Christmas Eve

Dec 24, 2021

Sermon: Pastor Andrea

During the Advent & Christmas season, we think and we speak about waiting, about expectantly watching for Jesus… both as we anticipate celebrating his birth, but also as we look for his second Advent, his second arrival, when He has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes. To make everything new.

We use these really nice words during Advent and around Christmas…hope, peace, joy, love. But these words… they are more than just “nice words” … they are words that reveal an alternate reality. They are words that help us remember how revolutionary Christmas really is. And they are words that remind us that Christmas isn’t only nostalgia for years gone by, but is sign of the big story that our personal stories have been woven into…are being woven into.

At Christmas, and during the season of Advent, while we’re waiting for the celebration, we hear a lot of words thrown around. “Nice words” like… hope, peace, joy, love…

But I wonder sometimes if we have forgotten just how revolutionary those words really are. What is hope anyway?

What does peace really look like?

What does joy feel like?

And, do we really know love?

I wonder what you’re most waiting or longing for this year…

Are you waiting for hope? Maybe hope for the end of the pandemic? Or hope for your last years to be as meaningful and rich as possible? Or hoping just for what you need to get through the day? Through the year? (Me too)

Henri Nouwen reminds us that “Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes. Optimism is the expectation that things—the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on—will get better. Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God’s promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.”

Expectation vs trust. They’re VERY different things.

It’s easy for hope to downgrade itself to a quiet optimism. For our trust to fade into expectations. (And expectations are often just resentments in waiting - or, we so downgrade our expectations to only cover things we can manage.)

We “hope” things will turn out. We look at something and we try to think of how to make it better…to optimize it. To make little improvements until maybe it will somehow actually be better. But hope is actually far more revolutionary than that. Christian hope is rooted in God. Even when things are not improving, we know that we are held by the love of God and so we do not lose hope. And we tell the story of hope throughout the year… how Jesus is born into the world, light dawning in the midst of darkness. And then just a few months later, we’ll tell of the death of this same Jesus… and by all accounts, on Good Friday, death has won, hope is lost. And optimism won’t do in that moment. Resurrection cannot be contained by optimism. But resurrection is exactly what gives us hope even when it looks like all is lost. Our hope is rooted in a God who can bring something out of nothing. Life out of death.

Are you waiting for peace - for an absence of conflict in the world at large? Or maybe within your own family.

It’s kind of a natural thing for us to settle for “getting along” or even just tolerating one another rather than to yearn for the true peace. Shalom is the hebrew word for peace. And when Shalom is described in the Bible things fit together the way they are intended. People relating to God rightly. People relating to one another rightly, both as individuals and as groups and nations. And then people relating to the rest of creation rightly, taking care of the earth and stewarding creation the way we were asked to from the beginning.

Shalom, is a much bigger thing, a much more revolutionary thing than simply a moment without conflict. Peace. Shalom.

Maybe this year you waiting for joy. Watching for those little sparks - either in the faces of others, or maybe in your own soul? (Me too)

I think the natural decay of our sense of joy, is both to limit it to feelings of happiness and to divorce it from community.

Joy is a response of happiness, yes, but it is happiness that gets expressed in community. And joy can be sparked not only because something good has happened to us, but also because of what is going on with and for others.

The Anchor Bible dictionary describes joy like this:

The experience of deliverance and the anticipation of salvation provide the most significant occasions for rejoicing among the people of God in the OT. The coming of the Messiah, who delivers his people and brings salvation becomes the basis for rejoicing in the NT. The response of joy, gladness, or happiness is not only a deep inward feeling, but is expressed in celebration when God’s people gather together.

Joy expresses itself song and dance, feasting and celebration. Now, that might look different at this moment than it has in the past.

In the OT, much of the talk of joy was about the people being delivered from their enemies. Physical salvation.

But the NT sees a new expression of joy… and it show up right in the middle of the Christmas story… you know the line. What did the angel say to the shepherds… Luke 2:10-11

Luke 2:10–11 (NIV)

10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

Joy here looked like ragtag shepherds running into Bethlehem looking for the new king. A celebration that featured a tired carpenter named Joseph, Mary, wh must have been an exhausted and overwhelmed new mother - for what new mother isn’t?

Or maybe you are waiting for love? Scanning the horizon, waiting for the phone to ring, counting down the days til you can see the ones you love? Or remembering the ones you can no longer see, but who you love all the same? (Me too)

Love.

We’ve likely each tasted of love in its best forms. And we’ve likely each tasted the disappointment, the heartbreak even that love sometimes brings.

But what does the love we see at Christmas look like?

Esau Mccaulley puts it beatifully:

“It’s an exceedingly strange and seemingly ridiculous plan. In a world drunk with a desire for power and filled with those who take what they want by force, the miracle of Christmas is one of weakness not strength. It’s a suggestions that divine love is more powerful than we think.”

It turns out that the faithful and never stopping love of God runs right through the whole story…not just the Christmas story. But the big story that runs from creation to covenant to the Jesus story and all the way to the new creation. God’s love is present all through the story. And all through our stories.

And then God call us to love God and to love our neighbour. And Jesus demonstrates for us what that looks like. A love that acts. A love that gives. A love that sees what others miss. A love that sets rights and privileges aside. A love that gives one self away. A love that lays down one’s life. A love that death cannot defeat. A love that never gives up. That keeps going. Until everything is made new.

So I wonder, what are you waiting for this Christmas?

During this season when we think about waiting, about expectantly watching for Jesus… both as we anticipate celebrating his birth, but also as we look for his second Advent, his second arrival, when He has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes. To make everything new.

We use these really nice words during Advent and around Christmas…hope, peace, joy, love. But these words… they are more than just “nice words” … they are words that reveal an alternate reality. They are words that help us remember just how revolutionary Christmas really is.

When Jesus came, when Jesus was born into this world, his arrival flipped something. Ignited something. Hinted at the reality that God doesn’t just ask us to wait. God doesn’t expect us to muster up a little more hope, a decent amount of peace, a glimmer of joy, to squeeze out an ounce of love.

When Jesus was born, we finally started to see what God is really like...

Hope personified.

Peace, wholeness enfleshed.

Joy made full.

Love that never ends.

After final reading & carols:

This Christmas, I trust you will encounter, hope, peace, joy and love.

And that when you do, you will discover they are revolutionary - because they point you towards the One who would personify hope, who would enflesh the wholeness of the shalom kind of peace, who would embody joy made full and who would live a life that demonstrates love that never ends.

Merry Christmas.