The Rev. Dr. Austin Leininger
Sermon of Christmas Morning
25 December 2017
Readings:
Isaiah 62:6-12
Titus 3:4-7
Luke 2:(1-7)8-20
Psalm 97
What is like this first morning? What is it like to wake and look into the face of the Holy One of God? To look into the boundless fathoms of God’s own eyes that saw creation come into being and yet looks up at you from the beautiful new life that lies helplessly in your arms? It is Christmas day! The Shepherds have departed, the angel’s voices that echoed through the night have ceased their joyous song. Along with the newborn Christ Child, the animals are also stirring. And here, this morning, we join Mary, Joseph, and the newborn Jesus.
And with the “What now?” that must be hanging heavy in the air, the night still replays in both of the new parents’ minds and hearts.
We hear in today’s gospel that Mary treasured all of the words the shepherds brought regarding the appearance of the Angels, proclaiming Christ, the messiah, Emmanuel—God with us—to be the very child lying in her arms. Treasuring them in her heart, she seems to be singled out as one who is beyond amazement. These were the very words of the Angel Gabriel, who had visited her nine months earlier, promising that she was to be God’s chosen mother for the Christ Child. And now the day had come. The angels had returned as a heavenly host, singing praises that echoed through the night sky, bringing word to the shepherds who had come at once to find the child heralded by God’s own messengers. Others would come. The star would bring them. But the shepherds had been the first—had been those willing to witness God’s own humble birth in this now holy stable—and had come filled with wonder and amazement to witness the swaddled infant who was God’s own promised messiah, God’s own self born to walk amongst us and to shine God’s own light in our world. And she, Mary herself, was to raise this holy child as her own. To feed God’s infant messiah from her own breast. To teach him our ways. To parent that incarnate word that spoke creation itself into being at the beginning of time.
That’s a lot to take in.
And so we wake this crisp and bright Christmas morning and gather to bask in the light of God’s love, to remember the long history of God’s actions in love and care for us throughout salvation history, to remember the gift of Christ’s love given for us in his body and blood, to remember the birth of the one who was expected for centuries and has been remembered for millennia as the one who has changed the foundations of our world, our expectations of God’s promises to us, and our understanding of God’s love forever.
That too is a lot to take in.
This 2017th celebration of Christ’s birth is no less an opportunity to treasure all these words than Mary experienced on the very first Christmas. With each new year we are reminded of the enormity of God’s incarnation, of the cosmic and eternal significance of God’s love being born into the world in human flesh. The love that Mary likely sat awash in as she took it all in and treasured every word in her heart about this her fist born child, the Child of God, the messiah, who would bring God’s love to life in the world in ways that were so unexpected that no one could have known what it was going to be like to have God walk the earth with us. Even now, some 2017 years later we’re still basking in the mystery that we’ll never fully know—of a love so full, so complete, so unquenchable that birth, life, death, resurrection, and all the millennia in between cannot begin to touch the eternal and unconditional love that birthed creation itself and has called to us ever since.
So every year we celebrate as we learn more about what God’s love born into the world means to us as individuals, as a family of God’s children, and as a world.
Christ is born! The dawn of this new day has risen on the light of the world! Awash in God’s love, and treasuring all these words in our hearts, may we too join with Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the space of the great “what now?” to contemplate the divine mystery of Christ’s incarnation.
Over the next twelve days before we celebrate the Epiphany, let us bask in this time of mystery and celebration. As the rest of the world puts away their Christmas displays, puts their trees out on the curb, puts away the lights and decorations until next year, and the radio returns to their regular broadcasting, let us rejoice in this time where the Christmas season officially begins and belongs to Christ, the holy family, and those of us who join them in the mysterious “what now?” that captures our minds and hearts over these coming days.
For to us is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord…”Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favors!”
May the light of Christ be with you this day and always!
Merry Christmas!
Amen.