Year A

Luke 2:1-20

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

“For Unto Us A Child is Born”

Can’t you feel it? Excitement is in the air tonight as all our preparations come to an end and the celebration begins. We have been waiting and preparing for four weeks for this event and all of creation is poised, ready for the God who is coming among us. His name is Emmanuel—the God who is with us—the God who is made of the same stuff we are, flesh and the same stuff God is and comes to us as a little babe in the manger. We have been waiting for that baby’s cry and tonight we hear it…Happy Birthday Jesus. We welcome you into our hearts and lives this night. And we will celebrate your birthday by opening those presents tonight or tomorrow that we have eyed patiently propped against the Christmas tree.

It is truly a night to celebrate but for many this is a hard time of year, and maybe it is for you as memories rise up to greet you. For Christmas has a way of taking us back to other Christmas’. It certainly does for me.  For some of us it is a reminder of the way life used to be. We remember those Christmas’ growing up, or when our family was all around the table or before there was an empty chair that we had to deal with. For others, this night is a reminder of the way life should have been but never was. We look for the answer and the babe cries out, the answer is right here. This is where we are to lay our hopes and fears of all our years, right here in front of the manger with the Christ child.

No wonder there is excitement in the air. “For unto us a child is born…a son is given…and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah the prophet expresses the hope for all who wait for a God who is supposed to fix lives and change the world. Isaiah sings of light overcoming darkness, an increase of joy, the breaking of the rod of the oppressor and the promise of peace upheld with justice and righteousness.  To some this may seem impossible even naïve. Endless peace, justice with righteousness…where? There certainly seems to be a gap between what is of the world and what God’s dream is for the world.

Yet, wait…Isaiah says “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on them light has shined.” What has been promised has come, is here right now and is waiting for us to receive and open the gift. The gift that keeps on giving, the content to be filled out, explored, and understood in days and years as a journey of faith and trust in the transforming possibilities of the newborn king because Christmas changes everything. “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.” God, the sculptor of the mountains, the crafter of the universe, comes into our lives in a small seemingly insignificant way—a newborn baby—and changes everything.

Yet, there is still darkness in the world, there are many rods of oppression that seem unbreakable but God has come amid the darkness and there are signs of God’s kingdom, God’s peace and joy at work in our world all around us. For unto us this day is a child born of Mary. A sign that God is with us and one day God’s promises of peace, justice and righteousness will come to pass and be accomplished. Until then, we are the ones who are to continue the work of changing everything. We have the work of changing and transforming our world. We are the ones who must love our enemies, turn the other cheek, bless those who curse us, and love all without boundaries. We are the ones who must visit the prisoners, the sick, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and welcome the stranger.

Now more than ever our world needs followers of this newborn babe to step out of our places of comfort and into our community to proclaim, not in words but in action God’s favor, God’s hope and God’s love. This Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace is for all time, all people, and is the light that breaks through the darkness until all things are made well. This infant of Bethlehem is sufficient for the salvation of the world. This birth signals enough and more than enough. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all!” There will still be sin and evil in our world but tonight it finds a place amid the candlelight, amid all the talk of cattle lowing, babies waking, stars shinning and shepherds watching. We sing tonight of hope in the midst of suffering and pain, of the evil we have done, and the evil that has been done to us.

Our hope stems not from the possibility of being able to go it alone, but from the fact that Jesus “gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all sin and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds; a people who are zealous to bring this hope and love to our world. Adam Hamilton, teacher and theologian says, “Hope is a decision we make, a choice to believe that God can take the adversity, disappointment, heartache, and pain of our journey’s and use these to accomplish his purposes. This is precisely what happened in Mary’s story, where on the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem and then in a stable among the animals, we see hope born in the midst of disappointment. We want to whisper to Mary, ‘Don’t cry. God is here, and people will draw hope from your story until the end of time.’”

Tonight is the night we rekindle our hope and make the decision to allow the light of the babe child to shine in our hearts. The miracle of tonight we can experience by opening our lives to the God who has come to us. God’s love seeks in us a dwelling, a birthing, where our spirits may be filled with the Word whose light shines in any and all darkness. Mary, Joseph and the babe lying in the manger teach us that God has come to show us love unbounded in its mercy, unfettered by its reach and unyielding for its purpose of birthing in us hope and love.

So tonight choose hope, have faith, trust that God is with you on your journey because in the child of Bethlehem, we find the one who is not only Christ and Savior of the world, but the one who has come among us and dwells in our midst even now…Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, God with us. Let every heart prepare him room and may God be praised tonight with the angles, the shepherds, the animals, Mary, Joseph and all of us for the great gift of Jesus’ birth, the child who brings life and light to all. Christmas is a gift from God and an invitation from God to take God’s light into the world by our acts of love, mercy and justice.