his song is peace

and his gospel is love

A sermon on the Christmas Gospel once more:

Each one of us, in our own way, has intuited on some level that this night is a holy night indeed. One way or another, something insists to us that this is a holy night. Regardless of whether we were dragged here or if we did the dragging, the holiness of this night cannot be denied.

As for the silence or calm, well, that’s another story. Isn’t it? Nonetheless, I pray you all will know a little of that bright calm and quiet that springs from the blessings Christ comes to bring tonight. And I especially pray this for all you blessed parents out there.

But, regardless of whether “all was calm” as you got ready for church, and notwithstanding if tonight will be “silent” or not, either, having arrived, we cannot deny that there’s something particularly holy about this delicate sliver of time. Isn’t there?

Now, let it be said holy does not mean magical. And neither does holy mean spiritual or supernatural. On the contrary, holy means particular. Particular.

To be holy is not to be caught up in some seventh heaven. No, holy means to have a particular, GOD-given purpose HERE on earth. For instance, what makes this place holy is that it has a purpose on this side of heaven. 

And the holy purpose of this place isn’t to tell you how you can escape from here to heaven, either. No, the holy purpose of this place is to tell you how Christ, on the first Christmas, slipped into earth unnoticed! What’s more, on account of that, Christ is now on the loose HERE on earth! 

TONIGHT, the one whom heaven cannot hold is busy giving YOU all the blessings he’s brought along with him from heaven!

That’s what holy means. And that means the best way to sniff out holiness is to attend to the particulars. And trust me, Christmas is full of particulars—beginning with the first one. 

…That first Christmas was a study in contradictions—starting with the introduction itself! 

To set the scene, Saint Luke tells us who’s the emperor. And this makes perfect sense. If you’re going to tell a big story, you’re going to talk about big people. 

However, as Luke continues, he tightens his focus! Next, he mentions the governor. A decided step down from the emperor. Although, nothing to sneeze at, either. 

But the evangelist doesn’t stop there! He keeps zooming in! And he doesn’t stop until he’s set his spotlight in the last place you’d expect; a couple of nobodies! A young, unwed, peasant couple from the backwoods of the empire!

If Luke’s going to talk about the potentate of all humankind, he’s chosen an odd place to start. And yet, insists the Gospel, this IS right where it all starts!—with a couple of folks hard-up for the night. 

And the incongruities DON’T stop there!

After that, Saint Luke tells us that angels appear to herald this dear savior’s birth! And this makes sense, too. Momentous episodes call for movement in the heavens themselves.

However, Luke tells us this heavenly host sees fit to declare this news to none other than some no-account shepherds! 

And that makes no sense whatsoever! If God’s going to send word that the sovereign of the universe has been born, the divine messengers ought to show up to the emperor! Or at least the governor! 

Instead, though, the heavenly host goes to some field workers! The Lord’s birth is first announced to some working stiffs! Poor saps who were on the clock that night because they had never been promoted to middle management! 

…Christmas is a night full of contrasts. There’s what the emperor thinks is happening. And then there’s what God is really doing on the sly.

There’s the Messiah himself, that newborn king who comes not to the halls of power but to a manger. The prince of peace who’s attended to, not by nobles, but animals! The wonderful counselor who’s laid, not in a plush crib, but a feeding trough!

If you had asked anyone that night whom we’d be talking about two-thousand years later, absolutely no one would have pointed to that down-on-their-luck couple with nowhere to go! More than likely, everyone would have said the emperor and his coterie. As the evangelist tells us, though, those power players were no more than passing footnotes. The real action was taking place where no one thought to look!

And lo and behold, he was right! Wasn’t he?! Here we are, two-thousand years later, and if you know anything about Emperor Augustus and most certainly some obscure figure like Governor Quirinius, it’s just because they happened to be on the throne when the real king was born!

…You should know, though, that there’s more to the unusual holiness of that night. Understand, what’s so holy about that first Christmas is that its holiness cannot be contained by that one night! No, the strange holiness of that night is extending itself over us and our lives tonight! Right now, even. 

Just consider it, with everything else going on in the world right now, somehow, we can’t help but suspect that there’s no more pressing business tonight than this! The account of the birth of a child to an inconsequential couple some two-thousand years ago!

But it’s not even that far removed. Because the truth is, each one of us is a walking contradiction! And I don’t just mean how you can say one thing and do something else entirely different in the very next moment.

*Although you do! Listen to your partner! They’re not making this stuff up!

But no, I’m talking about how each one of us walked through those doors with a life full of contradictions.

We have successful careers and failing marriages. Don’t we? And if it’s not one, it’s the other. We have careers that are floundering and relationships that are stronger than ever.

We have happy families and unhappy secrets. We have strong friendships and weak faith. We have old addictions and new accomplishments. 

We have plans that are coming together and lives that are falling apart. We have savings that are dwindling and pursuits that are progressing. We have health that’s failing and spirituality that’s flourishing. 

And the list could go on and on. Couldn’t it? Absolutely no one came through those doors with a life where everything clicks all of the time.

No matter what it might look like, not a one of us came here tonight with our lives totally put together. No, we all arrived with a life full of contradictions. AND all the tension that comes along with them. 

We all have more than our fair share of friction that’s tearing us apart and chaos that’s throwing us to the wolves. Don’t we? And I’d be willing to wager that’s putting it just a little too poetically.

…Now, of course, it goes without saying that we all feel tremendous pressure to hide this. We all want to show up looking like we’re meant to be here. And believe me, I understand this impulse. But it does us no favors.

It’s fun to play dress up, especially on Christmas. And I have no qualms with that. Do it up. Tonight’s a celebration! And on account of Christ, YOU are bedecked with all the glory he forwent on the night of his birth. So go on! Pull out all the stops! 

However, no matter what you do, don’t play dress up with your soul. Don’t play dress up with who YOU really are. And no matter what, don’t you dare play dress up with God. 

Yes, you can show up here dressed to the nines. But you can also admit you don’t always feel like a nine. You can admit you’re hardly pulling off a one tonight! Or even lower, if that’s where you are. 

You can acknowledge that you’re barely holding it together. You can come here tonight admitting you wish there was someone here with you. You can walk through those doors confessing all in your life isn’t calm. And neither is it bright. 

You can admit all that because none of it disqualifies you from the blessings Christ comes to bring tonight! Quite the contrary, in truth! For it’s precisely those places that the Christ-child is born onto you!

…In a bit, there’ll come a blessed moment when we will drop the lights, light candles, and sing a hymn of this silent night / holy night. And when we do, take a moment to look into the face of someone else. It’s a fine way to see them. 

But you know what? That’s not the only way to see each other. Is it? 

Yes, we get a glimpse of each other bathed in soft candlelight. But it’s only a glimpse. Because there are other, harsher lights in our lives. Aren’t there?

Maybe a better way to really see one another is to see that moment when we thought about not coming here tonight. To see each other at that moment when we lost our temper and raised our voice. To see each other when we got the news that left us a little numb to all the promises of this night. 

Yes, those moments are not the ones we like to put forward. But they're the ones Christ boldly stepped into on the night of his holy nativity! Those places where life slips out of your hands are really nothing less than the swirling vortex of Christ’s miraculous birth, WITH everything that flows from it, too!

These contradictions we all carry with us are a painful fact of life on this side of heaven. But when Christ descended from heaven, he spurned them not. In fact, he chose to be born into the very middle of them! 

Christ has not come to solve the glaring contradictions in your life! No, he’s come to do you one better! He’s come to save you from their destructive force! 

Christ is not your problem-solver. No, he’s your savior! And believe me, that’s oh so much better.

Christ has chosen to be born into the midst of your life! And he’s done so in order to become the anchor of your life! Christ is the one you can hold fast to when the storms of life threaten to overtake you!

That first Christmas was full of contradictions because life is full of contradictions! Isn’t it? And when Christ was born into this old world, he brought his light along with him! Christ is your Christmas star that shines year-round! And His light is the light that leads you unto the fullness of GOD’S love every time!

…Ultimately, Christ’s manager is the ultimate contradiction! It’s ground zero for all those incongruities and uncertainties of life! And it’s where you can nestle down when everything in life is tearing you up!

It may not look like it, but that humble manger is strong enough to hold all the world’s grief and pain—including yours. In Christ, all those unsettling clashes and quarrels of life are quelled!

Christ is born not just to be the company for your misery. No, he’s born to bear it all for you! Christ is your silent night! And he’s your joy to the world, too!

In Christ, your Christmas feast is a bit of a foretaste of the great one to come. In Christ, everyone gathered around your table may be a mixed bag, but they’re fully blessed by God—including you. And in Christ, your Christmas slumber is touched with not a little of that heavenly PEACE.

Tonight, YOU have the calm of knowing your life is held safe and secure in Christ’s pierced hands! Tonight, YOU have the bright light of heaven shining down upon you and all your loved ones, too. Tonight, YOU have every last Christmas blessing, AND eternity, too!

As another Christmas Gospel put it, “THE Light SHINES in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it!” The Darkness did not overcome the Light of Christ that first Christmas. And it’s not about to overcome His light this Christmas, either!

Indeed, the hopes AND THE fears of all the years are met in CHRIST tonight! 

And they’re met, not in judgment, but LOVE! A love strong enough to hold it all together, forever and ever. Amen!

And so, wrapped in that love, embraced by that love, and upheld by that love, let us sing of that love!

O Little Town of Bethlehem, ELW 279