December 24, 1999
A little later this evening, you will hear the familiar words, "O holy night the stars are brightly shining, it is the night of the dear Savior's birth." This is the feast of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, our favorite night, our favorite season. But, I have a confession to make, I have never much liked this season. I have another confession to make, I feel very guilty about that. As a husband and a father and a priest and a pastor it is my duty, my obligation to love Christmas.
As I looked out over the congregation during the Advent season leading up to Christmas, I also noted there were people missing, people whose lives have ended this past year. It makes me sad for I miss them terribly, but it is the night of our dear Savior's birth.
I have never much liked this season because it brings to mind so many things of the past that have been missed opportunities, so many opportunities when Christ's love needed to be shown and wasn't. We have missed a lot.
I have never much liked this season because the story we have read of Christ's birth has that terribly dark side, a dark side that many of us have experienced ourselves. Governments or big business move people around for reasons that are hard to justify — simply because it's time to move or because it was more convenient to take the census if you all go to one place, or some other such silly reason as Quirinius devised when Caesar Augustus ordered this first census so long ago.
Christmas has the dark side of merchants and innkeepers refusing service to people seeking help. Likewise, if you have been to the mall or shopping at all, you know that there are crowds jostling for position, mindless of those around them.
But I also feel guilty because I have a dark side and there are times when I do not want to share the joy. But tonight is the night of our dear Savior's birth, and all those things which are crying out for redemption, all those events, all those attitudes that are crying out for a savior have good news tonight, because the Savior is born. "God become man" is present among us.
When Jesus was born and grew to adulthood, he walked the face of the earth as we walk it. But, as he walks among us, he comes to us as light in the midst of that darkness that is our other side. He does this in the midst of that sadness that we all have known, in the midst of seasons of joy when we feel no joy. In doing so, he reveals us in all of our pretense, in all our lostness, and in all our fragility. Once revealed, he fills us with a longing for his kingdom and in doing so, he communicates his undying love in his affirmation of us.
Whether we are filled with joy or filled with grief, he is born in our midst. Our joys he fills to overflowing and our grief he gently, patiently and irrevocably heals. His presence this night is mysterious and awe inspiring and yet, it is very, very real. He is known to us in the breaking of the bread, and he is known to us in the miracles of healing. He is known to us in the powerful words spoken in the midst of time by voices where we do not expect it, but words that come to us at just the right moment. Words of love we never know when he has spoken until sometime much later.
I have never much liked this season, but every year something happens to make me love it. Two days ago, I received a Christmas card from somebody whose name was vaguely familiar. He had been in Australia for several years, he said, and I thought, "Wait a minute! I do know this person. The name was vaguely familiar and the E-mail address was there. I think the person was a fraternity brother of mine from college. I am pretty sure that is right, but where my annuals are I don't know, we have moved so many times." Today, I received a response to my E-mail saying, "I just wanted you to know that although it has been a long time since the mid-sixties, something you did then touched somebody else's life" — words of affirmation and love from across time and distance spoken by a long forgotten friend, words of Christ's love.
When Jesus came and walked among us, we are told tragically by John, "He was in the world, but the world knew him not." We look for a rescuer to take us to safety, to take us to heaven, to get us out of difficult times, and what we get is a command to feed the sheep, to take care of the widow and orphan, the imprisoned and the naked, the hungry and the unemployed, and everybody else who shows up at our doorstep. We look for a personal savior, but we are told, "if you do not love your brother or sister you cannot love God." We look for solace as we receive the sacraments and we are told to go and take Christ into the world, to be witnesses to his saving power.
The conflict between what we so often look for and what Christ will be to us is a conflict that will not go away — but it is the night of the dear Savior's birth. The world still does not know the Lord, but you do and you will be bidden to go and take the Lord into the world. The world does not know him as the Lord because it looks in all the wrong places. Perhaps more properly, we fail to look in all the right places. We look in strange sections of the book store that deal with new age and the occult and this religion and that religion, and fail to look at the very Christianity, the very incarnation that has been given to us by God.
He sends us these people around us. He sends us old friends across time and distance who correspond with us. Once in a great while, we scan those birthday cards, Christmas cards and letters out of curious idle interest rather than for a word of grace spoken to us. We fail to look in the right places.
So, I will probably never change. I will probably always love other seasons better than I love Christmas. I like Easter, for instance. I like the summer a lot, but I will never ever lose my love for what happens on this night — for the birth of hope in our lives, for the rekindling of something fresh that tells us that God will come to us whether we turn him aside or not, whether we push him around and deny his presence or not. He will still take his place where we bid him to be, and he will grow to adulthood amongst us and call us and challenge us and send us out to do the work that he has left for us to do.
As we roll into a new year and a new century and into a new millennium, let's start looking in all the right places. Let's face this year ahead knowing the rest of the story. That is what always gets me through this time of the year, because I know the outcome. I have read the story, preached the story, and lived the story in my life. I know the outcome that Jesus Christ dies on the cross and destroys death in the process, giving us life and hope.
And that story is told each time, each Sunday, each Wednesday, each day that we gather together in worship. That story is told and comes to life in a new generation each time we sit with a child at our knees and tell them the story of Jesus. Whether in our homes, in our Bible studies, in our Sunday Schools or in our schools, when we tell the story it becomes theirs. That story is told in all kinds of gatherings — in men's groups and women's groups and renewal groups. Those are the right places to look. It is told in the Lenten programs and in the ministries that are done at the hands of people, people in this parish and this community, people we know, people who sit next to us, people in our lives.
So let's start looking, let's determine to look in all the right places, not so much to improve our minds, certainly not so much to earn points for heaven (it doesn't work that way), not even so much to show hospitality (although that is a Biblical imperative), but rather let us look in the right places so that we can encounter the risen Christ in the lives of his saints who share the Gospel with us in our own time and place.
As John reminds us, and as Mark and Matthew and Luke and Paul and all the others tell us, "To all that receive him, to all that believe in his name, he will give the power to become children of God." And then this, indeed, will be the night of our dear Savior's birth in us. Amen
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
December 24, 1999