Isaiah 52, 7-10 + Psalm + Hebrews 1, 1-6 + Luke
It was a little church on Christmas Eve. The tradition in that country parish had gone on for two, maybe three generations. Parents and grandparents were seated. Joseph and Mary and all the charaters were in place and ready. They did their parts with seriousness and commitiment, looking as pious as they possibly could. And then it was time for the Shepherds to enter.
Dressed in flannel bathrobes and towels for head gear, they proceeded to the altar steps where Mary and Joseph looked earnestly at the straw which contained a single naked light bulb that was playing the part of the glowing newborn Jesus.
With his back to the congretation, one of the shepherds said to the person playing Joseph in a very loud whisper for all the cast to hear, “Well, Joe, when you gonna pass out cigars?”
The solmen spell was not simply broken by his remark, it was exploded. Mary and Joseph’s cover was completely destroyed as it became impossible to hold back the laughter. The chief angel, standing on a chair behind them was the worst of all. She shook so hard in laughter that she fell off her chair and took the curtained back drop and all the rest of the props down with her. She just kept rolling around on the floor because she was laughing so hard. The whole set was a shambles.
But you know what? The only thing that did not go to pieces was that light bulb in the manger…..it never stopped shining.
When you leave this church today all I want you to remember is that light . It never stops shining. No matter how things may fall apart, no matter how bady things may go, the Light shines. In a Connecticut town, in the war-torn Bethlehem of today, in the midst of the greatest family and personal pain, and in any life that doesn’t go as planned the light shines.
We know that because the story of that shining light is Luke’s Gospel which some who know it best call a “Love Story.”
This is the night when the great Love Letter of God begins. The night when our paths cross with God’s. It is the night when God and humanity were joined like a bride and groom. This is the night when each of you ought to recall the moment when you first met the love of your life and imagine once again what it was like, because this is the night of our first best meeting with the God who has desired us from the very beginning. I would even suggest that had it not been for this night when love was born you would never have love to give or love to receive. This night is not really about the birth of Jesus Christ. This night is about the birth of love itself. Were it not for the first Christmas, we might never have know the intensity of the love that God has for us which stirs and awakens our love for each other.
True love like this accepts the beloved for who they really are. God chooses to love us because we are God’s human creation. Like Joseph and Mary, we have nothing to recommend ourselves nor do we have any claim on God’s love other than that we are God’s own creation. So we can’t do anything to earn God’s love. It is already there because God made us.
This is the first love story that gets told again in your own love. Like all love stories there is that first meeting, then infatuation, pursuit, risk and finally relationship and commitment. It’s all there in Luke’s Gospel, in flesh and blood, or shall we say here, in body and blood, in the Loving Word made Flesh. Mary and Joseph, far from home, strangers without a bed, a peasant mother giving birth in unsanitary and substandard housing….. no fanfare, no royal delegation….visited by the lowest of the low; dirty, outcast sheperds doing the work no one else wanted to do. This is where we find the Christ of God, the anointed one intersecting wtih humanity! It is our first and best meeting with the God who has desired us from the very beginning of creation.
We tell the story again tonight to remember and remind each other that no matter what, the Light will not go out. It is there in our Easter Candle. It is there in the hearts of all who at Baptism have been enlightened by Christ. It is there when all the great plans we have made tumble down in laughter or in tears. It is a light we pass on to each other and to our children. It is light full of promise and hope. It is a light that can keep us off the rocks of sin and from sinking into the depths. It is light that warms and leads; a light whose reflection lets us see the tender loving face of our God reflected in the faces of those around us.
Keep shining my friends. Peace be with you.