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As we gather here this morning to celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation in Word and Sacrament, we are also nearing the end of 2016. And there are many among who say, “Good riddance!”

It is only too easy for those of us who follow current events to hang our heads in despair at the state of things in the world. We hear of “wars and rumors of wars” at home and abroad. Our hearts break at the plight of refugees crossing our borders, break again as members of the powerful elite use these families as scapegoats for their politics of fear, and then break yet again as an act of terrorism in Berlin seems to lend momentary credibility to the argument that compassion is foolish.

Looking at the world on this Christmas morning, it appears that the cosmic forces of darkness and chaos are winning. We few who gather in church to tell stories, sing songs, and break bread appear to be the most pitiful of fools. Given the facts at hand, it is only understandable if we find ourselves asking the questions: Are just “whistling in the dark” after all? Are we really alone in a universe that came about as a random accident? Is the faith we proclaim nothing more than a charming tale we tell ourselves in order to sleep easier at night?

The modern world would answer “Yes” to all of the above. It would add: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there; you’ve got to look out for number one; money talks; might makes right.” The world says that the only truth is facts, and the facts say that we are on our own. I say the world is lying.

The Church tells a very different story in today’s gospel. We say:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

What we mean by this is that the world belongs to God, who made it.

Christians believe in one God as Trinity: Three persons in relationship (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). For us, God is a relationship. Based on this, we understand the universe to be a network of relationships (galaxies, solar systems, ecosystems, nations, and families) existing within the larger relationship of the Trinity, as a baby grows in her mother’s womb.

But here’s the thing about relationships between persons: they have to be freely chosen. And we humans chose to break relationship with God our creator.

John’s gospel says it like this:

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”

Once we had broken relationship with God, our relationships with each other began to deteriorate as well. In seeking to become masters of the universe, we became slaves in bondage to each other, to corrupt systems, our own desires, and the powers of darkness and chaos beyond our control.

The good news is that our Creator was not content to leave us in this sad state of affairs. Even though we had broken relationship with God, God never broke relationship with us. God came to live among us in the person of Jesus Christ. John says:

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

As the only-begotten Son of God the Father, Jesus is the fullest expression of the divine image in a human face. Living among us, Jesus loved us: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, forgiving sinners, welcoming strangers, and raising the dead.

But we sinful humans could not stand to look at such holiness. Through the powers of religion and politics, we betrayed, denied, mocked, rejected, tortured, and killed the Son of God by crucifixion: anything just to shut him up and make him go away.

But God wasn’t having any of that nonsense. Like the tired mother of a toddler throwing a temper-tantrum, God rejected our rejection, raising Jesus from the dead and proving, once and for all, that God’s love is stronger than the power of death itself.

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the door has been opened for us to freely re-enter a harmonious relationship with the Triune God and each other. John says it like this:

“to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the exclamation point at the end of a sentence that began with the incarnation. Christmas marks the beginning of a revolution that will never end until the entire universe is restored to right relationship with God.

The Church, far from an institution of civil religion that upholds the societal status quo, is an underground movement that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ as an alternative orthodoxy to the lies of this world system.

We are unashamed to speak the truth that the emperor wears no clothes. We are unafraid to expose the dark powers:

• of tyranny, oppression, injustice, stigma, exploitation, violence;
• of racism, sexism, ableism, classism;
• of xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia;
• and every other -phobia and –ism that plagues the human heart.

We are not afraid to name these lies and exorcise these demons from our midst.

The Church of Jesus Christ is a revolutionary movement:

• The Bible is our manifesto, the Sacraments are our weapons of peace, and the Cross is our only flag.
• Our only aim is the final reconciliation of the entire universe with the justice and mercy of God.
• The resurrection is our decisive victory, and the incarnation is our beachhead.

For this reason, let the dark powers of this broken world tremble with fear when they hear us utter the words, “Merry Christmas!”

Merry Christmas!

I still say Merry Christmas to you because the celebration of Christmas in the Christian Church (unlike the rest of society) lasts for an entire season, and not just a day. The last vestige of this tradition in our cultural consciousness is the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. That’s how long the liturgical season of Christmas lasts.

Note: In case anyone’s wondering, today is the tenth day of Christmas, wherein the anonymous “true love” gives “ten lords a-leaping,” according to the song.

The Christmas holiday seems to come and go so quickly in its secular, materialistic celebration. Celebrating it as a season (as indeed it was meant to be) is one way that Christians can make the joy last and (hopefully) let the spiritual significance of Christmas sink a little deeper into our souls.

Last Sunday, Rev. Bill Dodge spoke about making Christmas last, not by savoring the nostalgia, but by looking forward to take hold of the promises that God has laid up for us in Christ. Today, I would like to pick up on the heels of where my mentor left off and talk about the reason why Christmas happened in the first place. My hope is that if we can answer this question adequately, we might be in a better position to understand the meaning of Christmas and keep it in our hearts all year long.

Why was Jesus born?

There are several theories that propose an answer to this question. First, there are those who think the meaning of Jesus’ life was his message. “He came as a great teacher,” they say, “to show us how to love thy neighbor as thyself and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Now, there is certainly a degree of truth in this idea. Jesus was, after all, a great teacher. However, he is hardly the first great teacher to walk the earth. Others have come from all corners of creation to enlighten the world with their wisdom. As a teacher, Jesus is one among many. Furthermore, scholars of comparative religion will tell you that many of the truths he taught were also devised by others. The Golden Rule, for example, is so-named because of how often it appears in the various philosophical and religious traditions of the world. There is nothing unique about Jesus if we relegate the significance of his life to his words alone.

There are others who claim that the meaning of Jesus’ life can be found in his death on the cross. “He came to die,” they say, “His blood paid the price for the sins of the world, so that those who believe in him can go to heaven when they die.” This theory is the one most commonly associated with traditional Christian teaching. However, I find it just as incomplete as the theory that Jesus was nothing more than a great teacher. If we believe the only reason Jesus was born was so that he could die on the cross, then we can conveniently ignore everything that came before and after that event: not only his teaching, healing, confronting, and forgiving, but also his resurrection, ascension, and eventual return. If he only came to die, then we can conveniently dispense with reading the remainder of the Bible and rest assured that our sins are forgiven and our eternal destiny secure.

So then, why was Jesus born? Why was it that Jesus, the Word of God Incarnate, “became flesh and made his home among us,” as it says in this morning’s gospel?

St. Paul gives us a better answer in this morning’s epistle:

“God revealed his hidden design to us, which is according to his goodwill and the plan that he intended to accomplish through his Son. This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.”

Jesus Christ, in the mystery of his Incarnation, “bring[s] all things together in [himself], the things in heaven along with the things on earth.”

This is a central theme of the Christian faith. If we miss it, we are dangerously close to missing the whole point of Christianity itself. Jesus, the Divine Word, crossed the divide between heaven and earth so that he might also bridge the gap between God and humanity. And precisely because he has done this, he also bridges the many other gaps that divide us on earth: the gap between races, genders, social classes, political parties, nations, and even the various denominations and religious traditions. This is why Paul is able to say, in another place, “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

When people begin to realize our oneness in Christ, all of those petty distinctions lose their meaning. In place of those divisions, we come to see the truth, as Paul did, that:

“Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink. Certainly the body isn’t one part but many… If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it. You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.”

It is not too much of stretch to say that this healing of divisions in Christ applies even to the breached relationship between human beings and the earth. We read in Colossians that “[Christ] existed before all things, and all things are held together in [Christ].” Therefore, Paul has no problem saying to us in today’s epistle that God’s plan is “to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.” This promise includes all human beings, as well as all things animal, vegetable, and mineral. God’s plan even includes planets, stars, and galaxies. When St. John tells us in his gospel that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life,” the word he uses for world is cosmos; so it’s not just the world of people that Christ came to save, but the entire universe.

Paul calls this work “the ministry of reconciliation” in his second letter to the Corinthians. It begins with God reconciling the cosmos to himself in Christ and continues as God then invites each and every one of us to participate in the reconciliation of broken relationships through Christ. This, by the way, is why we are rightly able to call ourselves catholic Christians, as we say in the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds. The word catholic means one, and we are indeed one in Christ: having been brought together and reconciled to God, each other, and the cosmos. We form part and parcel of the one Body of Christ, the holy catholic Church.

This ministry of reconciliation matters now more than ever in the world. Human technology has advanced to the point where we have now sent spacecraft to the edge of our solar system. Humans have stood on the moon and snapped photographs of the entire earth at once. Telephones have made it possible to communicate instantaneously with people on the other side of the planet. The internet gives our brains instantaneous access to massive amounts of information.

But what have we done with all this knowledge and power? We have used it, not to unite, but divide ourselves even further. We use our rockets to launch missiles at our enemies’ cities. We use our computers to anonymously abuse each other in comment threads. We access only those bits of information that confirm our previously-held opinions and demonize our opponents in the worst-possible light. We use our telephones to stay connected to the latest headlines, but we are utterly disconnected from the person standing next to us in line or even lying next to us in bed. We are lost.

But we are not without hope, for the purpose of Christmas still holds true, two thousand years after it was first revealed to us. St. Paul said it best: “This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.”

This is what God intends for us, and God will not rest until this ministry of reconciliation is accomplished in us. The reconciliation of broken relationships is the mission of the Church catholic. How do we participate in this mission? In two ways: by receiving the gift of reconciliation from God and by sharing that grace with our neighbors.

First of all, we receive reconciliation from God through the ministry of Word and Sacrament. We listen for the Word of God in the Scriptures, as they are read and preached. We are washed clean and grafted into Christ in baptism. When we celebrate the Eucharist together, we ask the Holy Spirit to bless us and the elements of bread and wine, so that our physical eating and drinking might be a spiritual Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ. And then, as we receive the Body of Christ, we become the Body of Christ: we are made one with God and one with each other in Christ.

Once we have received God’s grace in Word and Sacrament, we are sent back out to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Our job is to do today what Jesus did when he was on earth: heal the sick, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, forgive our enemies, open blind eyes, and bring new life to those who are dead inside.

Just as Jesus Christ bridged the gap between heaven and earth in his Incarnation, so we his Church are also called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue his work in the world by bridging the infinitely smaller gaps between us and our neighbors. This is the work to which North Church has given itself over the years. Ever since four teenagers snuck off into the woods with stolen hymnals, the members of this congregation have been continually drawn toward the least, the last, the lost, and the loneliest people in our society. We had our beginnings in a time when this country was divided and at war with itself, and ever since then, we have not ceased to reach across the gaps that divide “us” from “them.” In the middle of the last century, we reached out to our neighbors who are hungry and homeless through ministries of service and compassion. In a time of racial division (much like our current time), the pastors of this church took a dangerous and unpopular stand in favor of equality and desegregation. The Rev. Margaret Towner, the first woman to be ordained a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, has preached from this pulpit. We have stood up for the rights of the poor and the oppressed, we have spoken out against violence, and spoken up for expanded public transportation and equal marriage rights for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. For the last 27 years, we have especially dedicated ourselves to fighting the stigma that is heaped upon people who live with mental illness. Every Sunday at worship and every Thursday at the Togetherness Group, Christian hands and hearts reach out across that divide and the demonic spell of isolation is broken, even if only for a moment. This is the work of the Church, the work of Christmas, and it is our work.

St. Paul says, “This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.” Brothers and sisters, that is why Christmas happened; that is the reason for the season. So may we, the people of the Church, keep our hand to that plow and Christmas in our hearts all year and every year from now until the end of the age.

Tonight we gather again to hear the Christmas story: the story of angels and shepherds; the story of Mary and Joseph; the story of Jesus who was born in manger. It is one of the most beloved stories in all of human history. It is a beautiful story.

But it feels sometimes feels removed from real life. We hear about the angels singing, “Glory to God” and “Peace on Earth” but this Earth often seems to be quite devoid of peace. We enjoy the warm glow of the Nativity Scene and the Hanukkah Menorah in a city park, but that stands in stark contrast to the biting chill of the wind on our faces. Our world feels very different from the world we imagine when we hear the Christmas story. It seems sometimes like tonight is the one night a year when we take a break from harsh reality and pretend to believe in magical things like angels and Saviors. We tell and retell this imaginary story from “a long time ago in a Galilee far, far away.” We cross our fingers and hope against hope that our telling of this story will somehow spark the imagination of our hearts and carry us through to next Christmas, when we will come to church and hear the story once again.

But here’s the thing: our world is not a different world from the one into which Christ was born. It is the same world. The shepherds who saw the angels were poor workers. They were despised and distrusted by respectable society. They knew the struggle of making a living, the pang of hunger, and the sting of rejection. Mary and Joseph were refugees, hustled around like cattle being counted and finally forced to flee for their lives from violence and tyranny in their homeland. Mary, his fiancée, was an unwed teenage mother. We hear that Jesus was born in a stable; have you ever smelled a stable?

The Christmas story is not something that happened “long ago” or “far away.” It is the story of how God comes to meet us: and the time when God comes to meet us is now; the place where God comes to meet us is this place, with all its problems, messes, and stinky smells.

I think the reason why we tend to get so romantic and nostalgic about our Christmas story each year is because we don’t like this world we’re living in. We want to change it. We want to believe that it can become better. We think, “Maybe if we just try harder, or close our eyes and pray harder, the wish will come true and the magic of Christmas will come alive forever!” But, obviously, that hasn’t happened yet. The world we are left with now is still the same weary world into which Jesus was born two thousand years ago.

Some might take that fact as a sign of cynicism or despair, but I don’t. I see it as a grand opportunity. If the world into which Christ was born is this world (so we say), and if Christ is alive forever (so we also say), and if Christ has promised, “I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age” (so we also also say), then the place and time where God comes to meet us is here and now. God lives within and around us in this world. If we don’t see God, it is not because God isn’t here, but because we, in the hardness of our hearts, are refusing to look.

We wish we could change this weary old world and make it into what it ought to be. But obviously, we can’t. This world is what it is and things are the way they are. We have no control over those circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that change is impossible.

First of all, the loving power that spoke the universe into existence now lives, breathes, loves, and works in each and every one of us. That truth alone is no small cause for hope. Secondly, the power of God is able to change us.

Tonight’s epistle reading tells us, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.” I love that. Let’s break it down: It begins with grace. The “unmerited favor” of God, the love God gives us in abundance whether we deserve it (or want it) or not. This work of transformation begins, not with our best efforts, but with God’s decision to love us beyond our own capacity for self-destruction.

And this grace, we are told in the reading, “educates us so that we can live sensible, ethical, and godly lives right now by rejecting ungodly lives and the desires of this world.” Grace is our teacher. God’s grace changes us from the inside out. Grace gives us the power to envision a life we never thought possible. We may not have the power to change the world, but we have the power to live changed lives, not by virtue of our own strength and wisdom, but because the love of God is able to change us as we live our lives in this world.

My hope, my prayer for all of us this Christmas, is that we would come to trust this silent and invisible power of God’s grace so much that we will live changed lives in the midst of this weary world. And I further hope that we, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, will “be the change we wish to see in this world.”

The time and place where God lives is not “a long time ago in a Galilee far, far away,” but here and now, in this place, at this time. God meets us here and now, in the messy, stinky problems of this world as we know it. God meets us in the little things, like refugee babies born in stables, and works in us through those little things to change the world into what it ought to be.