En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.
(Intro story) A few years ago I saw a television commercial that asked the question: “…who’d have thought the biggest thing to ever happen to you would be the smallest?” The visual was of a parent holding a baby, and the tag line was: “Having a baby changes everything.”
For Christians, the biggest thing to ever happen in the history of human experience came to us in the form of the least - a baby. Yet this baby, conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit of God, changed everything.
Sometimes, though, we pass through this holy season, caught up in shopping, parties, baking, and decorating, and we forget to allow the transformative truth of Christmas to penetrate our hearts and change us, the truth that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”
In his Christmas video message, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said “...this Jesus of Nazareth really does make a difference. God coming into the world in the person of Jesus matters profoundly for all of us regardless of our religious tradition.” ++Michael said that we who follow Jesus believe that Jesus came “to show us the way to live, the way to love, [Jesus came to show us] the way to transform this world from the nightmare it often is into the dream God intends for us all.”
The dream of God is an inclusive dream: inclusive of all creation… inclusive of all people. As the angel said in our gospel from Luke, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…”
This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite quotes – one I've shared before from Archbishop Desmond Tutu who said, “Jesus did not say, ‘…I will draw some [to myself]… he said, ‘…I will draw all. All, all, all, all, all. Black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful, gay, lesbian, straight. It’s one of the most radical things… [he said.] All belong… All are meant to be held in this incredible embrace that will not let us go. All.”
This is the radical truth we celebrate at Christmas and it is for all people: that Jesus is the full and tangible revelation of the extravagant love of God – a love that beckons all to draw near, to rest in the love that recreates and restores, no matter who we are, what we’ve done, or how anyone label us.
Luke affirms this in his telling of the Christmas story. The first to hear of the birth of the Messiah were shepherds in the fields. We know that shepherds were despised by “decent people” of that time. They were considered shiftless and dishonest, so people felt justified in scorning and excluding them.
Since they spent most of their time in the fields, they didn’t bathe much. Not only were they physically unclean, they were also ritually unclean, which means they wouldn’t have been welcomed in church.
Yet, it was to these that the angels of God first proclaimed the good news that salvation had come into the world. In the extravagance of God’s love, it was dirty, shiftless, sinful shepherds who first saw the heavenly light which “shone all around them” and were transformed by it.
Leaving the ordinariness of their lives behind, the shepherds went with haste to see this new thing, this child who changed everything, and once they’d seen Jesus, once they’d come close to him, they went out and became agents of change in their world, telling everyone what they knew about Jesus. And as Luke said, all who heard them were amazed.
That anyone even listened to a bunch of shepherds is amazing enough, but suddenly it didn’t matter who they were. What mattered was what they knew and were willing to share.
The same is true for us today.
The good news of Christmas isn’t just a great story about an event in ancient history that we read from Scripture together. The good news of Christmas is our present reality. God coming into the word in the person of Jesus matters and everyone will be amazed when we are willing to share what we know - but first, we need to come close to Jesus and be transformed ourselves.
How do we do that? Like the shepherds, we go about the ordinariness of our lives and welcome the light whenever it shines around us – and we let it transform us.
This happens when we come to church each week to worship together and share in the holy food of communion. It happens when we watch a sunrise at the beach, or hear a powerful voice sing the Ave Maria. It happens when someone we love smiles at us and lifts our hearts; or when we notice the sadness in a stranger’s eyes and we’re moved to respond with a compassion that comes straight from the heart of God.
In this holy season of Christmas, I pray the words of our Presiding Bishop continue to echo in our hearts, so that no matter who we are, no matter what problems we face, no matter what doubts we hold, no matter what dread has hold of us – we who follow Jesus continue in the way Jesus showed us: the way to live, the way to love, the way to transform the world from the nightmare it is into the dream God has for us.
I pray that we do this boldly, inclusively, and actually, responding with love to the God who loved us first, the God who loved us enough to become one of us, sharing our vulnerabilities and making them strong, and welcoming in all whom the world would keep out.
There are so many in the world today desperate to hear the good news we have to share – news of the extravagant love of God for all people and all creation.
“Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad” for a child is being born in us again - and this baby changes everything. Amen.
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