A Christmas Eve Sermon preached at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, CA

Dec 24, 2024

Luke 2:1-20
Isaiah 9:2-7

Introduction to worship

The winter solstice was a few days ago, and  the days are imperceptibly getting longer. It makes sense that we talk about light during this season of short days and long nights.

Our theme during worship in December, during the church season of Advent, has been Longing for Light, which is the title of a hymn I love.

Longing for light, we wait in darkness,
longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people, light for the world to see. 

Tonight, as you hear themes of light throughout the service, I hope you will consider how we are called to also be light in the world. Each of us, alone, can shine a light. And each of us should. One of the gifts of community though, is that as we all work to be light in the world together, we can cast out even more darkness. Together. It is good that we can be here together tonight. Let us worship the God who came to bring light to our world. Let us pray.

As once you came in the hush of darkness, O God, so still our hearts now by the wonder of this night.  Make us wise with the wisdom of a little one, that truth might be born afresh in us.  Let not our hearts be busy inns with no room, but doors opened wide to welcome a Holy Guest, who is Jesus Christ, alive with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Sermon:

Here’s a true story that happened to a friend of mine many years ago. She was in line to buy stamps.

Customer: “Do you have Christmas stamps?”

Clerk: “No. We just have Liberty Bell and some lady holding a baby.”

Customer: “Can I see them? That’s Mary holding Jesus. I’ll take those.”

At which point the Clerk says, “How did they get a picture of them?”

Customer looks back at my friend to keep from laughing, and so my friend chimes in with, “I bet it’s someone’s interpretation of what they may have looked like.”

Clerk: “Maybe. ‘Cause I don’t think anyone took pictures back then.”

(Thanks to Ashley-Anne Masters for sharing that true story!)

Yes, the story is jarring. Especially for me, who spends my days talking about Jesus professionally. I don’t presume that everyone shares my religious views, but it is always startling to me when people don’t even recognize Jesus, even if he is only an image on a postage stamp.

The stamp in question was from a painting by Raphael called “Madonna of the Candelabra”.

And if you didn’t recognize the circles around their heads are halos, you can imagine how someone might not know that was Jesus and Mary. Raphael painted them pretty blond with fair complexions, and they don’t look like the Palestinian Jews they were.

It is just some lady holding a baby.

If we look at the story of his birth as told by Luke, perhaps we ought to be surprised that anyone recognized him as the Messiah in this story.

Because he was just a baby.

And when you’re looking for a savior, I suspect you look for an adult.

Don’t you?

Because what’s a baby going to do for you?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love babies. They are cute. I love to hold them while they sleep. The world is ever more peaceful while a baby sleeps.

But babies don’t lead armies. Babies don’t topple oppressive Roman governments. Babies can’t even pray for you, which is what they were expecting from their Messiah.

What’s a baby going to do for you?

I was at a Warriors game last week, and during a time out, they played the song from the Lion King where Rafiki holds up the baby Simba, and the camera guys panned through the crowds, looking for babies, and their parents would dutifully lift up the babies just like they did in the Lion King. It was a crowd pleaser. We love babies. 

But even if you lift up a baby while iconic Lion King music is playing—what’s a baby going to do for you?

Imagine Mary.

My youngest son’s birthday is just a few weeks after Christmas, so I remember being “great with child” and hearing the Christmas story. I remember thinking, “no way. Not going to Bethlehem. You go get registered, Joseph. I’m nesting.”

I remember thinking, “she had to give birth where ever she could find space? Are you kidding me? They couldn’t find a room anywhere??”

My pregnant reaction to the Christmas Story might be reason 832 why God didn’t choose me to be the mother of our Lord and Savior.

In any case, Mary gives birth under circumstances that make me twitch. And, no matter how well the labor went, we know it was painful, and exhausting, and messy, and human.

And, so she’s found a quiet place, if not a hospital room, and she’s laid her baby in an animal’s feeding trough, and she’s resting. Pondering how human the Son of God is, perhaps.

And then the shepherds show up.

Just who every mother wants to have visit after her baby has been born, right? Strangers who live on the hillside, tending their flocks by night? I guess they are better guests than a drummer boy, parumpapumpum, but barely.

And the shepherds find some lady holding a baby and they tell a strange story, an unbelievable story really, about a visitation by the heavenly host. But Mary, who has had her own visit from an angel, knows enough to believe them. And she hears them talk about the arrival of the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord.

Regardless of what she’d been told by the angel, I wonder if Mary thought, “Who are they talking about? Can’t they see he’s just a baby? He can’t go out and save the world right now! He’s just a baby. He can’t feed himself. He can’t even lift his head. He may be the Messiah someday, but he’s just a baby right now.”

And, of course, it is hard for us to hear this story of a baby laid in a manger without  knowing who he will grow up to be.

We know he will perform miracles.

We know he will heal people.

We know he will speak truth to power and seek justice for the oppressed.

We know he will defeat even death itself by dying on a cross.

But all of this is just a promise on Christmas Eve.
The angels announce the birth of a child.
The shepherds come to worship a baby.

And this 8 pound baby Jesus in his golden fleece diaper is worth our remembering. What does it mean that God would choose this vulnerability?

What does it mean for us that God would choose to become human in this way?

God could have done it differently. Jesus could have just descended from the sky and announced the year of our Lord’s favor with a laser light show and pyrotechnics. God did not do that.

God could have declared the Roman Emperor, or even the President of the United States, as the Messiah.  God did not do that.

The creator of the universe could have written the script any way they chose. And God chose to be born to a teen mother from a modest family with a royal pedigree, in a territory under Roman occupation. God chose to be born to a vulnerable family, at risk from the whims of vain and insecure men with political power.

As you navigate struggles and trials when they show up in your life, I hope you’ll remember that God knows what it is like to experience the challenges of being human. There is nothing in our human experience that God has not also experienced.

In his book, Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God, Jack Miles writes: “That God should have begun his human life as an infant is compelling…because although all men (People) are different, babies are all alike. Full participation in the human condition requires a beginning in the leveling anonymity of infancy.”(p 86)

This is an important reminder to us at this time of year. Because while we all start off this earthly journey as babies—all alike in our cute helplessness—we, as adults, are all very different. And our differences often lead to disagreements, fights, and discord. So, as you consider the baby Jesus in the manger, remember that the differences between us as adults are secondary.

Whether our mothers laid us in a manger or in a state-of-the-art crib, we all started our journey in a similar manner—helpless, defenseless, not in control of our economic or family situation, and in need of protection and care.

How can we seek that understanding of each other? How can we remember that commonality we all share?  How can we remember, in a new way, that we are all children of God, that we were all infants like God?

Scott Erickson says this about God becoming a baby:

Just like every human ever, at some moment Jesus sought a friend or a mom or a little sister for humor, compassion, nourishment, relatability, enjoyment. For belly laughs, hugs, inside jokes, maybe even high fives. That’s the way being fully human works.

Did He not receive nourishment as a baby?

Did He not live in a house that His parents provided?

Did He not wear clothes that others had meticulously woven?

Did He not learn to read from attentive teachers?

Did He not learn a trade so He could make a living?

Did He not join His voice to the chorus of singing?

Did He not know the joy of having friends?

Jesus’ incarnation is participating in the same dynamics we all participate in . . .

Which is no one who is fully human is an island… and WE NEED EACH OTHER TO BE FULLY HUMAN.

It’s easy to think of us as needing Jesus, but it’s pretty scandalous to think that Jesus would need us . . .

I invite you, as you celebrate the birth of a baby this night, to remember how much support we all need, how much support we are called to give each other.

Whether it is some lady holding a baby on the postage stamp,
or some lady with a fussy baby here in the sanctuary,
or some lady with a baby trying to get her stroller and bags on a muni bus,
or two dads with a baby,
or some lady holding a baby in the discomfort of a refugee camp, as they seek a chance at life in a safer country than the one they are fleeing,
or some lady with a baby under siege and facing famine in Gaza,—any of these babies–all of these babies– remind us that God so loves the world that God chooses to be one of us.

Let us seek to build a world where all of God’s children are recognized as signs of hope and signs of God’s love. As Isaiah reminds us:

For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;

This is the gift this night.
Thanks be to God.  Amen

Benediction:

Parker Palmer writes:

The Christmas story reminds me of a simple fact that transcends traditions and creeds: each of us has a chance to live as a light in the darkness, right here, right now. Standing alone, my little light makes a difference only to me and the handful of folks my life touches. Multiply it by the millions who are determined to take back the night, and we can write a new story for our time. It’s been done before, and it can be done again.

Friends, carry the light with you into the night.

We can be light to and for and with each other.