Year B
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

May the words of my mouth…  O God…  speak your Truth…

The sanctuary’s been decorated for a festival tonight…  for a celebration…  for something that doesn’t happen every day…  the sanctuary’s been specially prepared tonight…  the way we prepare our homes when we’re expecting guests…  maybe particularly esteemed guests… the wreaths…  and the creche…  and this green tree which represents the promise of life in the midst of winter…  is adorned with Chrismons…  ancient symbols which represent Christ and his ministry…

We’ve lit not only our seven Advent candles…  but the Christ candle in the center too…  perhaps to signify that Christ is the center of our lives…  we’ve got poinsettias whose leaves are sometimes thought as a symbol of the Star of Bethlehem which led the Wise Men to Jesus…  red colored leaves which symbolize the blood of Christ…  and the white leaves which represent his purity…  the sanctuary’s been specially prepared tonight…  the only thing that’s missing…  is you…

And many of you have decorated your homes for Christmas and Christmastide…  with trees…  and ornaments…  and lights…  and nativity sets…  you may be planning a special meal for yourselves…  or yourself…  I know some families with two or three family-units…  who have quarantined themselves for the past seven-to-ten days…  so they could safely be together for this holiday…  but many of us…  will miss the gatherings of family and friends that we’re used to hosting…  or being invited to join…  we’re not used to being alone…  it’s not what we were made for…

The shepherds were not alone…  they were in the fields…  watching their flock at night…  out in the middle of nowhere…  and all of a sudden…  without any warning…  one of God’s angels stood before them…  and God’s glory shone around them…  and they were terrified…  but the angel said to them…  Do not be afraid…  I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…  for to you is born this day in the city of David…  a Savior…  and suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host joined that one angel…  praising God and saying…  Glory to God in the highest…  and peace on earth…  among those whom God favors… and those whom God favors have done nothing to earn that favor…  they are favored because God is God…  they are among those on whom God’s grace falls…

I’ve often wondered…  why was it…  that God chose to incarnate two-thousand years ago…  when God did…  I’ve wondered if it was because things in that little corner of the Middle East had gotten so bad…  so corrupt… so legalistic…  so unloving…  that love itself had no choice…  could no longer be silent…  but had to take on flesh and blood… and remind us…  teach us…  through Word and action…  how things are supposed to work… have you ever wondered that… and why not now when things seem to be falling apart all around us…  all that scripture says…  is that Jesus came in the fullness of time… but it may have been partly because of…  philosophy…

You see…  Judaism was influenced by Hellenistic thought…  and Hellenistic thought was influenced by Platonic philosophy…  which was essentially dualism…  which meant that there was a subtle dividing line…  between the body and the soul…  between the idea of an object and the particular object itself…  between the substance of a thing…  that is…  its underlying archetype… and the accident of a thing…  that is…  its physical properties… 

But Fr. Richard Rohr writes…  the manifestation of the Great I AM…  in Jesus…  was the momentous Christian epiphany… because for all practical purposes…  the dualistic mind can’t get it’s head around the teaching…   that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine…  and at the same time…  we’ve been unable to fully balance humanity and divinity in Jesus…  which probably explains why we’re unable to put it together in ourselves…  our dualistic minds need to choose one or the other…  we need to see only Jesus as divine…  and ourselves as only human…  despite all of the scriptural and mystical affirmations to the contrary…  and the whole point of the incarnation of God in Christ… was the overcoming of this divide…  it’s reflected in what Jesus said in John 17:22-23…  The glory that you have given me I have given them…  so that they may be one…  as we are one…  I in them and you in me…  that they may become completely one…  so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me…  and it’s just exactly what we celebrate this night…

Through the miracle of the Incarnation…  God did away with the notion that we are mere drones slogging our way toward some heavenly home…  slowly but surely trudging through the earthly muck and mire…  by becoming flesh in this world…  God sanctifies our flesh…  making it possible for us to be agents of God’s grace…  and the life that God’s grace makes possible for us is a life in which we can operate from a place of compassion and love…  it’s a life in which we recognize the turmoil and the tragedy…  the trauma…  and the deep grief of the world…  and simply ask…  how can we help…

In one of Flannery O’Connor’s last short stories…  entitled Revelation…  she tells the story of an older woman who finds herself in a doctor’s waiting room…  engaging in small talk…  and looking from person to person…  silently evaluating and judging them…  and she has an unsettling vision of what’s to come…  all of the people she routinely judged are headed towards heaven…  O’Connor describes them as battalions of freaks and lunatics…   shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs…  but behind them…  is a tribe of people whom she recognizes and with whom she identifies…  those who were like herself…  who always had a little of everything…  and the God-given wit to use it well… and she leaned forward to observe them closer…  because they were moving along with great dignity…  accountable as they had always been for proper order…  and common sense…  and respectable behavior…  she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away…

You see…  we think we will be saved by our many words…  and prayers…   and posts…  or by our many deeds…  whether they be charitable…  political…  or religious…  but it’s God’s grace that really saves us…  so we have an opportunity…  to prepare our hearts…  as we’ve prepared our sanctuary and our homes…  to make a place for Christ’s grace to dwell…  and this aspect of Incarnation…  is particularly what we celebrate tonight… so we have great reason…  to have a Merry Christmas…