Look around at this amazing gathering! I’m so grateful that you’re here. Thank you for coming here tonight. I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I imagine that some of you could not wait to get here to this beautiful sanctuary, to hear the beautiful music and the lessons and the prayers of Christmas. And I imagine that others – well – let’s just say I imagine that it was not your first choice, but that you are here because it matters to someone you love, or maybe for a sadder reason – and I’m especially thankful that you’re here too. And my Christmas hope for you is that however you’re feeling – thrilled, ambivalent, joyful or grieving, or downright stressed and cranky, you leave here tonight feeling a little better than when you arrived.

The Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke that Mary read in between the carols from 7 to 7:30 earlier this evening is one of the most fantastic, the most glorious, and the most unbelievable stories. And it’s about the unbelievable part that I want to speak for a moment. And I think of what Albert Einstein once said, that “Imagination can sometimes be even more important than knowledge.” Because I want you to know that tonight it’s not about what any of us believes. Maybe we don’t believe in God or love Jesus as much as we think we should – or as much as we think other people want us to – or even as much as we wish we did. Maybe we don’t believe at all. What I want to tell you is that this Christmas celebration is not about what any of us believes. Christmas is a celebration of imagining in our hearts that God believes in people – in us.

This completely incredible story is about God believing in people so much that, according to Luke, God would risk a surprise pregnancy, indeed an illegal pregnancy punishable by death in those days. God would risk being born into King David’s tattered line. I mean an impoverished Joseph, living in a cave in Nazareth is not exactly Prince Charles waiting patiently to inherit the throne. This is a story about God risking childbirth in an over-crowded, volatile city, occupied by a foreign army, to an oppressed people, in a smelly stable with the livestock. In other words, the odds were not good! The odds were not good at all. This is a story about how much God believes in us – and the amazing risks that God takes to be in relationship. This is a story of God – of Light and Life and Love inviting the unlikeliest people in. This is a story of the Light and Life and Love finding us in the unlikeliest places.
When you consider the universe – and the particular and peculiar conditions required to create and sustain life – it’s really a wonder that any of us is here. When you look at the history of the world – and all the horrendous things that people have done and continue to do to one another (sadly, often in the name of God), it is a wonder that we still exist. It’s not entirely reasonable. In fact, it’s essentially unreasonable. It’s unbelievable. It’s love. It’s the mystery of love.

Luke’s nativity story is a drama about the lengths to which God will go – a celebration of the risks that God will take to have our companionship and the risks that God will take for us to be companions with one another along the way. It’s an extraordinary story. And I want to suggest to you that it’s a story of God showing up against formidable odds. To me, it’s not unlike the odds against any one of us being able to show up tonight in this place, given all of the other places we might have been instead. That is also the mystery of love.

So whether you cannot wait to see what’s under the tree, or you already know that disappointment or sadness are going to eclipse whatever is wrapped in bright paper. Whether you can hardly sit still anticipating the delight that a gift you are giving will bring, or you have been unable to secure the gifts that will satisfy the ones you love, I want to invite you to take a moment this Christmas to sit with the idea of a celebration of God believing in you. Take a moment right now to acknowledge the fantastic, glorious, unbelievably big gift of showing up. Let us celebrate with as much of our hearts as we can manage to make available and then stretch to make a little more room – in our own pre-occupied, overcrowded, volatile and less than pristine hearts. Let’s invite the mystery of love and the miracle of God believing in us to find a safe place to stay tonight, even if only for a little while.

With a heart that’s been stretched a bit, I want to invite you to reflect on the Gospel of John’s “nativity.” It’s not a story of a baby – no Bethlehem, no manger, no angel choirs or sheep herders or exotic travelers from the East. For John, the account of the mystery of love and the miracle of God believing in us was a story so true that it could only be told as a mystical poem or a hymn. In his book The Four Witnesses, Robin Griffith-Jones asserts that with this opening, John the Evangelist “alerts our ears to a sound and structure that we have hardly heard before…Here at the start of John’s story is the most famous poem of the Christian world. [And] It is more than just a poem. These lines have a solemn rhythm; motifs appear and reappear in an intricate, slow dance; a term from one line is picked up at the start of the next. We have before us a hymn. John’s [hearers are]…drawn into the sense and sensibilities of worship, that strange midway state between the earthly and the heavenly.” (1)

John’s poem often sounds to my Christmas Eve ears like a faint humming. His is a complicated account for a complicated time. You know, all of the scripture texts we’ve heard this evening were written in the midst of occupation and pre-occupation, confusion, complication, danger, death – of grieving – of hunger – of longing. They’re written by ones proclaiming in all different ways, “listen up!” Listen to the yearning. Listen to the hunger – the longing. The Word of God – the creative and organizing force of the universe – is pleading with us not to block our ears or try to stop up the holes in our hearts. These scripture texts remind me year after year that the most beautiful poetry and songs get written out of the most tragic, heart-breaking stories. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem, Isaiah tells us, for God has comfort for God’s people and you are redeemed. You are extremely valuable to God.

My somewhat unorthodox conviction is that the longing we feel for God IS God. The longing we feel for God IS God – and the Word of God is IN us – the longing is in our flesh. The Word of God – the creative and organizing force in the universe – is living among us and within us, still and forever, and we know it for sure when we ache for right-relationship, when we remember that longing, that aching, is a sign of being fully alive and of loving.
That’s what the Gospel of John’s birth narrative is about – the Incarnation – the longing of the Word of God in flesh, the grace upon grace of the Christ fully human, fully living and fully loving, in the person of Jesus, yes, and in each of us as well from before time and into eternity. That beautiful, mystical opening hymn of John’s Gospel is his proclamation of faith that The Word, The Christ, comes into, and most importantly for, hearts that are broken open. Perhaps it’s because when our hearts have been broken open, the light and life and love of God can get in through the cracks. The Word of God in this mystical hymn, is humming and buzzing – choose life, choose light, choose love – do not be afraid -- it’s worth it every time.

A parishioner sent the most exquisite card with this message about Christmas:

The Word of God is humming and buzzing – choose life, choose light, choose love – do not be afraid – it’s worth it every time. Every time.