Christmas Eve by Rev. Gabrielle Martone at Pearl River United Methodist Church on Tuesday 24 December 2019 // 11:00PM
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Genesis 3:8-15, 17-19 NRSV
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”
The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Isaiah 9:2, 6-7 NRSV
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Luke 1:26-35, 38 NRSV
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Luke 2:1-16 NRSV
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.
John 1:1-14 NRSV
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 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. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 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. But 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. 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.
There's a lot of stuff that happens this time of year. And Johnny, our communications person, tries to tell me, when I talk about advent and the craziness of this week, "Oh, but Holy Week is so much worse." And I agree with him to a point because when you look at the Christian calendar, the schedule of events for Holy Week leading up to Easter is a little bit more hectic. I get it. But there is something about this particular time of year, not just the Christian calendar that brings with it its own set of expectations, its own set of what we should be thinking and feeling and experiencing during the "It's the most wonderful time of the year." That was really bad. I never said I was a singer.
We have these Christmas commercials that depict some sort of holiday magic that we are all supposed to be feeling and that somehow magically it is this time of year that our families are somehow all supposed to be back together and happy and there's never any drama and no one's ever throwing mashed potatoes at anybody and nobody's not speaking to each other for six weeks after Christmas. We forget the parts of this year that leave us feeling empty, that leave us feeling like we are somehow missing something. And everyone expects that somehow, despite all of the stress that you begin to experience December 1st, although places like Home Depot and My Beloved Cracker Barrel keep trying to push Christmas to September and earlier. Next thing you know it will be Christmas in July always.
And all of a sudden somewhere between all of the stress of the shopping, and the food figuring out, and the gift wrapping, and the moving that elf thing around, I don't even have one and it agitates me, somehow on Christmas Eve we're all supposed to go to church and get something and wake up tomorrow morning and it is supposed to be like we are all at Disney world. We are supposed to feel that happiness. Disneyland's tagline is the happiest place on earth, and it's this time of year that we really start to think about what makes us happy and what makes us joyous, and are they the same thing? I'll tell you that they're not. Spoiler. Happiness and joy are not the same thing. Happiness are the things that you get from the external sources in your life.
I was really happy about that last Star Wars movie, like really happy about how it ended. Really happy about lots of parts of that even though there are people who are really angry about it. I get really happy when I open up a present and Darth Vader is inside of it because yes, Darth Vader is my favorite character, my therapist and I have talked a lot about it. It's okay, we're working on it. I get really happy when my dog doesn't eat the wrapped presents underneath the Christmas tree.
But when I experience true joy, it comes from the part of my soul that connects most deeply with God, the joy that I feel when we have all of these kids up here. And even though baby Jesus was face planted, and even though we almost burned down the church, and even though there were a whole host of other things that could have possibly gone wrong, it was this beautiful moment of our kids understanding the story of Christmas or the joy that we feel when we see smiles on our kids' faces. The smile that we see on a stranger's face when you open the door or you don't berate a retail worker, where you offered to pay for the person behind you in line at Dunkin or Starbucks. It is the same kind of joy that people who are facing the unthinkable, who still manage to keep it together, feel.
Being a joyous person doesn't mean that you are happy all the time. It doesn't mean that you become like Mickey mouse with the squeaky voice and the all the time. Being joyous means that the root of who you are, the deep parts of your soul rejoices in the world, rejoices in what God has done, the word made flesh. It is the joy that sustains you even when the whole world is falling apart. It is what Mary says when the angel shows up to an unwed 14-year-old girl in the middle of the first century and says, "You girl, you right there, are going to have a baby." And fearing for her life, but trusting in who she believed God to be said, my soul magnifies the Lord and I will rejoice.
Rejoicing is what we get to feel when all of a sudden the world begins to write itself again. The whole entire nativity story, Jesus' birth is all about how the world is wrong. It's all upside down and Jesus shows up to set it back to where it should be. When we read this evening, our first reading was from Genesis, when Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden and the world goes wonky. And that is the moment or the time in which our story tells us that things didn't line up and it is the beginning of the power hungry, of the oppression, of people being at odds with one another.
It's the same thing that when you read the narrative of the wise men, when they are searching for this baby, as they have been following the star, they show up at Herod's palace first because the expectation is that if some kind of king is going to be born, it'll happen in the palace. Jesus was not born to earthly power or might. Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room for them. The first people that came to see Jesus were shepherds, Mary and Joseph rejoiced. Now for any of you who have had children before, the last people you'd really want to come see you right after you give birth to a child is the stinky gross I have not bathed in probably years, I smell like wet sheep. Shepherds were the outcasts of society, and yet these are the people that came to give the first greeting to Jesus. And still Mary says, "I rejoice."
And all together joy, the kind of joy that isn't the not yet, and the if then, and the what if. And all together, joy is the joy that we receive that comes from this center of who we are when we rest in who Jesus Christ is and calls us to be, not powerful, not mighty, not dripping in jewels or wealth or influence or success, but centered in God choosing to be made flesh, to dwell as a baby to an unwed teenage mom in the first century, who spends the first two years of his life as a refugee in Egypt, running from the power and the might and the authority.
So this Christmas season may not come with the fulfilling of all of the expectations that the rest of the world has put on what this time is supposed to be about. That Barbie dream house may not be under the Christmas tree for you tomorrow, sorry. You may fight around your dinner table tomorrow. You may not have a dinner table to go to tomorrow. What does it look like for us to remember the word was made flesh and came to dwell among us, not so that we could be perfect and have our lives figured out, so that we could feel the love of God and rejoice knowing who holds us in their hands? What does it look like for us to spend our lives not searching after what makes us happy and fulfills a fleeting moment, but by the things that bring us great joy? What does it look like for us to not bring happiness to those around us, but to seek to find joy in others?
I will tell you something, parental unit types, nobody is going to remember what's underneath the Christmas tree. But what people will remember is what they feel, the love, and the care, and the joy, and the peace, and the hope of being loved truly for who they are. That will be what carries your people into the future, not whether or not they got all of the right stuff underneath the Christmas tree.
And for those of you who are living in some new form of your life this season, may you know that there is still joy to be had even when it feels like something is missing right now. And if your expectations for where your life should be right now and what you wanted in your checklist of what makes you a successful person, or the expectations and the goals that you set out at the beginning of 2019 if you're sitting here tonight and those goals and expectations have not been met and you are still wrestling and doubting, know that the word was made flesh and came and dwelt among us so that we would know we are not alone. Jesus was not born to an unwed teenage mom in the middle of a stable, greeted by shepherds and surrounded by angels so that we could live into some perfect ideal. No, the word was made flesh and came to dwell among us so that we would know the totality of who we are, the good and the bad, and the ugly.
We are not alone. And we are reminded tonight and every night that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome it today or any day. Amen.
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