by Robert
Fulghum. (p 174). (link here.)
Merry Christmas to you all!
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