Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On December 24, 1914 Europe was at war. It was probably the first real modern war, complete with chemical weapons. Two opposing armies faced each other across a no-man’s land. They had trenches that were often filled with mud. They were cold and the war had gone on for so long, most of them doubted that they could live to see peace. Young men got so desperate that they shot themselves or each other in secret compacts so that they might be sent to the military hospital and thereby have their lives spared.
On Christmas Eve, a very odd thing happened. British soldiers began to sing Christmas carols. The night was still and their music floated over no-man’s land to the German trenches. The German soldiers sang the same carols in return. The peace of Christ fell on them. The singing continued and unbelievably, the two sides climbed out to their trenches and met their enemies face to face. They were, all of them baptized into the one body of Christ, and on Christmas night when God’s love becomes its most tangible, these men, actually boys, in their late teens and twenties, heartsick for home, family and peace, comforted each other. They exchanged chocolate, other luxuries and had a game of soccer. The Psalmists says that “God sits enthroned on the praises of Israel”. When singing God’s praises these enemies were transformed and the absurdity of war was overruled by God’s tender love.
Tonight is Christmas Eve. We hear this story and stand in wonder at the power of God’s love revealed in the birth of Jesus. Jesus in the Aramaic language, a version of the ancient Hebrew means “God saves”. It is the dawning of salvation that we commemorate tonight. No matter how absurd human life becomes, no matter how sick with sin, no matter how far we move from God’s intentions for us, God’s love trumps our absurdity, of our sin and our estrangement. God comes down to us.
The details of the story reveals so much. Jesus is born in a stable, a barn, a shelter for animals. In his birth, every refugee living in a tent or underneath a sheet of plastic can relate to the God who knows, literally know, their fragility, frailty and vulnerability. The shepherds were on an “all-night-stake-out” with the sheep. They were the poorest of the poor, unskilled workers whose poverty forced them to live an unclean life. They were excluded from the Temple’s worship because of their filth and poverty, yet God came to them. God sent his Good News by winged, angelic newscasters directly to them because this Savior, this God made flesh, was for all the people. All… everyone, regardless of class or caste. To get everyone God had to stoop down to the lowliest, the very bottom of the barrel. God’s love knows no station, no rank, no status, we are all equally loved, prized, sought after. God’s love is “all inclusive”. The Holy and Just God does not see as the world sees. There are no important and unimportant in God’s eyes, no favored nor neglected. But all are one. St. Paul in Romans says it’s like this, “O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways”. The God of all loves without distinction as only a creator could God’s love is fused and joined inextricable to his sense of justice. It is this amazing powerful force of love that keeps propelling human society forward – to become more fair, more just, more living, more like the Divine God.
God has a special place in his heart for those who suffer. Israel never forgot that when she was enslaved in Egypt, God rescued her. Though valueless in the world’s eyes, she had a place in God’s heart.
As we look forward to 2009, we can’t help but hover over, for just a while, what 2008 has brought. We will have a new President on January 21. He is a unique man. His father was an African, his mother an American. For the first time in our history, we have a person who truly unites us along racial lines as never before.
In the same way, Jesus unites us to God, the Almighty, the most High, the limitless and timeless unites with its opposite, the powerless, the most lowly, the time and space bound. God can understand us because God participated in Christ, in our reality. God condescends to us and knows our hurts, our pain and our injustice.
Though not well known, Abraham Lincoln had a powerful relationship with ex-slave Frederick Douglass, a Marylander who had escaped slavery. Douglass was a powerful orator; he struggled to get an education and never stopped campaigning for the cause of his enslaved brothers and sisters.
Lincoln had mixed feelings about black people. As a young man he had worked on a riverboat and had seen as an eyewitness a slave auction in New Orleans. The sight of a family being broken up and sold to different plantations had left its mark on his heart. He saw slavery for the evil it was.
Yet, he was a man of his times. Though opposed to slavery, Lincoln did not see African-Americans as the equals of whites. Wherever slavery occurs, the slavesholders develop a world view that perpetuates and justifies their evil. The Romans saw their slaves as inferiors, as childlike, as less intelligent incapable of self-governance. Lincoln opposed giving black people the vote seeing them, as he did the women of his time, as intellectual inferiors.
Frederick Douglass challenged Lincoln’s prejudice. He was brilliant, articulate and argued passionately that people of African descent were in every way equal to the people who enslaved them. He served as Lincoln’s conscience whenever Lincoln fell short. In 1863, he came to Washington to protest the nation’s treatment of its newly enrolled Black soldiers. They were given half the pay of white soldiers yet they risked the same life. Douglass argued eloquently for them and Lincoln saw where he had been wrong. Lincoln was able to see through Douglass’ eyes and was moved to do what was just and right.
Lincoln’s relationship with Douglass changed him. He understood the whole of life in a new way because he could see thorough Douglass’ eyes, and feel through his experience.
In Christ, God knows us; God knows our worry and preoccupation. When we worry, “Will I have a job next week, next year?” God interprets our experience through the very human filter of Jesus. When we experience age discrimination, we are the first ones let off of a job, God because of Christ, knows how we feel. When we grieve the death of a mate we’ve loved for 50 years, God in Christ understand our sorrow.
And more than all that, God has saved us from death and despair, our own sin and folly and opened the door to a life of on-going, perpetual peace and joy.
Merry Christmas and thank you Lord Jesus for the sheer grace of your gift. Amen.
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