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Sermon for Dec. 24, 2024
Christmas Eve
Luke 2:1-20
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Just a few days ago, underneath this beautiful Christmas tree, were piles and piles of gifts. Dozens and dozens of them, wrapped in colorful paper, given to share the joy and spirit of this season for kids and families in need. It sure is priceless to watch the look on a child’s face when they open their Christmas gifts and are surprised by something that excites them and makes them happy. Even though we couldn’t see the looks on their faces when they opened these particular gifts, we know how wonderful it was. And we know it’s a sign pointing to the gifts of grace God has given us—given from God’s generosity and love before we could even try to do anything to deserve them.
I have a college friend, Tom, who spent the first eight years of his life in a Vietnamese orphanage. There was a lot of hostility toward people like him after the war even though he was a child, because he was half-American, not fully Vietnamese. And there was hostility towards the faith of the Catholic Sisters who ran the orphanage. The Sisters knew that Tom’s well-being, and perhaps his life, depended on leaving the country. He was adopted by a family in Minnesota, and a couple months after he arrived he celebrated his first Christmas in the United States. When the family gave him Christmas gifts to unwrap, he didn’t understand. They said, “these are for you, we want you to have them”. It was the first time in his life someone had given him something out of love and generosity, without expecting anything in return; something that he didn’t have to earn. He was so overwhelmed by this gift of grace that he started to cry.
We come to this holy night hoping for that kind of gift, of the world becoming the way God intended it to be. That was the kind of gift the shepherds went looking for, too. The shepherds actually found so many gifts of grace on their way to the manger. The angels appearing to them with “good news of great joy”—a gift of grace! The swaddling clothes which wrapped up the baby Jesus to keep him warm and cared for—a gift of grace! The manger itself, where God’s creatures like donkeys and oxen would look to be fed and nourished each day by their faithful caretakers; the manger, which became the first little bed for Jesus where he could sleep after Mary fed and nourished him—a gift of grace!
Did the shepherds realize that they themselves were even a gift of grace? Shepherds in those days were considered “outsiders”, dishonest, avoided if at all possible, estranged from respectable people, and cut off from mainstream society. God sent the angels to them first, before anyone else, as a gift letting all who lived at the margins of society know that God’s grace and peace included even them! No one, not even a shepherd, is beyond the scope of God’s favor—it covers even those whom the world would rather dismiss or ignore. A gift of grace!
And finally the gift of the Christ-child; in this humble, helpless little baby heaven and earth are joined together—a gift of pure grace! Before Jesus even has a chance to grow up a bit and do anything of note, the angel declares that he has already won the victory! Just a baby, he is already our Savior, Messiah, and Lord. Because of his humble birth, where heaven and earth are joined in him, where the priceless grace of God is laid down in an animal’s feeding trough, God has healed the estrangement that people have from God and from one another.
God seems to take great pleasure in doing things in an “outside the box” kind of way. God draws near to us, not with great displays of awe and might, but by “hiding in plain sight”. Christ appears not behind the closed doors of a guest room in a house, but outside in the stable among the animals. He appears not to a family of wealth or prestige in the nearby city of Jerusalem, but to lowly Mary and Joseph out in the hills around the little town of Bethlehem. The Christmas story shows us that if you want to find God, you actually don’t have to go looking very far. The Christ-child who once lay down in a lowly manger is now the risen Christ who can always be found among those who are humble and vulnerable, and among those who spread joy and hope.
Christ is “hiding in plain sight” with his gifts of grace. Even when the “peace on earth” he promises seems so far away. Even when the estrangement God heals seems more entrenched than ever. Even when the loving care of Mary and Joseph so often feels out of reach and in short supply for so many. Even when the fleeting beauty of the angels’ song fades away into the heavens. Even when Mary has treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart, and now must change her baby’s diaper, and breast feed and burp him, and make all the sacrifices that parents make to help their children grow into the people God created them to be.
When the joy of Christmas has become a memory once again, and the fears of an unknown future crowd our thoughts, Christ is still hiding in plain sight to lead us to the healing of the world and the healing of our relationships, that God has promised. And he waits patiently for us, until we notice that he’s there, and we might decide to join him this night, and every night, and every day—join him in the delight God finds by revealing his power and presence in things that are humble and overlooked in the world.
And Jesus hands us a Christmas gift of grace, filled with the wonder and mystery of God’s Word made flesh, and says “here this is for you, I want you to have it, before you could even do anything to earn it”. For that we can join the angels and sing their joyful song: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace, goodwill to all!” Amen.