Christmas Eve, 2007

December 24, 2007
The Rev. David R. Hackett

Madeline L’Engle offers a little poem about Christmas,

“This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.”
This is the “irrational season.”

The buying frenzy is over. The last minute attempts to get what you haven’t gotten have ended. The fever of the malls has been hushed. The mounds of catalogues have been put away. The Christmas cards have been sent; most have been received. And now, maybe, at last, some small modicum of quiet can set in; some small quiet manger of the heart, instead of the overcrowded inn of the holiday can be made ready, can be prepared to receive a guest: a divine being enfleshed in our flesh, the Messiah, the Christ.

“This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.”

It seems to me that we are always in danger of over-sentimentalizing Christmas. It has all the ingredients which make for the lump in the throat: familiar Christmas carols, the warmth of family and friends gathered from far and near, the candle glow ….and platitudes. Perhaps we welcome this time of the year as an escape from reality. All of the sentimentality which surrounds this night and this season makes it a bit easier to put reality on hold, tempting us to ignore the cruelty, the harshness, the meanness of our world. In this sentimental escapism we just might overlook the underlying, overarching eternal truth that is being revealed. That truth is that it was into this world of death and destruction that the eternal God entered and submitted himself to all that you and I face in “the real world.”

The reality of this world is that we are beset with all sorts of danger, hardship and trouble. This night some of us are grieving because someone we love, through accident or illness, is no longer with us. This night some of us are suffering because of physical, emotional or mental illness. Families which were together last Christmas are torn apart this year because of divorce or alcoholism or drug abuse. This season brings depression to many. Pain and hurt are a part of our daily lives. This is our human condition and the list of our dis-ease is a long one. This Christmas Eve we find our nation still mired in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our young men and women are deployed in harm’s way. And it seems there is no end of our warring madness.

So, what do we say to these things this night? What does our God say to these things this night?

Do you not find it to be true that when we reach out to those we care for, who are experiencing the deepest hurt, the greatest pain, do we not discover in those times that words fail us? And what we find is that we love them best by simply being present with them, by simply being there for them in their distress. Saying little, but saying everything by our presence. To truly be with another is the greatest gift.

The Almighty and Eternal God has given us that very gift. “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God has come to be with us. This is the irrational season when the divine Word takes our flesh, experiences our pain, knows the reality of our world. Emmanuel: God with us. Who by being with us shows us the way of peace and wholeness and salvation.

We mustn’t forget that his name, Jesus, means “he who saves”, he who saves his people from their sins. We mustn’t forget that Christmas is for sinners. It is for all of us who like sheep have gone astray; for to us a savior is born. If you don’t need a savior you don’t need Christmas. If you don’t need a savior then what is this night for? A nice celebration of nebulous brotherhood? That will suffice if we want this night to be a kind of “warm fuzzy” in the cold realities of life. But that is far short of the truth we profess this night. No. This is the night when we sinners celebrate the gift of the Messiah, the Christ who saves us from our sin, who restores us to our true relationship with the Father. This is the night of the Mystery of the Word Made Flesh.

The infinite has become finite. The unlimited has become limited. The unknowable has become known. The unnameable has become named. And his name is Jesus, for he shall save his people. And it is for sinners; for you and for me. There is nothing you have done that he cannot forgive. There is no broken relationship that he cannot mend. There is no hurt that he cannot heal. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This is the gift that has come to us through the Virgin Mary, in a stable, in a town called Bethlehem, in the reign of Augustus Caesar, in the bleak midwinter so long, long ago.

But the Spirit of God is not limited to time and space. Tonight we do not simply celebrate a past event. The Bethlehem of this holy night is no longer in a country called Israel. It is wherever and whenever the Christ is enfleshed in a human being. He comes anew to each person, to each one of us, to be born in a new Bethlehem: the Bethlehem of our hearts.

The Russian poet, Turgenev, in his poem, Khristos, dreams that he is in a small village church, together with the peasant congregation. A man comes to stand beside him. The poet said, “I did not turn towards him, but immediately I felt that this man was Christ.” However, when eventually he turns toward him he perceives “a face like everyone’s face. A face like all men’s faces…and the clothes on him like everyone else’s.” Turgenev is astonished: “What sort of Christ is this then? … Such an ordinary, ordinary man.” But he concludes, “Suddenly I was afraid – and came to my senses. Only then did I realize that it is just such a face – a face like all men’s faces –that is the face of Christ.” A face like everyone’s face.

When divine love takes on human flesh with a face like everyone’s face, when the Christ takes flesh in us sinners, lighting the darkness of our world, then we can begin to see his face in every face, his love in every heart, his healing presence in every life, and realize his salvation is for all.

Christmas is for sinners. Christmas if for you and me. The gift is given. The Word is made flesh.

“This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.”

Amen.