Christmas Eve, Nativity of our Lord, Year A

Earlier this year, two octogenarians, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, collaborated to publish a book titled Book of Joy. These religious and world leaders discuss the personal and national struggles they have faced in their lives and point, like the star shining over Bethlehem, to the sustaining presence of joy in their lives.

Hopefully, we can all recall cherished and joy-filled memories from our own lives, and I would wager that the joy we carry from those memories is probably not focused on the beauty of the setting, or the presentation of rich gifts or food, but in the people who shared those moments with us.

What is joyful about the announcement of an engagement, the expectation of a child, or the anticipation of a homecoming is the promise that each holds for new or renewed relationship with one whom we love and who loves us. Our joy is tied to the promise embodied in them.

In Luke’s Christmas story, the angel says to the shepherds: “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”

In the rest of his narrative, Luke places the birth of Jesus in a historical context but the details about the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth are not as important as the person who was born on that night more than two thousand years ago.

As the pastoral letter to Titus is most simply translated, on that first Christmas, “the grace of God appeared.” The grace of God appeared in the vulnerable birth of a powerless child, in the darkness of night, without birth announcements or balloons and without pageantry or fuss.

The promise of the Christmas story is that our persistent and loving God shows up in the most unexpected people and places, and seeks us out. Holiness first appears as an infant, to a thirteen year old young woman and her husband. Then it appears as a light that shines in the darkness to guide the shepherds toward God that they would become witnesses to God’s work unfolding in their midst.

This Christmas, where might we witness God’s work first-hand?

I think it might look like two families pitching in to help each other when one of the dads is in the hospital. It might look like people whose faces are lined with grief because they are missing loved ones tonight.

But it might also look like a teenager giving her Christmas gifts to a woman who wouldn’t have had any, and a young woman receiving Christmas cards from strangers and being reminded that nothing separates us from God’s perfect love.

We witness God’s grace-soaked, saving work in small and ordinary ways and in the extraordinary gift of His Son Jesus Christ, born this night.

This Christmas, may we know joy in the promise that God brings into the world in His Son Jesus., to save us from sin and darkness and lead us in new life and hope.

Let us pray:[i]
May the God of grace increase our joy.
May Christ Jesus be born as Savior within each one of us.
And may the Spirit, the Wonderful Counselor,
make the good news known to us and through us.
Amen.

[i] Laughing Bird Liturgy, http://laughingbird.net/WeeklyArchives.html, accessed 12/24/2016.