How many people in the last month have wished us Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas? How many gifts have we shopped for, wrapped and delivered? How many cards and emails have we sent and received? How much Christmas music have we played and heard? How many cookies have we eaten?
We have tended to the outer world. Let us now be present in this moment . . . to pause for wonder.
This is the moment to feel peace. To experience joy. To know God’s love. To reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation: God takes flesh. God becomes human in the birth of Jesus.
There is a temptation as we grow older to lose our sense of wonder. We have heard this nativity story before. It may not affect us as it once did.
Let us not lose the ability to wonder.
Three times in Luke’s gospels, angels say: “You will find a child.”
This is a night for us to find the child, the child who is within us.
When God was born into the world in Jesus Christ, God came as a child – helpless, dependent and powerless.
So within each one of us is the spirit of a child – connecting us to a deeper mystery of Spirit.
There is a beloved child within each of us who remains the same throughout our lives – whether we are 5 or 15 or 45 or 75.
Christmas is God’s radical invasion into the real world, where we live.
When we say Emmanuel – God is with us – it is not an abstract idea or a vague theological truth. It actually happened!
God became flesh in a particular person who happened to be a Jewish male born in Palestine to a poor family, with parents who were forced to give birth in a barn because of decisions by the political rulers of their day.
Jesus was born into a world of political unrest, injustice, poverty, hatred, jealousy, and fear. His life was not easy.
But he performed miracles. He gave people hope. He healed people who were sick. He raised the dead. He cared about widows and orphans. He practiced forgiveness.
When people see Jesus, they learn what God is like.
Isn’t this cause enough for wonder?
You will find a child.
As we tell the story of Christmas tonight in scripture, song and story, I challenge you to find the child within yourself.
Find the beloved child of God who is wrapped in swaddling clothes and cared for by a mother and a father, by donkeys and sheep, by angels and shepherds.
Find the child within you who is wrapped in starlight, protected by the Holy Spirit.
This holy child is laid in the manger, which is a feeding trough.
And that is why we share communion together this night.
At this manger, and in the Lord’s Supper that follows, love and wonder are reborn in the human heart. God, in this baby, is depending on us.
All of us are bread for the world. Alleluia!
Let us share our bread to bring hope, peace, joy and love to all God’s children. Amen.
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