2022 12 24 Sermon

Where is God to be Found?
Luke 2:1-20; Isaiah 9:2-7
Christmas Eve
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

I’ve been pondering some Christmas memories lately. The church where I grew up, in New York, was on the corner of a city block, and we’d put on a Christmas pageant right there on the little lawn we had on the corner outside the church. A week before, our pastor had the confirmation students go around the neighborhood putting fliers in the doors to let people know about it. When it came time for the pageant, what a surprise it was to see such a gathering of neighbors, lots of whom I’d never seen before, huddled outside in the cold on the corner, watching our pageant and singing Christmas carols with us! Is this what it was like for the shepherds? when the multitude of the heavenly host appeared and sang songs of praise about the good news of Jesus’ birth?

Years later, after I’d become a pastor and was serving my first church in the little town of Troxelville, Pennsylvania, we had an idea—to take the Sunday School kids Christmas caroling. On a cold December night, we walked through the town (it was only about 2 blocks long and maybe a half-mile in distance) and we rang the doorbells of any house that had a light on. When people opened their doors, much to their surprise, we sang to them. We ended up at the little restaurant in town (Jo-Lee’s Restaurant), and the customers eating their meals were surprised with joy to hear the kids singing. They certainly didn’t expect it. Is this how God reveals his glory in the world? Does it appear when we’re not looking for it?

Joseph and Mary certainly didn’t expect that they should have to take a 90-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, perhaps on donkey or perhaps by foot. We don’t really know. My guess is they didn’t want to go, either, with Mary being pregnant. It’s not surprising, though, that Caesar Augustus decreed that all the world should be registered—all the parts of the world that he controlled, anyway. He wanted to know: how many people lived under his dominion? how much revenue could he collect? how big of a military footprint should he deploy to keep people in line? So the people in that part of the world went to their own towns to be registered. And Joseph, being from the house and family of David in Bethlehem, went there.

The residents of Bethlehem, and in every other town in that region, were probably expecting lots of visitors. It was part of their culture to provide hospitality, to find a way to host visitors whenever they might arrive, with whatever resources they had available to host them with. Even to host people who had moved away, like Joseph, and found a spouse elsewhere, but had come home to be counted with his tribe, clan, and kin. All of the guest rooms in that little town of Bethlehem would have been full of visitors. A woman giving birth and her newborn child would need some privacy, a space of their own. Maybe it wasn’t what Mary and Joseph expected, but in those circumstances the stable and manger would do.

For us, how wonderful that Jesus was born in such a humble spot! Because if we ask “where is God to be found?” the answer God gave on that first Christmas Eve is: in the places we forget to look, the places we don’t expect, in what is humble on this earth, even in places we don’t want to be. These places, with the presence of Christ mixed in, are just as holy as any other place.

And now, all over the world, in each town—in your town—Christ is born into our lives through faith. The basis for this faith is not your ability to believe the words of the angel. It’s not your ability to go and do as God directs. It’s not your ability to ponder the mysteries of heaven, or your ability to go and tell the story of God’s love, or even your ability to glorify and praise God. No; the basis for this faith that brings Christ into the world rests upon God alone. It is God’s zeal, God’s passion, God’s commitment, God’s love for the human race. God sends the Holy Spirit into all creation to create this faith within us.

Jesus, born into our lives and into the world, is God’s promise that even when you are walking in times of great darkness—one day light will shine. Even when burdens hang heavy on your shoulders—one day the burdens will be broken and carried for you. For a child has been born for us! A son given to us! Authority rests upon him, to establish justice with righteousness, and endless peace.

The way Christ began to do this is by choosing a lowly manger as his hiding place. A place of vulnerability. If you really stop to ponder it, the vulnerability of God coming into the world as the Christ-child is scary. Even the shepherds, when they heard the news—shepherds, who spent their days and nights living in the fields, fighting off wild animals who wanted to kill and eat their sheep—even tough guys like them were joyful, yet terrified.

The vulnerability of God on Christmas is joyful yet scary because it means that our own life of faith—as we grow in our relationship with God—opens us up to being vulnerable, too. But there is good news in all of this, because God’s power is made known in our weakness. And God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

The glory of the Lord shone all around the shepherds even when they were terrified—and now, today, God’s glory is all over the place, everywhere and in everything. Are we brave enough to look? Even your worst moment somehow contains a little bit of God’s glory. I’m not saying that the worst thing is good, or desirable, or part of God’s will—but that God is somehow present in it, even in our vulnerability and pain, in our hurts and fears. He hides within those “worst things” to meet you and surround you with God’s unconditional love, and to invite you into a deeper encounter with the holiness of God—as you open up your heart, mind, and soul in trust.

God in Christ hides himself in so many things, in places we never think to look, in the unexpected and in the surprising—just like God hides himself in the messiness of a baby born in a stable and placed in a humble manger amid the barnyard animals.

I started this sermon sharing some of my Christmas memories. So to finish this sermon, I’m going to take a page from what our House of Prayer Faithful Innovation Team is learning, and I’d like to give you a chance to share with and listen to one or two people near you. Just briefly take turns telling about a favorite holiday memory, or something that you are missing this season. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to—you can just ponder quietly instead, and that will be ok. But whatever it is, know that somehow the glory of Christ is hidden within it, like Jesus was hidden away in a manger when he was born. Let’s take a few minutes to ponder, listen, and share, and then after you’ve had a chance to do that, I’ll just say “Amen”, and we’ll continue the service. ... Know that the glory of God is hidden in the stories you've shared. Amen.