A Sermon for Christmas Eve, Midnight Mass

 

And she gave birth to her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. [1]

 

A friend went  to what was billed as a Winter Wonderland even at a municipal park early one December.  It was only the first week of Advent, but everything was, of course, already decorated for  Christmas.  There was a big model train called the Christmas Express, trees decorated with Christmas lights, carolers wandering the grounds --even live reindeer.   A small building was set up as Santa's workshop with elves and toys; nearby, another building had Santa inside and a long line of children outside. 

 

But off by itself, away from the lights and the crowd, was a manger, empty and dark.

My friend found this quite moving.  For her, it was a sign of the silent waiting for the coming of Christ that is at the heart of the Advent Season, even while the world was celebrating Christmas prematurely.

 

When I heard the story, I, too, was struck by the image of the manger off by itself, dark and alone, ignored by the crowds -- but it hit me differently than it had my friend .  It reminded me of how often and easily we human beings push God’s presence to the edges of our lives;  how readily we get caught up in the “cares and occupations of our [lives]” and forget God. [2]  Tonight we celebrate the coming of God into our world as a human being, in flesh and blood, so real, so solid that you’d think God’s presence could never again be missed.   Yet over and over, we ignore God. God is left alone, pushed out of the way, hidden on life’s edge, in the dark.  That empty manger, off by itself, seemed to me a sign of how easily we get taken up with other things and do not make room for God at the center of our lives. 

 

I had a similar experience that same Advent when I tried to buy a crèche.  At first I didn’t know what store to try, but then I remembered a chain that advertised itself as “America’s Christmas Store.” [3] Certainly, I thought, I should be able to find a crèche there!  So off I drove to the mall. 

 

I walked through aisles of artificial trees, past rows of ornaments, lights, wrapping paper, and shelves full of every sort of Christmas decoration you can imagine -- but saw no crèches.  finally, I asked a salesperson for directions.  She pointed me to one side of one short aisle in the back corner of the store -- and sure enough that’s where the crèches were.   There were a few prepackaged scenes and one brand-name line of crèche figures -- and it was all either tacky or expensive or both.  I hunted around in nearby aisles, thinking there had to be a bigger selection that I was just missing, but there wasn’t.  That there were so few available crèches compared to all the rest of the Christmas “stuff” gave me the same sense I’d had hearing my friend’s story –

how God’s incarnate presence in the world is so often forsaken, forgotten, relegated, at best, to the back corners of busy lives.

 

It would be easy to say that these stories reveal how far our culture’s Christmas observance has gotten from its origin in Jesus’ birth – and that, of course, would be true. Commercialism, Santa, gift’s given and received and office parties all have done their part to displace Jesus from being the center of attention.  Indeed, to strike a small blow in the opposite direction, I gave each of our children a tree ornament that says, “Jesus is the reason for the season” at the family service  earlier tonight.

 

However, the deeper truth is there is nothing new about any of this.  Jesus was pushed into the dark, empty, and ignored corners of human life on the very first Christmas over 2,000 years ago.  Bethlehem was busy.  The emperor had called for a census.  Visitors had come to be counted and pay their taxes, and the merchants and innkeepers had their hands -- and wallets -- full with all these outsiders in town.  Natives and travelers alike had more important concerns than a working class couple looking for some shelter in which a young pregnant woman could give birth.  A stable was all they could find -- and so God’s own Son was born in a dark, empty corner, ignored by the world from the very beginning.

 

His birth might have been completely unnoticed had not God sent angels to alert some shepherds that something pretty important was happening in this corner of Bethlehem – but even that counted for little.  Jesus entered the world the same way the he ended up leaving it --   pushed to the edge by a world that wanted little to do with him --  in the end, wanted so little to do with him that it pushed him onto a cross. 

 

There is a subtle hint of this in the text of the German song I sang before tonight’s service.  The poet is focused on Jesus, but notes that in the painting he is gazing at, the artist has placed Jesus on the “wood of suffering.”  For the poet, the manger foreshadows the cross.  [4]   The manger of Bethlehem, pushed out of the way into the back corners, ignored and unvalued shows how the human race has so often forsaken, forgotten and rejected the God who came to be Emmanuel, God with us.

 

But here is the great and glorious good news of this night:   God chose to come into the word this way and to be treated this way – for our sake.  God chose to come to the pushed-out-of-the-way corners of our lives – the dark places where we fear to go ourselves, in order to heal them.  God wants to be with us in every part of life – including the hidden, unvalued places, the places from which we so often hide. 

 

We may push God into the back corners of life, we may  leave God hidden in a manger in the dark  -- but God will not leave us alone in the dark places of our lives.  We may ignore God’s presence in our midst -- but God will not ignore any part of the lives of we who are made in God’s image.  God comes to those hidden places and loves us, every part of us. The birth of Jesus in the manger is God’s choice to be the center of all that we are, have been, and will be – the good, the bad and the ugly.  No corner of our lives, however ignored, pushed aside, or forsaken we may sometimes feel; no corner of our lives that we have, ignored, pushed aside, or forsaken is left alone by Emmanuel, God with us. The God born in the manger of Bethlehem comes to be with us always and everywhere, including the darkest places we know. 

 

On Christmas Eve here in Church, the manger is not on the edge in the dark, but in the center and  surrounded by light.  That is our reminder that God comes to be the center of all that is good and joyful in creation -- birth, life, love, family, friends, good food and good times.  That is the easy part to remember and celebrate, and celebrate it we should. 

 

But even more should we celebrate more the truly  amazing gift of this night – the coming of God into all of our lives, including the places of darkness, aloneness, and hiddenness: God come not only to families gathered for the holidays, but to those who are alone; God come not only as we rejoice in life’s simple pleasures, but as we struggle with life’s fears and pains; God come not only as we celebrate life, but as we grieve death.  Jesus was born so that all of our lives would be where God is.   

 

Whether we put his birth in the center, as we do at least one night a year, or push it to the edges as we so often do, the out-of-the way manger in which Jesus is born is the sign that God is indeed, Emmanuel, God with us, come to love us in every part of our lives. 

 

O come, let us adore him!

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni

Christmas Eve, 2010