The Divine and Human as one, Incredulous!

Christmas Eve service 2016

I would like to tell you a story I heard recently about a nativity pageant, that like life itself didn't go quite as planned... The youth group at a city church was performing a manger scene.  Joseph and Mary and all the other characters were in place and ready.  They had practiced their parts with seriousness and commitment.   During the performance as the shepherds were proceeding to the altar steps, Mary and Joseph were looking earnestly at the straw in the manger, which contained a single naked light bulb that was playing the part of the glowing newborn Jesus, the light of the world.    With his back to the congregation, one of the shepherds said to the person playing Joseph, in a very loud whisper for all the cast to hear, "Well, Joe, when you gonna pass out cigars?"    Mary and Joseph's quiet snicker erupted into loud bursts of laughter.  This caused The chief angel, standing on a chair behind them to break out in laughter also.  She was laughing so hard that she fell off her chair and took the curtained back drop and many of the staged props with her.    The whole set was in shambles.   But do you know what?  The only thing that didn't go to pieces was that light bulb in the manger. ... it never stopped shining. --- Folks that baby in the manger is a light for the entire world.

We gather tonight to celebrate a birthday, but not just an ordinary birthday, for this birthday involves all of us here tonight and all those around the world who have come to accept, believe in, and practice the Christian religion.  In the beginning before our religion was formerly formed by the early apostils, we were simply know as People of The Way, followers of the light, the light that shines in our darkness days when things are not going as planned either.  The light of Christ is a light that shows us the way to wholeness.  For the early followers it was the same, they too struggled and tried very hard to follow in his way and abide by teachings.  Some began to see and understand that Jesus was not just an ordinary man, his extraordinary compassion for humankind, and his understanding of life and death seemed beyond their comprehension.  He performed many miracles, the lamb would walk again, the sick and possessed would be healed and set free, and the dead would rise.   Jesus did not teach from a pulpit within a synagogue or church building but simply went from community to community teaching on the hillsides, in the streets and in people’s homes.   His message was simply to Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  He choose just ordinary people like you and me to carry on his teachings, and his message of salvation and love throughout the world.  The Christmas Story was not meant to be a celebration for on one specific day or evening of the year, but was meant to inspire us to live as though every day was the last day of our lives.  To live with hope, for a new and better tomorrow, to love others as He loved us, to work for peace and justice in our personal lives, our community and in the wider world.       Jesus’ beloved disciple John, writes of a cosmic Christmas story in his writings found in the Gospel of John.  John doesn’t start with the human birth of Jesus but his gospel begins at the beginning of creation.  He uses the metaphor of the word, which in my perspective was an entity that we call the Christ.  The Word or the Christ became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  John goes on to say: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth”.  John’s Jesus is not confined to a manger 2000 years ago but rather reaches out to us from the very beginning of time itself.  Jesus was no ordinary man – Let us hear these words from the gospel of John   Chapter One:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

This is truly what we celebrate here this night.  A love and its story of cosmic prepositions. He was there in the beginning as the Christ, just as he is still with us in spirit now, the Spirit of Holiness who speaks only the truth to our hearts.  May your Christmas experience this year be a blessed one.