Christmas Eve Services
Recorded Worship on YouTube - 4:30 Service
Recorded Worship on YouTube - 10pm Service
Sermon from 10pm Service
Deborah Laforet Luke 2:1-20
December 24, 2020
Born Today!
For the past four weeks, we have been celebrating the season of Advent. Advent is a time when we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ, which is what tonight is all about, the coming of Christ. We sing hymns that profess, “Glory to the newborn King,” “the Lord is come,” and “Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.”
But when we celebrate Advent, are we really preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ or are we remembering and honouring that Christ has come? When we sing our hymns of glory to the newborn king and shout that the Lord is come, are we praising a present happening or a past event? We read the birth stories in our bibles, in the gospels of Matthew and in Luke and we re-enact that story with shepherds and magi. We are re-telling a story that has been told for two thousand years, but are we telling it as history and do we really anticipate a coming of Christ into our world today?
If we actually believed that Christ was coming today, right now, the divine breaking into our current world, our modern lives, how might we celebrate this day differently? How might we use the time of Advent to prepare ourselves? How might we make room in our lives and in our hearts for this present reality of Christ?
Some parts of Christianity believe that Christ first came billions of years ago at the inception of all creation, that Christ is in every molecule and has been since the beginning of life itself. If this is the case, then every birth signifies the coming of Christ, and that Christ died and lives again, is resurrected, every time there is death and new life in creation. Maybe this one child, the child we celebrate tonight, Jesus of Nazareth, was the ultimate reality of that principle. Maybe Jesus, his humanity combined with his divinity, his oneness with the Divine, showed what was possible for all of us.
Advent is a time of expectation, a time of waiting, and a time to prepare. It’s the pregnancy before the birth. It’s that time of imagining, of dreaming, and of wondering what is possible. Christ is here, in all of creation, in all of us, here and now. Advent helps us to remember that, helps us to prepare for that coming of Christ is each one of us. And tonight, on Christmas Eve, when we light our Christ candle, we celebrate that Christ comes into our world again and again and again.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, the one who truly prepared for this baby in her womb, is highly venerated all over the world. I grew up Catholic and we were taught she was immaculately conceived, meaning, that she was born without sin. Mary, in some traditions, is worshipped alongside God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. She is seen as pure, as ever-virginal, obedient, and as constantly good and even perfect. It sometimes makes it difficult to relate to her. It has taken me a long time to see her as a person, a person like me, a mother like me. Someone who made mistakes, had regrets, got angry or sullen. Someone who laughed and cried, made jokes, and giggled with her girlfriends. But also someone with a deep faith, who was open to hearing God’s will for her, someone who saw this pregnancy as a gift from God, a divine gift to the world. She had nine months to prepare. We have our whole lives, with Advent and the waiting and preparation, being symbolic of that.
Preparing ourselves does not mean learning to be perfect. It does not mean we haven’t made mistakes, it does not mean we have perfect bodies, it does not mean we have to be physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy.
I read a reflection by Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest from the states. He wrote:
There is no mention of any moral worthiness, achievement, or preparedness in Mary, only humble trust and surrender. She gives us all, therefore, a bottomless hope in our own little state. If we ourselves try to “manage” God or manufacture our own worthiness by any performance principle whatsoever, we will never give birth to the Christ, but only more of ourselves.
Richard Rohr talks a lot about how our egos tend to get in the way and that to be one with God, you have to let go, which is a scary concept for Westerners as we place such a high value on individuality and being in control of our lives. “To let go and let God” is to lose some of that individuality to which we cling. It means acknowledging that life is beyond our control. It’s a little easier for us to remember that during 2020, as this little virus seems to have all the control, even as we try to get it under control.
This is a year when we have had to let go of knowing what the future holds. Its been a year when many of us have had to let go of our busy calendars and learn to be still, alone, in silence, which isn’t easy for man of us.
What if we saw this time as an opportunity? What if we took a little time each day to read a little bit of the bible, pray, meditate, journal, reflect upon God and our faith, or even better and more difficult, listen for God. Let the divine in, into our hearts, into our lives. I have to warn you; there’s no telling what could happen. Mary was open to God and found herself pregnant. Joseph was open to God, and found himself having to bend the rules of his culture and his religion and marry this unwed mother. The shepherds left their flocks. The magi travelled hundreds of kilometres. Later, disciples would listen and follow, risking their lives, as have many others since.
To be one with Christ, to find time every day to commune with the holy, does not mean becoming a priest or minister or achieving perfection in any way. It does not mean letting go of your job, forgetting about family, or not taking that vacation. It just means you might do all of it with a different perspective. It might mean living your life with a different attitude, with less worry, less anxiety, less aimlessness, and more direction, more meaning and purpose, and more groundedness, with a feeling of knowing you are in good hands, that you are never alone, that you are one with the universe.
This does not happen without some work. I am far from it, but I know that every time Advent roles around, it will remind me to prepare myself. Every time Lent arrives, the six weeks before Easter, it reminds me of the sacrifices and the risk in being a disciple of Christ. And then when Christmas and Easter roll around, I celebrate that I am loved by God and that I don’t have to work at earning that love. It takes work to know that God is always present, it takes work to be open to the will of God and to listen to what the holy is saying to me, but Christ is always a part of me, always waiting, ready to catch me when I do let go, always loving me.
So joy to the world; the Lord is come. Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born - in me - in you. And we will be reminded of that, on Christmas day, year after year after year after year. Thanks be to God. Amen.