Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you
from the one whose grace has appeared. Amen
This year throughout Advent
we have been confronted again and again
with how God’s time and sense of timing
is different than ours,
particularly in the fulfilling of the promises of God.
When we look around
and see everything that needs God’s attention
we might wonder, “wouldn’t now be a good time God?”
even as we have to trust
that God will keep God’s promises.
The witness of scripture
is that God does keep the promises God makes,
and often at times that by human standards
are puzzling or downright inconvenient.
Tonight we celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promise
in the birth of Jesus
and even as we celebrate
we notice how inconvenient God’s timing was
at least by the ways of the world.
It seems like every step along the way
could have been better timed,
Jesus is born before Mary and Joseph get married,
That caused some heartache and a couple of angelic visits
and he’s born while they’re away from home
where presumably all the preparations had been made
in the middle of the trip to Bethlehem
to be registered by the Roman Empire
and because so many people are traveling
there is no room for Mary and Joseph
at the regular accommodations
so they end up bunking with the livestock
whose feed box becomes Jesus’ first bed.
And if that’s not enough inconvenience
then a great host of angels
terrify some shepherds
minding their own business
tending their flocks in the middle of the night
They give them the message
that the messiah has been born,
and where to find him
and after a short concert from the heavenly host depart.
and the shepherds decide to go check this amazing thing out
meaning that they must leave their sheep unattended
while they go into Bethlehem
but they leave their sheep and sure enough
there is the baby right where the angels said he’d be
and they rejoice when they get a peek of that baby
wrapped in bands of cloth
of course Mary and Joseph
had to be wondering a bit
what was going on
when this band of shepherds burst into the stable
in the middle of the night
but the shepherds share the angelic announcement
that the baby is the Messiah, the Lord
Mary already knew that
but she heard them and treasured their words in her heart,
it was probably nice after all that she’d been through
to have another angelic confirmation
of what had just happened,
Nothing about this is convenient right?
And yet according to God’s timing
it was all at the right time
Mary being unmarried
means that she was able to speak for herself
in response to God’s proposal,
and that no one could attribute God’s Son to Joseph,
and yet she is engaged to Joseph
a member of the house of David
who will care for them
and connect them to God’s promise
that the Messiah will come from the family of David.
Joseph’s involvement also means
that they will be in Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth,
just as the prophet Micah foretold
that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
And the manger and the shepherds,
well God likes to show up in the least likely places
to the least likely people,
a manger and shepherds fit that bill
let alone the messiah being a newborn
completely dependent on others.
but that’s how God chose to enter the world,
in the midst of everyday life
easily overlooked except by those notified by God,
and from this small, ordinary event
the world was transformed
so that now we and people all over the world
gather tonight to sing and praise God
and tell the story of how God became human,
as a baby whose first bed was a manger
because that’s what was available.
And that’s how God continues to work
with what is available
at the right moment according to God’s time.
God comes into the world,
in the midst of all the chaos of life,
in ways easily overlooked
except by those to whom God appears
and the world is changed,
one small event at a time.
Titus announces to us
that the grace of God has appeared
bringing salvation to all,
and the story of Jesus’ birth
shows that when God says all,
God means all,
especially the people that tend to go unnoticed
in the midst of the chaos of the world,
the unwed parents,
the people on the move without a place to stay,
those working the night shift at an undesirable job,
God’s grace and salvation comes to them
And it comes to them where they are at,
in the midst of their lives,
often at times and places
they would least expect to encounter God.
And that’s how God comes to us as well,
in the midst of our lives,
especially it seems at the most chaotic points,
the times when we least expect to find God,
but that’s when God shows up,
bringing grace and salvation
in ways both small and significant
and even if no one else notices it at the time
the world is changed.
Tonight we throw a great celebration
for a small event that happened a long time ago.
At the time
only a few people had an idea
of the significance of what happened
with the birth of that child,
but from that small event,
easily overlooked,
came the transformation of the world,
a transformation that continues to work in our lives,
one small event at a time
the grace of God
breaking into the middle of life unfolding around us
perhaps not when we would choose to have it happen
but the perfect moment according to God’s time
and in those moments
remembering the baby in the manger
And all the unlikely guests
We sing with the angels,
glory to God in the highest.
Amen
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