25 December 2024 Christmas Day

Isaiah 9.2-7    Psalm 96     Titus 2.11-14    Luke 2.1-14

This year has not been an easy year for us, and for many all over the world.  This time last year we had a tornado and then a flood.   And some of you, some of those living here, are still recovering from those events.  Over the world this year, there has been much upheaval, wars, fighting, civil unrest, displaced people searching for yet another place to live and then that too is taken away and they have to start again.  So, I wonder what this Christmas will feel like for you, when so much of the world seems in turmoil, and the angel’s cry of ‘peace on earth’ seems more like a wish than a reality, and we who light candles and sing carols and hear the Christmas story seem so very small against the backdrop of this troubled world.

And in the middle of all that, we hear in our gospel, ‘in those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that the world should be registered.  This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria’.  And these events, described by Luke, also seem so very small.  I mean, what does Emperor Augustus or Governor Quirinius care about a pregnant teenager or wandering shepherds.  Mary, Joseph, and the rest, are so small compared to these rulers.  And yet, Luke declares that whether these powerful rich leaders care or not, in fact whether they even notice or not, the events described here are going to change the whole world.

I know, it is a very audacious claim that the birth of a baby to an unwed teen surrounded by the squalor of a backwater town could possbly matter.  And yet, in this ‘small story’ we have the promise of the Gospel; that God regularly ‘shows up’ where we least expect God to be and always turns up for you and me personally.

So even though our news feeds are bombarded with strife and turmoil, we can be assured that the world is not forgotten or forsaken, the news feeds will fade into history and be forgotten, but we have been telling this story for more than 2000 years.  God loves the world.  God will not give up on the world, or on us.  God continues to come to love and bless this world and invites us to do the same.

We may think that the Gospel message of hope, grace and peace seems improbable and maybe even unlikely.  After all, to think that the creator of the cosmos would even know we exist, let alone love and cherish us is a hope many find too good to be true.  But we keep coming back to this story, hoping against hope, and sometimes even believing that it is the one true story we will encounter this week, year, lifetime.  That God so loved the world.

So may this story seep into the deep crannies of our soul, those places in which we wonder if it can possibly be true; those spaces where the world’s darkness seems so much more prominent than the light.  Because that is what this story was made for – to shine light in dark places, to bring hope to the discouraged, insight to the lost, and the promise of peace to all who long for it.

May you have a truly blessed Christmas.