With Us

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The New Revised Standard Version The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

There’s a song that’s been in my head lately.

I'll be home for Christmas You can count on me Please have snow and mistletoe And presents by the tree

Christmas eve will find me Where the love light gleams I'll be home for Christmas If only in my dreams

It’s a song of a weary traveler who just knows that they are going to spend Christmas eve separated from the ones they love the most.

I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

I would like to make a motion that we as Presbyterians, in light of the events of the 2020 Pandemic, immediately adopt this song in to our hymnals.

The question I have been wondering this whole season, sometimes out loud in sermons, is what God is up to in this season we’re in.

What lessons are we meant to learn.

The Old Ways

Pilgrimage

Much is made of the journey that Mary and Joseph endured so many years ago, but the truth of the matter is they were probably used to journeys like this.

To be clear, no pregnant woman should ever be made to undertake a pilgrimage while 9 months pregnant, but...

Joseph and Mary were Jewish to their core, and would likely then have participated in an annual pilgrimage to the temple.

Later in Luke, we get confirmation of that when they take Jesus to the Temple and make a sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves.

The whole temple-era religion of Joseph and Mary was centered around a place.

God lived in the middle of the temple, in what was called the Holiest of Holies.

Only consecrated priests were able to go in there, and even they had to have a rope tied around their waist just in case they did something and died in the power of God, so that folks on the outside could pull them out.

The next layer out were for the pure-blood Jewish men.

A layer out from that was reserved for Jewish women and children.

Out from that was where Gentiles and passers by were allowed to gather.

But the point was really clear: God is in here.

When you are in here, you are with God!

When you are not in here, you are far away from God.

The farther away from in here you are, the farther away from God you are.

Ladders

When I was in college, I was a religious studies major.

This wasn’t so much a study in Christianity, as it was a comparative religions course. I studied all of them.

And in fact, the temple-place religion of the 1st Century Jews is not that different from all the world’s religions.

Just about every religion out there tells us that God is up “there,” and that we have to work really hard to get to God.

The major religions differ on what to call God, where God is, and what exactly they mean by work really hard, but in essence this is the story everyone tells.

You are here. God is there. Go climb the ladder.

Maybe we would expect that Christianity would be no different.

Except that it is.

Turn it Around

We’ve heard this story a million times before, and the elements of it are familiar:

As they arrive in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph find no place to rest their weary heads.

They find their way to a stable, and wouldn’t you know it while they’re there, the time comes to give birth.

And so Jesus, the Son of God, the Bread of Life, is laid for the first time in a feeding trough.

But we cannot miss the big picture here!

God does away with the ladder!

God says it is no longer what you do to get from there to here

God shows up among us!

God recognizes that no matter how hard or easy the ladder is to climb, we’ll actually never make it on our own.

So God shows up!

Suddenly this movement of God that started out centered on place…isn’t.

As Eugene Peterson so beautifully paraphrases this passage in John, God took on Flesh and Blood and moved in to the neighborhood.

There is no human experience that God himself does not understand in the person of Jesus Christ.

To those of us who have been scared, baby Jesus knows our fears.

To those of us who have known pain, baby Jesus feels our hurts.

To those of us who are angry, Jesus would grow up to turn over tables in rage.

To those of us who feel betrayed, Jesus knows the sound of 30 pieces of silver in the pocket of a friend.

To those of us who are far separated from our comfortable place of worship, Mary, Joseph, and the newborn King say “I hear ya.”

And even later in the story, Jesus tells us that he is always with us by means of his Holy Spirit.

Jesus does not live in a temple.

Jesus does not call a particular worship song his home.

Jesus is not found in your favorite Christian Camp.

And Jesus is not experienced inside the walls of a church alone.

Jesus lives right here…right in our hearts.

That has always been true.

Though maybe it feels a bit more true this year.

Pandemic Christmas

There are three things I think we need to take away from all this on this strange Christmas eve:

The Story Is Not About Place

No one desired, wanted, or imagined a pandemic Christmas.

A frigid raining porch is not the kind of Christmas magic we’re used to!

I know that that place right over there feels like home for so many of us, and the only way we’ll be home for Christmas this year is in our dreams.

But one of the most difficult lessons of this pandemic is exactly the one I think Jesus most wants us to hear tonight: Jesus does not live in Church buildings.

For as much as that place is rich with memories and spiritual moments, it is not where we come to meet Jesus.

For as much as that is a place where worship services are held and songs are sung, it is not the only place of adoration for the newborn king.

For as much as it might pain us to be away from that sanctuary over there, Jesus still finds us wherever we are tonight.

We’ll be back!

But maybe for this year, it’s enough to know that a religion based on place is the old way.

We worship the God who decides to come to us.

Jesus Feels Our Pain

All of that said, no one should deny the pain we are feeling in this season as a community of faith.

No one should deny the grief.

No one should deny the mourning.

No one should deny the loneliness.

No one should deny the isolation.

This is tough!

What we know though is that there is not one emotion we can experience that Jesus does not know, feel, and understand.

Jesus meets us in our grief with words of comfort.

Jesus meets us in our mourning with a gift of peace.

Jesus meets us in our loneliness with the tremendous gift of God’s magnificent presence.

Jesus meets us in our isolation to remind us, even through clunky and difficult technology, that we are not now, nor will we ever be alone.

My encouragement to us, dear church, is to lean on Jesus.

It is not weakness to lean in to Jesus in this season.

It is not naive to place our hopes in the infant in the manger.

It is not idle hope to believe in the Son of God.

Jesus Lives in Our Hearts

We are able to lean on Jesus because he lives right here, right in our hearts.

I don’t know where this pandemic is taking us.

I don’t know what next week will look like, let alone next Christmas.

I don’t know what we will have gained from this season, and I do not know what we will have lost.

But here’s what I know:

I know that we can join the choir of the heavenly hosts to proclaim good will to all.

I know that we can join with the shepherds in running just as fast as we can to worship the newborn king.

I know that we can join with Mary, and ponder all these treasures and tragedy in our hearts.

And I know that wherever this season takes us,

whether we are here or home,

surrounded by family or alone,

treasuring Christmas joy or managing Christmas pain,

Jesus is right here.

That kid in the manger lives on to this very day, deciding to make his home not in a temple, or a church, or an office, or even a manger.

He makes his home right here with us.

May we celebrate the birth of the Son of God, born in us today!

Amen.