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Sermon at The Church of the
Holy Apostles, New York City,
December 25, 2006, Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord
Christmas Day
The Reverend Peter R. Carey
Isaiah 52: 7 - 10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1: 1 - 12
John 1: 1 - 14
"And God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son and
the Son so loved us that he gave himself for our salvation."
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
Scholars tells us that December was chosen by the early
church to celebrate the birth of Jesus because that was the month
when the Romans celebrated the feast of Saturnalia, the Roman
winter solstace festival, and the church wanted to replace it. But
somehow, lots of aspects of the pagan feast of Saturnalia seem to
have survived and a lot of new ones have since sprung up.
Somewhere along the line Santa Claus appeared on the
scene. And then the Christmas tree, with all its attendant glitter
came along. And today, in our capitalist society, Chistmas seems
to be mostly about shopping! The television regularly features
stories that declare the Christmas season to have been
“successful” or “unsuccesful” depending on how much money we have
spent in the malls and department stores. And I’m not sure who it
was, but somebody let Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer into the
festivities--Rudolph being one of the more bizarre modern
manifestations of secular Christmas.
It’s all quite a jumble, isn’t it? The world seems
intent on secularizing and capitalizing on Christmas and no matter
how positive or enjoyable these secular aspects of Christmas may
be, they don’t have much to do with the birth of Jesus.
This is why I like to come to church on Christmas. In
church, we expect to be able to think about the real meaning of
Christmas. To turn our minds for a couple of hours to the story of
that birth that took place so many centuries ago and which changed
the world so profoundly. In church, at least, we expect to be able
to get to the heart of the matter.
What is the heart of the matter? What is the real
meaning of Christmas?
It is, of course, the celebration of the birth of Jesus
Christ two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. And what was so
special about that birth is that it was the birth of God-made-man.
The in-carnation. The enfleshment of the Son of God in human form.
“And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.”
And why? Why did this event happen?
It happened because of love. God's love. God’s love
freely given. God’s love freely given with no strings attached.
"And God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son."
God might have saved the world in some other way, but
he chose to do it by becoming one of us, by becoming a human
being, and it is that event, that special moment in human history
that we remember and celebrate at Christmas.
That’s why we come to church on Christmas.
We come to remember. To remember that it is that
entrance of God into human form that raised and elevated and
caused every person who ever was and every person who ever will be
to a new dignity, to a new importance.
We are loveable and we are important because God loved
us first and made us so.
That is such a hard truth to grasp and an even harder
truth to accept.
There is nothing that holds us back more from spiritual
development and from spiritual good health than the sense that we
all have of our unimportance, our unloveableness, our
undesirability.
I’m often amazed at how unimportant we consider
ourselves to be sometimes. It seems to be extremely hard for us to
accept the idea that we are important to God and loved by God.
We like to think of movie stars as important, or
politicians. Or those who are famous. Or those who are successful
or rich. Or those who have made a name for themselves. They're the
important people; not us.
We think of ourselves as ordinary not
extraordinary--and there are times when we may even think we’re
not worth very much.
But whether we like it or not and whether we accept it
or not, we are important, deeply important to God and for that
reason to each other. We are so important to God that he sent his
only begotten Son and the Son so loved us that he gave himself for
our salvation.
And it is that message of love and human dignity--human
dignity, the dignity of every person--that God reveals to us in a
special way at Christmas. On this feast, he says to us, "You need
to understand. You are important. I love you. I want to be with
you. I want to walk with you during your pilgrimage from birth to
death and when your walk is over I want to continue to be with you
forever."
There is a Christmas song that says, "He's making a
list, and checking it twice. He gonna find out who's naughty or
nice.”
But that's Santa Claus and Santa Claus in NOT God. God
has no list that he's checking twice. His love and concern is
absolutely and totally unconditional. There are no strings
attached.
God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten
Son and the Son so loved us that he gave himself for our
salvation.
God's love for us is real and unencumbered and utterly
personal--extending not just to some general idea of humanity, but
to each one of us personally.
This morning, let us each ponder this great mystery of
God's love--the mystery of the Incarnation, in which God was made
a human being and dwelt among us.
And let us this morning try, try to realize more than
we have in the past just just how important and how valuable we
are to God and how much he loves us and how much he wants to give
us gifts.
So, here are some really practical gifts we might ask
for on this Christmas Day:
Let us ask our Lord to help us to realize that he is
listening to us when we pray.
Let us ask Christ our Lord to help us to feel his
presence when we feel lonely.
Let us ask Christ to comfort and strengthen us when
feel afraid.
Let us ask Jesus for the grace to sense his presence
when we are caring for others, especially for the sick and those
in any need or trouble.
Let us ask Christ to endow us with courage and strength
to do our daily work well.
If we ask our Lord for these simple things, these
simple gifts, he surely won’t refuse us, for he understands us and
he understands what we need because he is our brother. He is near
us. He is one of us.
For God so loved the world that he sent his only
begotten Son--and the Son so loved us that he gave himself for our
salvation.
May God in Christ fill your hearts with peace and joy
and gratitude this morning and may we learn to love him more this
coming year because he loved us first.
Amen.
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