Christmas Eve/Day December 24/25

Quotes That Make Me Think

"Ask any parent or grandparent about the birth of a new baby and they typically can describe the event in great detail."

Commentary, Luke 2:1-14 [15-20], Karyn Wiseman, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"This scene opens with Roman trumpets blaring an imperial order coming from Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria."

Commentary, Luke 2:[1-7] 8-20, Richard Swanson, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"This holiday familiarity is a particular problem for preachers. We must keep in mind that for some, the Christmas story has been regularly heard since childhood. And yet, these annual rehearsals have failed to reveal to contemporary audiences the jarring display of ancient culture the episode describes."

Commentary, Luke 2:1-14 [15-20] / Luke 2[1-7] 8-20, Joy Moore, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons from Textweek.com

Prayer

Place on my lips the word of salvation, in my heart a love that welcomes all, and in the depths of my being, the light of faith and hope, which the darkness can never overcome. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Luke 2:1-20

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Resources for Gospel

It is a miracle you and I are here reading this.

According to biologists, and reported by the author Bill Bryson in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything, it is a miracle you and I are here at all. It is possible that if your two parents had not bonded just when they did, possibly at that very second, possibly to the nanosecond – you wouldn’t be here. And if their parents had not done so in the same timely manner you wouldn’t be here either. Likewise this is true for their parents, and their parents before them, and so on and so on.

These ancestral particularities add up. Trace your lineage to the time of Abraham Lincoln and you have 250 of these unique and time sensitive parings. Go back to the time of Shakespeare and you have no less than 16,384 ancestors exchanging genetic material in a way that would eventually and miraculously result in you.

At 20 generations each of you has 1 million, 48 thousand, and 576 unique parings. At 25 generations you and I have no fewer than 33 million 554 thousand 432 men and women upon whose “devoted couplings our existence depends.”

At 30 generations (remember these are moms and dads only) you are at 1 billion, 73 million, 741 thousand, and 824.

At 64 generations, roughly the time of Jesus, our eventual existence depends upon no less than 10 to the 18th or 1 quintillion. If you trace this back to the time of King David you can more than double the number of unique, timely, miraculous couplings that have taken place to make you and I – quite particularly – us.

Surely by now you have figured out that surely something has gone wrong with my math. As a graduate with a degree in Studio Arts, this would be a good guess. Remember though this is Bryson’s math, based upon biological research. And you would be partly correct if you were led to this decision by the realization that there haven’t even been that many people in existence on the earth. However, the biology and math are pretty accurate. What we see in this example is that, while unique and dependant upon precise time and exact exchanges of DNA – we are also all, quite literally – family.

And so it is tonight that we gather as family to celebrate what is a very unique birth, the birth of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to Mary and Joseph.

In our Gospel Luke is eager to provide the story of that unique and particular birth, in an orderly account not shy of giving names, dates, and places of our Savior’s birth.

Jesus as our Messiah and Savior is born into a royal but all too impoverished family of the House of David -- to Mary and Joseph.

Arriving in Bethlehem, the site from which the Messiah is to be born, Mary gives birth to Jesus. We are told she gives birth in the middle of an outdoor or open air place where travelers gather and animals are fed.

At the end of his life, Jesus will be wrapped in linen, tonight he is swaddled in bands of cloth.

He will have no place to be laid to rest; tonight there is no room in the inn.

He will be laid in a tomb, tonight he is laid, the bread of life, in a manger where animals feed.

His parents are literally homeless, and for family are surrounded by shepherds – the first ones to hear God’s Good news. The lowliest laborers come to the poorest of places, to worship and impoverished king.

To those whom no good news is ever given, receive the very first tidings by God’s angel, accompanied no less by a legion of angels singing: Glory to God.

The shepherds received a prophecy telling them how, where, and in what state they will find their Savior, their Davidic King, their brother, their hope and their life.

So it is that they are the first in our human family, unique in and of themselves, to come and worship Jesus, telling Mary all that had happened and why they were there, which she had wondered about…

The shepherds as a response to the unique birth, the glad tidings, the comfort and fellowship of the Holy family leave glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen and had been told to them.

Children are always gifts to us, and Jesus Christ is a true, special, and unique gift to the human family, and to our spiritual family.

We, you and I are like the shepherds in this story; perhaps not in the outdoor agricultural kind of way – but in the fact that we are hopeful members of Christ’s family. Uniquely us and particularly us, we are given the opportunity to make a worshipful response to Christ’s birth tonight, again for the first time, but we are also given the opportunity to leave this place glorifying and praising God.

We are given the opportunity to place the words of salvation on our lips for others to hear.

We are given the opportunity to feel in our hearts the love of Jesus Christ that welcomes all people.

We are given the opportunity to embrace a light that enlightens our souls with faith and hope – which darkness may not overcome.

So it is that we wish one another Merry Christmas tonight – out of hope, love, faith, and the promise of peace which comes from unity. Tonight no one is a stranger, all are brother, sister, mother, and father. Tonight we walk into the darkness together lighting the world with the light of a newborn child – Jesus Christ: Mary’s Son of God, the shepherd’s Savior, the angel’s Messiah, and our impoverished and humble King.

Some Thoughts on Titus 2:11-14

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

Resources for Sunday's Epistle

The letter to Titus is clear: God has appeared and has released grace into the world. This is the bringing of salvation to all people.  This is a historical fact.  It is a statement of faith and of reality for those who follow Jesus.  

Even now God's grace is working its way in the world and transforming our lives.  It is "training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly..."  This is a powerful way of saying that the events of salvation and the good news of salvation are not something of the past, an event that happened, or something that exists in a world far away from us.  No, in fact the good news is happening right now in this very place in the midst of this very people.

God hopes for us and is faithful in his hope that we will be so transformed by this continually acting and reacting grace that we will be zealous for good deeds.  In other words that as this Gospel event is happening now that we will bring fulfillment to the hope of others and to our own hope by living out the salvation in word (yes) but in action.