Br. Lain Wilson

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Day

John 1:1-14

Merry Christmas, everyone! It’s such a delight to have you all with us today.

Christmas can be overwhelming. Joyful. . . and overwhelming. Decorations and lights everywhere you look; the smell of baking or, in the Chapel, incense and beeswax; bells and beloved carols; the taste of familiar foods at dinner; the gentle pressure of hugs with family and friends. We all have these sense memories that tell us, finally, yes, Christmas is here!

But Christmas, too, invites us to engage another sense – our sense of wonder.

I remember one night several years ago going to an observatory in Northern Virginia for a kind of astronomy “open house.” I didn’t really know what to expect. I sat waiting in line for one of the larger telescopes, a bit cold, a bit tired, a bit ready to be away from there. But when I put my eye to the scope . . . well, the planet Saturn was just there. Right there, rings and all, cold and perfect, right before my eye. It was . . . wondrous. I don’t really have a better word. It was wondrous to see this planet, this being, brought vast distances across the expanse of space and made present.

This is the kind of wonder with which we should look upon the enormity of the gift revealed to us today. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:1-2, 14). If the lights and music and cooking smells can threaten to overwhelm us with nostalgia, how much more should the mystery of the Incarnation—that God should take on human flesh and live among us, that the Word from before time and space should come and be present to us – how much more should this mystery overwhelm us with awe!

The wonder of it, the joy of it, is that when we look upon this awesome mystery, what looks back upon us, what becomes present before our eyes, even here, even now, is not the cold perfection of remote space, but the overwhelming abundance of life and light and love. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. . . . ‘For God so loved the world that [God] gave [the] only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’” (John 1:3, 3:16).

We are filled with wonder today, that Jesus’ birth in a tiny town two thousand years ago was God coming into the world; that God’s taking on the material stuff of humanity was God’s descending to us so that we might ascend to God; and that God met our constant turning away – our choosing again and again death and darkness and hatred – with life and light and love.

If we are filled with a sense of wonder, though, we are also invited to be clearsighted about our reality, and be filled with a sense of purpose. The Word came into a world that needed to be saved, and one that was bent on rejecting the gifts the Word offered. This was true two thousand years ago, and it’s still frustratingly true today. Death and darkness and hatred continue to run rampant in our world.

So what are we to do?

In the face of death, choose life. Affirm the value of all life that God has created. Look upon those around you – family and friends and strangers and enemies; rocks and rivers and trees; birds and deer and even the rabbits that eat your flowers – look upon all those around you as gifted by God with life, a sign of the creator of all, given to the world, given to you, and called very good. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:3-4).

In the face of darkness, choose light. When so much conditions us to hide or hoard or turn inward, when so much tells us to shut the doors of our hearts, fling them wide open. Our humanity dies in darkness. Against the darkness of ignorance and prejudice, against the willful blindness of all that is unfamiliar or different, let the light shine into your heart, and let your own light shine out for others. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).

And in the face of hatred, choose love. It’s so easy to hate, to write people off, to say that they aren’t worth the effort. It’s so, so easy. And it can be so hard to love. When everything that surrounds us seems to drive our divisions, when the horizon of our world almost inevitably seems to get narrower and narrower, turning outward and building bridges and breaking free from what binds us by choosing love may be the most countercultural, against-the-grain, confounding-the-expectations thing that we can do – as confounding of expectations, perhaps, as that God would choose to enter this world, to be born as a baby in a country under foreign occupation, all for a love that knew – and that continues to know – no bounds. “Love came down at Christmas,” begins one of my favorite carols. “Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign.”

Today is Christmas, when we welcome the birth of our Savior, when we look on with wonder at this enormous mystery, and when that wonder transforms to purpose, the resolve to carry forward, in our own lives, Jesus’ mission to bring life and light and love to our aching world. To receive the gift of Jesus and bear him to others.

Merry Christmas to you all! Amen.