Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City,
December 24, 2005, Christmas Eve, Year B
by The Reverend William A. Greenlaw, Ph.D.

Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20

           In the first scene from Hamlet, Marcellus speaks these words:   

                        Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
                        Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
                        the bird of Dawning singeth all night long;
                        And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
                        the nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
                        No fairy tales, nor witch hath power to charm,
                        So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

            In this hallowed and gracious night, dear friends, let us finally stop and be still in a world that so often conspires against stopping and being still.  It is intended that the season of Advent, just past, is that time when we wait and watch in a time pregnant with meaning and possibility.  We presumably do that so we can with great joy and rejoicing celebrate the actual coming of the Lord on this holy night. 

            Yet in our culture, it seems the preparation that takes place before Christmas is nothing so much as a frenzy of busy-ness and activities at a pace none can sustain for long, leaving so many of us simply exhausted and spent well before Christmas actually arrives.  For some of us, at a certain point, all we can do is stop, or get sick, because we can carry on no more. 

            But my prayer for each one of us here tonight is that we can stop on a different, much deeper, much more profound level.  Where if we can only open our innermost ears of discernment and hope, we might just hear that “bird of dawning” sing through the night.   

            It is hard to stop.  It is hard to stop inside when we are still out of breath on the outside.  It is all the more difficult when on an inner level we are restless, uncertain about so many things in our life and in our world—even about the point of it all, wondering if there is any meaning left in the furious and anxious treadmill of despair that so often seems to be life in New York City, and, Lord knows, our country and our world.   

            We have just endured a debilitating transit strike in the middle of the craziest week of the year.  We are a nation still at war, a war based on outright falsehoods and unending illusions, a nation which spies on its own citizens with no judicial warrant for doing so, a nation which continues to pollute with unconscionable abandon the good earth our God created and loves, a nation whose congress in a Scrooge-like rampage the very week before Christmas, made massive cuts in programs for the neediest in this land because it is committed to sustaining and increasing tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens.   

            The spirit of Christmas is not exactly abroad in our land.  Actually, certain of our leaders and the screaming of the Fox News Channel would agree.  In an ardent defense of the faith against all manner of evil, they worked strenuously to see to it that any and all decorated holiday trees were still to be known as “Christmas” trees, thank you very much.  I can only observe that it may be better for such folks to work toward keeping “Christmas” in Christmas trees than many other things these folks could get excited about.    

            Given all this, it is entirely likely some of us have ambivalent feelings about even being in church this night.  Perhaps we are making ourselves take the time and the space to see if just possibly a dim but cherished memory or distant hope may have life for us still. 

            And so we step out into the chill and darkness of this night, and we find our way to church.  Yet what do we find here?   

            Mangers and shepherds and fantastic stories no one could possibly take that seriously.  Legend and myth are here in abundance for the cynic to make fun of and for the skeptic to scorn.  Yes, it is possible--in fact, one could make a pretty good case that much of what we do here tonight is very dubious indeed. 

            But, nonetheless, here we are--for there is something wonderful, even something wholesome that stirs us even so.  We so often, so desperately want to be rational, calculating, to figure it out, to be in control, even as we are about to lose it as we desperately try to swim upstream, against the current.   

            But Christmas is not about being in control.  In fact, it is precisely about not being in control.  It is about allowing ourselves to be in awe.  Where a sacred story and a holy night and a miraculous birth come together to touch us as nothing else can.  Where what we discern this night is more real and more true than so much of what passes for the real and the true in most of the rest of our lives. 

            We hear the wonderful imagery of the prophet Isaiah--to say the words inescapably conjures up for many of us the cadences of the magnificent chorus from Handel's Messiah, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”  These words are still our ultimate hope.  God does not bludgeon us into recognition and acquiescence and acceptance.  For bludgeoning was and is the way of the world. 

            No, we juxtapose “wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father,” with “for unto us a child is born, a son is given.”  Who could imagine such a thing—that in the weakness, the vulnerability, the dependence of a child, we meet the God who in loving us, seeks our love, yours and mine?  Consider how fantastic that proposition is on this holy night.  That God not only comes to us, but that God seeks us, values us, wants us to share in this holy birth.   

            And consider that God does not need this holy birth—it is, rather, a broken world which desperately needs that holy birth. 

            But with God there is always a twist, where still deeper truths are unveiled.  For on this holy night, not only do we, broken as we are, meet God in a little child, we meet him in a manger.  Now over there [gesturing toward the manger scene], we have a wonderful manger scene.  Randy Parsons and that host of others known as “Flora Labora” have outdone themselves in decorating this church, including that manger scene.   

            But, for just a moment, let us be clear that mangers then and now are scarcely romantic places.  Mangers and dirty and smelly, cold and none too comfortable.  Jesus was born in a manger quite simply because there was no other place for him to be born.  

            I used to think that a modern analogy to this might be a soup kitchen guest giving birth on a cold night in a refrigerator box in Chelsea Park just across Ninth Avenue—not in, but outside the Health Center that is there.  But this year, maybe it was in the holy birth that took place on the floor of our soup kitchen counseling trailer outside in the driveway—with Linda, Jackie, and Clyde of our soup kitchen staff attending mother and child before EMS could arrive. 

            For those of you who did not hear Mother Liz’ telling the story in some detail in her sermon last Sunday, I urge you to visit our website and listen to this extraordinary story. 

            On this holy night, consider, in the lowliness of our Lord's birth, do we not have the most amazing sign of God’s reaching out to all of us, whoever we are, wherever we are, in whatever condition we are in?  Not only on an outer, but also on whatever inner level we find ourselves this night, that holy child is accessible to us.  He is not in some remote, well-guarded, privileged preserve.  He is there for us.  He is here for us.  He is remote only to the self-sufficient and to the proud. 

            I am convinced that somewhere deep within every human heart, every human spirit, there is an urgent need for quietness, for softness, for tenderness, for love.  That is why the unrelenting noise of this season is so repellent to some of us.  There is, I believe, a small child within each one of us.  There is, perhaps, even a parent as well, a parent who can reach out in love and responsibility and giving in response to a child.   

            What a miracle it is when new parents discover within themselves a depth of love and compassion toward their child which knows no bounds.  What an amazing thing it has been to behold in those who tended that birth in our counseling trailer, a depth of love and compassion toward that child, Jessica Holly, who came into the world that day.  They were changed by that event.  And they, along with many others, have felt a continuing interest, caring, and responsibility for that child which is simply awesome to behold.   

            On this most holy night, God speaks to all of us in quietness, in softness, in tenderness, in love.  And we are asked to respond to that new-born Christ-child in the manger.  If only we can allow ourselves to be open to the spirit that all around us, we, too, can be changed.   

            God comes to us in a child and asks for our love, our devotion, our hearts.  If we can see that child, if we can open ourselves to the possibility even of seeing God in that child, Christmas can be a new beginning for each one of us.  That, my friends, is the miracle of Christmas.

            Christmas, as our culture defines it, will be over by tomorrow night.  And that will be that, at least for this year.  But for those of us touched by this holy birth, this need not be so for us.  The story of our Lord's earthly pilgrimage begins tonight--it most assuredly does not end tomorrow!   

            Although our culture ceases to care or acknowledge much after tomorrow, the church will follow this child, this Lord, through his epiphanies, his life and ministry, his passion and death, his resurrection and ascension.  As the newborn babe grows into the Prince of Peace, so he beckons each one of us follow in faithfulness and discipleship, in his community of faith, the body of Christ which is the church.  For we are called to love and serve that same world he came to love and serve.  And in serving that world, we are serving none other than our incarnate Lord.  That path is not easy much of the time.  It can be excruciatingly difficult.   But finally,  it is none other than the way of life and peace. 

            O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
            cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. 
            We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
            O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.    

            Amen.

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