Christmas Eve sermon

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!

The blessings of the Holy Child born of Mary

be with you and welcome you here under this roof

            which tonight is a glorified stable adorned by loving hands

and where room is abundantly available

                        and no one is shut out.

Welcome! 

And we want to offer a special welcome to Emmanuel Episcopal Church

            to all those visiting here tonight,

                        family members and friends and neighbors,

all of us together joining in song and prayers

            and the sharing of our precious feast of bread and wine,

modest in that it looks small – a bit of bread, a sip of wine –

            like the baby in the manger,

but nevertheless a hugely abundant sacramental resource

            to nourish and strengthen the most hungry soul.

It is good to be here tonight,

            to choose to come here in the midst of whatever else is occurring

                        in your homes and your lives for this holiday.

May you find a refuge of love and joy here

            in the midst of a world of anger and violence and grief.

For many throughout the world life is particularly hard and dark

            either from warfare and terrorism

            or from a continuous denial of justice

            or from the aftermath of angry violence

                        at the hands of the mentally and emotionally damaged

            or the result of domestic violence

            or in the bondage of the new slavery of human trafficking.

So much inhumanity coming from human beings.

This year as I was pondering the ancient story of the Nativity

            one word in the text stood out for me in an unexpected way.

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host…”

            -- heavenly host,            host --

What is it that we usually picture in our minds for this?

Do we see an angel choir with cherub faces

            floating aloft on gorgeous wings in the starry night sky

                        and singing glory to God?

But that is not what the word host signifies here,

            because the word in the text, which is translated as host here,

                        is actually the Greek word for army.

That shifts the imagery significantly.

The shepherds out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night

            are startled by the appearance of a bright messenger from God

                        there in their midst

            announcing the birth of their Savior who, oddly enough,

                        will be recognizeable, because this will be a baby

                                                            whose cradle is a feeding trough, a manger.

And then to compound the paradoxical news

            the angel is suddenly surrounded by an army vast in number,

                        an army of angel warriors.

And their war cry is “Glory to God in the highest,

            and on earth – peace!

What were the shepherds to think?  or us?  What are we to think?

The historical setting for all this taking place

                                                was a particularly harsh and violent time.

The people to whom this angelic message came lived in a country

            groaning under the oppression of a conquering army.

Any hint of rebellion was put down violently by the heavy military presence,

            and further discouragement for revolt came in the form

                        of crucifixion publicly displayed.

And these people were being forced to pay heavy taxes,

            taxes to pay for the military expenses

                                                of the very soldiers standing over them.

Think of this – the largest part of the Roman budget was for the military,

            just as it is for us in this country today.

What might the shepherds hope for?

            God’s army come to liberate them?

Yet what do the angels say?

            Peace on earth in those humans of good will,

                        in those whose will is consistent with God’s will.

And this will be accomplished for you and in you

            through the Savior born this night,

born not in a royal palace to be commander in chief,

                                    but in an obscure and unlikely place.

What a wonder!

            In the midst of all this inhumanity of violence and cruelty,

the Holy Divine intervenes

            complete with an unearthly army of spiritual beings,

but not as a political, military supreme divine leader

                                    to oppose the divine Roman emperor,

            but simply as a human being,

                        a human being who would live among us

                                    and grow up and experience fully life in this world,

and who would show us what it really means to be a human being,

            what it is like to live into the full potential of human being.

And where did that full and mature humanity take him?

            Right to a Roman cross.

A violent end reserved for criminals and enemies of the state.

Yet that was the plan all along.

From the moment of the first breath of the baby Jesus

            his fate was sealed; there would be a last breath.

Thus it is with all of us.

But for the Savior he would spend his life and give that last breath

            as a gift to all  --  the gift of himself to be in us

                        that we might know, really know and experience

                                    that peace the angel army proclaimed.

This is liberation  --

            then and now

            from all that oppresses

            from every inhumanity that can be perpetrated.

If you do not know peace, the peace that passes all understanding,

            then come to the manger and gaze upon the Holy Child

                        until the peace comes.

The Christ Child is with us tonight,

                                    en-fleshed in bread and wine

            and our hearts.

I conclude with these words from another the carols:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

            the world has suffered long;

beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled

            two thousand years of wrong;

and warring humankind hears not

            the tidings which they bring;

O hush the noise and cease your strife

             and hear the angels sing.