Christmas Eve B

Christmas Eve, Year B

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.

It’s finally here! Christmas is here. I’ve been looking forward to this night for months. Moreso, I think, than other Christmases in recent years. Not because I think the gifts under the tree are going to be better this year. Not because our family has any unusually special plans this year. I’ve been looking forward to *THIS* Christmas because of this year.

To say that 2020 has been “challenging” is the ultimate understatement. I think we all began this year knowing that the Presidential race would be controversial, and I’ll bet we all expected it to be unlike any election we’d seen before…but I doubt any of us thought it was going to be as insane as it has become. The politics of the last 12 months or so have been an absolute disgrace to our society and our nation. And let’s not forget that before we really started thinking “election”, the US House of Representatives tried to impeach President Trump. No matter what side of the aisle you sit on politically, to put our country through an impeachment (even though it didn’t succeed) puts the whole country in an incredibly divided mood…and that mood set the tone for the whole year. I, for one, will never forget the image of the Speaker of the House standing up at the end of the President’s State of the Union Address, and ripping her copy of his speech in pieces on national television. Again, I don’t care what party you are loyal to, or how you vote - that was a new low for American politics. I think we can just about delete the word “civility” from our dictionary - that’s a concept that’s dead and buried. I can’t remember ever praying for my country like I have this year.

And then there was the violence that swept our country following the death of a man named George Floyd. Cities across the country found themselves at the mercy of rioters who were setting fire to structures, breaking windows and looting businesses, destroying police vehicles and even police stations. Now yes, there were peaceful protesters (which, thankfully, is the extent of what we saw here in our area), but the threats of violence were far and wide, and seemed to keep growing. In one city on the west coast, the violent extremists actually took over a large section of the city, blocked it off, and claimed it was an “autonomous zone” - that is, no longer subject to local, state, or federal government and laws. The way this was painted by the media made it seem like our fundamental structure, our laws, and our Constitution were failing and dying. Some still feel that way, although the violence has since quieted down significantly.

In early March, the US Stock Market crashed. It dropped 7.8% or 2013 points, the worst single-day point drop ever. And this was driven by a drop in oil prices. At this point, the Stock Market hadn’t really started reacting to the CoronaVirus. Australia and California both experienced some of the worst fires they have ever seen. Beirut, Lebanon saw the death of 190 people and thousands of injuries in a massive explosion that rocked their capital city, in the explosion of almost 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate. And we’ve seen some celebrity deaths this year that really stood out more than most, among them Kobe Bryant, Chadwick Boseman, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Trebek, and the one that seemed to really upset a great many people: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

And of course, the Wuhan Virus, or COVID-19, which really grabbed our nation in mid-March and has had us all in a choke-hold ever since. In case you weren’t keeping track, our last Sunday in-person worship that month was March 22, and we didn’t have in-person worship again until May 31. We made the best use of technology, streaming our worship online on March 29, and we did drive-through palms for Palm Sunday and the same for Holy Communion on Easter morning. And this virus continues to challenge us. We’ve had to cancel quite a few of our annual traditions this year.

Just as an aside, this year has been so crazy, one of the most interesting stories of the year got lost in the mix. Did you know that the US Dept of Defense, the Pentagon, *officially* released videos of UFO encounters? That in effect means that our government has formally and publicly acknowledged the existence of UFOs…as in - visitors from other worlds. And this is not from some crank, suspicious website. This came from the Navy’s official website and later covered by the New York Times. Ask me later and I’ll share the sources with you.

Month after month, week after week, all through this year, we have been just pummeled with bad news. The virus alone has caused lockdowns which have led to the demise of many small businesses. Our nation’s economy is struggling more than it has at any time that I can remember. And I haven’t even covered the murder hornets. Bad news piled upon bad news. It’s been just almost unbelievable.

Well gee, pastor, is there any good news anywhere? Why yes, yes there is. And THAT, my dear brothers and sisters, is why I have been looking forward to this Christmas so much. It seems to me that Christmas is exactly what 2020 needs right now. I’ve said to several people that if God is ever going to work a miracle in a messed-up time like we’re in, in a messed-up country like ours, I believe that it’s right now. Throughout my life, I have seen the best in people come out during Christmas. You all know the song, right? “For we need a little Christmas, right this very minute...” Yes, I know it’s not a religious Christmas song, but it speaks the truth.

And now is the time, more than any other time, that we Christians are reminded that WE are the custodians of this good news. Not just the fat guy with the robes standing in the pulpit. ALL of us. We are charged with sharing this particular Good News with those who don’t know it. And believe it or not, a LOT of people don’t know this story. They don’t know that a 14-year-old girl was told by the angel Gabriel that she would have a miraculous conception and give birth to a baby boy, while still a virgin. They don’t know that the girl’s fiancee Joseph was also visited by an angel and convinced not to abandon Mary. That both Joseph and Mary were told by their heavenly messengers that this baby was to be the Messiah foretold by the prophets throughout the history of God’s Chosen People. And they were told to name him Jesus, which means “the Lord is salvation” or “the Lord saves”. What an appropriate name! Because that is exactly what Jesus came to do.

But I don’t want to skip over his birth, because that in and of itself is wonderful news…and of course, it’s what tonight is all about. When we talk about the birth of Jesus in theological terms, we use the word “incarnation”. This means “to take on flesh”. God took on flesh. He didn’t just “appear” as a human. He *became* human. Now why is that a big deal? What difference does it make that Jesus became human instead of just appearing *like* a human? I want to share this description with you that I think says it so well:

At first [the contemporaries of Christ] may have said, God sent him. After a while that sounded too cold as though God were a bow and Jesus the arrow. That would not do. God did more than send him. So I suspect they went on to say, God is with him. That went deeper. Yet, as their experience with him progressed, it was not adequate. God was more than with him. So at last we catch the reverent accents of a new conviction, God came in him. That was not so much theology at first as poetry. It was an exhilarating insight and its natural expression was a song. God can come into human life! they cried; God has come into human life! Divinity and humanity are not so separate that the visitations of the Eternal are impossible. [Harry Emerson Fosdick in Living Under Tension, Harper & Bros.]

I think that says it so very well. Of course, it’s really just a long way of saying Emmanuel - “God with us”, right? God came to *be* with us. Don’t just gloss over that…take that in for all it’s worth. God came into human life in this little baby. God came to be with us. In the Old Testament, if the Jews - God’s Chosen People - wanted to be with God, they had to go to His Temple, or before that, His Tabernacle. Moses had to go up on the mountain to be with God. The creature had to go and seek out the Creator.

In Jesus (the Lord saves), God has come to be with *us*. This is a reversal of the pattern. No more do we have to go so far to find God. God is not a distant Creator who just sits back and watches from afar. God has come to us, to be with us, to take on our flesh, to walk with us. That’s what the incarnation is about. God-in-Christ is the ultimate example of Godly love. The Creator of the Universe humbled Himself to be with His children.

But the incarnation, from its very beginning, had an even higher purpose than just being with us. That very same flesh was planned to be given as a sacrifice - THE sacrifice - to atone for the sins of all humanity. That flesh would be beaten, crucified, and killed. Not because of something Jesus did wrong. No, this baby would grow up to be the only human who would not commit a single sin in His whole life. His suffering and death are on behalf of your sin and mine. He did this out of love for all of us…the love of God for His children. This is the real gift we find in that manger scene.

There seems to be a world of difference between a baby lying in a feed trough, wrapped in swaddling clothes and the carpenter’s son nailed to a Roman cross. But those two descriptions are the introduction and the climax of the Greatest Story ever told. They describe the very human being who IS HIMSELF the Good News that we all need so desperately this year. He is, as we say, the Reason for the Season of Christmas.

So as bearers of this Good News, what can we do? That’s what the second lesson tells us. And frankly, it says everything you need to know in the first half of the first verse: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God...”. The rest is just for explanation. “Love came down” in this little baby, and showed the whole world what love truly is. And because He first loved us, we now have an example to follow, and we have an idea of what love should be.

Brothers and sisters, in this Christmas season, which is not finished tomorrow like the malls would have us believe, but only BEGINS tomorrow, share that Good News. Watch for opportunities to love your neighbor, to show the world that the Gospel is alive and well. Take that light of Christ that is now shining in the darkness and put it high on a pedestal for all to see. Reflect into the corners of your neighborhood. And as each of you heard at your baptism: “let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.”

Our world needs a little Christmas right now. We know exactly what it is that we have received because of God’s love for us. Now it is our joyful task to share it with those who don’t have it. May all of us be blessed to find some way to do exactly that in the days ahead.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.