The Feast of the Incarnation
Sermon Preached Christmas Eve at St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Sermon Preached Christmas Eve at St. Mark's Episcopal Church
The last several weeks – the Season
of Advent – the lead up to this holy night – has been all about waiting and
preparing. But what is it we have been
waiting for? A baby born in a manger
surrounded by Mary and Joseph and some shepherds? Encircled by cute farm
animals? A choir of angels announcing this
good news? Some of us were here at 4
o’clock this evening to see this vision of Christmas – slightly altered by some
theatrical embellishments - reenacted by our children. It was fun, it was adorable . . . but did it
represent all that we’ve been waiting for? Does Luke’s story – when we focus
only on what has become the crèche displayed in many of our homes – does that
adequately justify the time spent in prayerful preparation? And, more importantly, can that tableau
satisfy the deep yearning in our hearts for something deeper and more
meaningful?
In conversations with many of you
these past several weeks, it is clear that we need something more than the
pastoral and quaint to satisfy our longings.
We are looking for and desperately need something deep and true. About 10 days ago, Stephen Colbert offered a
parody of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” as his response to
2016.[1] The song referenced many of 2016’s dark
moments –Flint Michigan’s water crisis, wild fires, the death of cultural icons
– Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen – and the ugliness of the campaign cycle
leading up to the November elections.
And this litany of darkness was followed by the ironic refrain, “it’s
the end of the year as we know it . . . and I feel fine.” While Colbert’s lyrics focused exclusively on
the woes of the United States, the sentiment resonates around the globe.
For me, the dust and ashes of
Aleppo – to say nothing of the lives lost, the children orphaned, and the refugees
shunned around the world – speaks to the present darkness in a way that nothing
else in my lifetime has before. But
history tells us there have been other times like this.
“In those days a decree went out
from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the
first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”[2] Judea had just been declared a Roman province
– an occupied territory – and the Jewish people were most likely registering for
tax purposes. This census ultimately led
to a violent uprising. Now there are a
number of problems with the chronology in Luke’s gospel, not the least of which
is that the first registration in Judea probably took place several years
before Jesus’ birth; but the author of the gospel, nonetheless, wants to make
it very clear that Jesus was born in politically turbulent times.
Occupied territories, people living
under foreign regimes or exiled from their homelands, peoples torn apart by
war, these are not new. In fact, this
was the world into which Jesus was born - the world into which God chose to
deliver a baby. This year, instead of a
baby in a manger, I see 5-year-old Omran Daqnees in the back of an ambulance in
Aleppo.[3] This is the darkness into which God enters,
the darkness into which God chooses to be born.
“The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them
light has shined.”[4] A few nights ago, I woke up in the middle of
the night and unable to sleep, I went to my cell phone to play a game of
Scrabble with some stranger also lying awake at that hour. But what struck me in that moment – in
addition to the odd connection this technology could create across the miles –
what struck me was how bright my phone’s screen was. It actually hurt my eyes a bit, causing me to
squint. I found the setting that would
allow me to dim the screen and then continued my game. Of course, the lighting on my phone hadn’t
changed; but the light surrounding it had.
Instead of the bright light of day or the fluorescent glow of bulbs in
my office, I was lying in the dark. In
that instant, I recognized something profound about the “great light” that
Christians have come to know as Jesus the Christ. That great light shines brightest in the dark
places. And isn’t that what the gospels
tell us?
“He has cast down the mighty from their
thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good
things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his
servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy, The promise he made
to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”[5]
This Jesus who we, using the
prophet’s words, name “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace” is born in a land at war.
This Jesus, a baby sent by God to be our hope in the darkness, comes to
us in the darkness of this night to be for us a great light – a light so strong
against the darkness – that the darkness cannot overcome it. This light has the power to enter our hearts
to transform us so that we are filled with hope, a hope that the darkness
cannot overcome.[6]
Tonight’s celebration is filled
with songs of joy and of great gladness.
Tonight’s celebration is filled with family and friends and a feast of
bread and wine that is but a foretaste of the feast we will all experience when
God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.[7] And tonight’s celebration is filled with a
manger – Mary and Joseph, angels and shepherds – and a baby, a baby who overturned
the world of politics in his day and promises to do the same in ours.[8] A baby in a manger - an unlikely person and
an unlikely place to look for and to find hope; but may this holy night be the
night in which we realize once again that God with us – Emmanuel – is doing for
us what we cannot do for ourselves. And
may this holy night be the night in which our deepest yearning finds
fulfillment once again.
“Do not be afraid; for see – I am
bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be
assign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a
manger.”[9]
[1]
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “It’s the End of the Year as We Know It,”
December 16, 2016, accessed December 23, 2016.
[2]
Luke 2:1-2.
[4]
Isaiah 9:2.
[5]
Luke 1:52-55.
[6]
John 1:5.
[7]
Katherine Willis Pershey, “Christmas Eve: A Feast of Light,” A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon
Series: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C, compiled by Jessica Miller
Kelley (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 9-10.
[8]
Jim Wallis, “Singing Our Way Back to Hope: Lessons in Resistance from theChristmas Carols,” Sojourners,
December 22, 2016, ,
accessed December 23, 2016.
[9]
Luke 2:10b-12.
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