Christmas Eve

If you’ve ever picked a book off the New York Times best-sellers list for fiction, chances are you’ve picked up a mystery.

You know, we like mysteries. We like being able to put things together so that they make sense – often, if something doesn’t make sense we dismiss it out of hand, or in a tremendous feat of mental gymnastics we alter some the information we have available to make a conclusion ‘fit’.

But what do we about Christmas? In our own Christmas story, mystery at the heart of our own Christian faith.

There are mysteries of time. You may have heard of the debate that goes on as to when exactly Jesus was born – some authorities say about 5 BC; others state that his birth was around 4 AD. Most agree that it was NOT in the year 1. December 25 already hosted two other related festivals: a Roman one honoring the sun, and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian "Sun of Righteousness" – who was popular with the common people.

The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels what they knew to be true, early church leaders picked December 25 as the day to celebrate the birth of the everlasting God.

In the Christmas story there is a mystery of place. Luke records that Joseph came from Nazareth, to which his family had probably been sent as part of a forced resettlement twenty years earlier. He went to Bethlehem, because he was of the house of David, the royal house of Israel.

Luke records here that “there was no room for them at the inn” - but that’s a pretty curious event. How many here tonight have travelled to an ancestral place (even Edmonton) and called a relative out of the blue and been given a place to sleep? Our families now aren’t nearly as closely-knit as those of 2000 years ago. So why couldn’t Joseph find some lodging for himself and his very pregnant wife?

And in this story there’s a mystery of “space” – the ‘outer’ kind, not the ‘where are we going to put all this junk we got’ kind. There are angels flying around all over the place, buzzing shepherds. If the shepherds were terrified, it was probably somewhat tempered by the irritation that someone was disturbing their peacefully slumbering flocks.

It begins with one angel, to bring to them the good news of the Messiah’s birth, and right on their heels comes a heavenly chorus. Why all this fuss for a couple of illiterate bumpkins? Nowhere else in any religious text do we hear of the birth of a Saviour being told to a group of farm hands. It’s simply not done. Divine announcements usually come in the form of smoke and fire and shaking on the tops of mountains (read Exodus 19 for a good account), not choirs of angels serenading the salt of the earth, solely for their own benefit. So who are these people?

And the final mystery in this story is the central aspect of Christian faith. It is the mystery of the Incarnation. As the angel told to the shepherds, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ, the Lord”. Why? This is the ultimate mystery, the one that defines Christian faith. The word ‘incarnation’ itself means literally, “with meat.” Jesus, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary – both fully human and fully divine - came to us in a stable, a Messiah covered in the blood and sweat of labour. And that’s not all.

The apostle Paul wrote to his friend Titus about twenty years after the Resurrection saying, “the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all”. To all people. God Incarnate was born to the poorest of the poor. If there was a baby born tonight, in the back alley behind the Bissel Centre, we may understand the revulsion of those circumstances. Why did this – why does this not capture the attention of everyone?

People then, like us today, simply ignored God when it suited, and when it didn’t, preferred to use the belief in God as a bludgeon to terrify and oppress those who held different opinions. Part of the mystery of the Incarnation is that that Saviour, Jesus, “gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds”. For all people – from those who are persecuted, even to those who are doing the persecuting.

True to the Lutheran tradition, we believe that we cannot by any effort of our own attain salvation from our sins for ourselves. But often, we still try. We take the Bible, which is the manger that cradles Christ, and fashion it into a cudgel that we then use to judge and scourge those we think are unfit. That’s not Christianity.

At Christmastime, God came down to us. There is nothing we do to accept that love – it is part of our lives, whether we recognize it, or want it, or not. That love was willing to bear all punishment and not just die for us – but to live again for us. Understanding that our relationship with God is made right through that baby whom we call the Messiah, we turn to the abundant life that benefits the whole people of God. This is what defined the early church, and what will define the church of our future.

Every year we gather together to celebrate this time. We try to blot out the tragedies that have followed us through the year. That’s our mystery of this time: why do we try to hide from God things that God already knows? Yes, that baby was born in a manger to the tune of a thousand angelic voices. But he was also born in pain, and in suffering, and in the midst of times of despair and death. Why?

Because we need to know that God is with us, and perhaps the hardest thing for us to understand is the love of God – the love that knows no boundaries, not even death, and never leaves us, even though we may try to leave God. We cannot choose to accept or reject God – it’s not an ‘either-or’ proposition.

God is with us, in our joys, in our sorrows, and through all of our days. The choice that we can make is to stop rejecting God in our lives, and then in surest faith to turn out to those in our communities who suffer and need and bring to them the message of the Christmas gospel – Fear not, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ, the Lord.

This is the message that brings food and shelter to the hungry and poor, and comfort to those sick or in prison. One small child broke the yoke of sin that rested on our shoulders, as the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery.

That one small child became the man who hung on the cross, and died for us and for our salvation. Through the Christ child we are given new life, a life that isn’t defined by what we can buy, or give, or get, but defined by love: the love of God, surrounding us, filling us, and bringing us together in community.

May you who have gathered here tonight leave this place knowing the love of God for you. May you trust the mysteries of faith, content that you will never fully understand God – and grateful that you may abide in that love, and share it with your neighbours.

And maybe tonight, you don’t know why you’re here. You’ve come to hear some word that might bring hope into your life. Or, you’re listening for the ‘amen’ that will enable you to hope that the service is almost done.

To you then, welcome. And please understand – it was for you that God came. What happened on this night so very long ago, changed the world. Let it change your life.

Let the people of God say amen.