Christmas Eve Homily

Did it ever occur to you that there is danger in Christmas? We can be so blinded by the joy of the season, the shimmer of the star, the reverent awe of the manger scene, we forget what a revolution is occurring in Bethlehem. Birth is a beginning, a doorway into the totally unknown.

A baby is a blessed gift, but it will require nursing, protecting, feeding, diapering, clothing, disciplining, teaching, worrying over, arguing with, wondering how to pay for its education, how will he make it through the drug scene, is that girl the right one for him, will he survive the broken bones, the emergency surgery, the chemotherapy, the heartache, the danger of flagging hope .....

Well, Jesus didn’t have to face all that, but his parents would face much before his untimely end at Calvary. And the truth is, the most blessed of gifts, the most longed for of hopes, the most cherished of dreams are also dangerous. They all require one thing - change.

As much as we hope for some great good, we will - upon receiving it - find our lives inevitably alter when the unknown comes into us. I remember meeting the girl who would become my wife. I had not been looking for her, she simply appeared in my world, and before long, spending time with her was all I wanted to do. Our courtship, simple and chaste enough to satisfy the most demanding Puritan, became so important, my whole future changed course. A year and a half later the courtship had ended and the marriage begun.

I need not describe the changes! A friend had told me, when I announced my engagement, that he had never known what true happiness was until he got married - and then it was too late! Ah those days of adjustment. Sweet, terrible, we began a journey that knocked all our previous notions of marital bliss out the window. Don’t get me wrong. That love was true and enduring. Our marriage lasted 45 years, and was richer, deeper, more gratifying than I’d ever hoped for, clear up to the day she died. For that I feel profoundly grateful.

But I was changed. Everything changed. And change takes courage.

Remember the birth of your first child? We were in Houston, the steamiest, hottest place I ever lived, and we had wrapped up our precious five day old daughter in two layers of clothes and a receiving blanket to take her home - a good hour’s drive from the hospital, in a car that had no air-conditioning! That child was beyond red - she was purple when we got home. But we had protected her from catching cold! Well, you parents know, life changed. It would never be the same. To this day, even though that child is now a mother herself, she can still tug my heart strings as insistently and endearingly as she did that day in Houston.

That Bethlehem birth represents the greatest gift we ever received, a gift for which the Jews had waited so long, and for which we wait with equal eagerness, certain that when God comes into our lives, we will be satisfied at last. Remember Simeon, that pious old man known for his earnest and faithful watching for the Messiah, there in the Temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus there? He uttered those famous words, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation”.

We get it. We feel his elation. We share his joy at finally seeing that for which he’d longed for such a long, long time. We celebrate the gift of God’s love into our world. But there’s a slight hitch. You see, up ‘til now it’s been our world, a world we believed we owned and had already learned how to control for ourselves. We want the love, but we also want the world we already have. We want the familiar because it is safe. It is ours. But to receive the gift of love and new life, we must be prepared and willing to change. And we don’t always like change. More often than not, we resist it with every ounce of strength in us.

The birth of an idea always challenges what we thought we knew. The creation of a new piece of art, or a new chord of music, or a new turn of a phrase must fight for its place in a world that never heard of such a thing before. We wanted the marriage, but we had to surrender the independence. We wanted the love, but we had to dare the risk of being loved by one who sees in us what we don’t see ourselves. We want the child, but must know that child will not stay a child. We want the job, but we may not be ready for the sacrifices that job can demand of us.

If I could give one gift to you all, it would be the gift of courage. Courage to accept and use the new hope that is in this wondrous babe of Bethlehem. Love sees possibilities our eyes have not yet glimpsed. It takes courage to dare to believe, as Jesus lived and believed, in a better world, a better life, a better way, a God-blessed life here on this planet we call home.

Perhaps the greatest courage of all comes with the birth of love. To be loved, to be seen with God-blessed eyes that know the possibilities of new growth in us, is to be aware of opportunity and risk that will change us into beings we never thought of or dared to believe we could be. Can we do it? Can we be it? “Lord, are you sure you really know me?” Think of Moses. Think of Jeremiah. Think of Isaiah. Think of yourself and all its faults and frailties. All imperfect. All unworthy. All trembling at the endless possibilities of change before us.

“Merry Christmas” we cry. Merry Christmas indeed. But far more important, have a Brave Christmas! A Courageous Christmas! A Daring Christmas! A Hallowed Christmas! For when Christ is born in us - and that is his true manger, not a stable in Bethlehem - we will be launched on a journey the like of which no eye can see, no mind can grasp, no imagination can fully fathom.

Yes - the Christ child is born - not just in Bethlehem - but in you and me. God grant we may have the courage and the faith to make him more alive - more real - in this hurt and trembling world. Amen.
 
 
Christmas, 2011