Transforming Love

A Sermon preached on Christmas Eve 24 December at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 9:2-7, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14

May these spoken words be faithful to the written word and lead us to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Robert and I have once again divided up the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day service between us. Tonight, he is the celebrant, and I get to preach, tomorrow we swap roles. That means I get the first part of the gospel readings, which focuses on the angels, and he gets the second part with a focus on the shepherds. So I get the heavenly beings, and he gets the smelly, scruffy herders. Seems fair to me …

But seriously, Christmas would be nothing without the shepherds. We would have no one to hear the angels’ “good news of great joy for all the people that to you – to us - is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:10.12) And we would have no one to pass the message on to others as the shepherds will do. We need angels and shepherds, heaven and earth. We need Christmas to be grounded in our lives. And we need Christmas to have the potential to change our lives on earth, and not just in heaven.

There are several reasons why Luke begins the chapter about Jesus’ birth with all sorts of details about the Emperor Augustus, and the governor Quirinius, and about the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to take part in a census as ordered by the Roman occupying power. First, he wants to show us what Jesus is up against. The Roman imperial power on the one hand, and an outwardly powerless, dependent infant on the other. The Roman Catholic New Testament commentator Luke Timothy Johnson writes, “Luke’s manner is to show how God’s fidelity is worked out in human events when appearances seem to deny his presence or power.”

Secondly, his background information is meant to highlight that a number of Old Testament promises are being fulfilled at this time, including the one we heard a moment ago in Isaiah (9:6-7)

“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.”

But most important, I think, is that this grounds God’s actions in the framework of human time and place, in human lives. Christmas is identified as an event in history, as that moment when God becomes part of God’s own creation. At Christmas, God opens a door to what we call “heaven,” and sends God’s Son through it to become human. In his person, Jesus connects God and human, heaven and earth. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, always. It is a connection that we cannot sever, however much we try.

The incarnation, to use the technical term for becoming human, literally becoming flesh, stands for many things. But first and foremost, it is a sign of God’s love. God, the creator of all, cares for us, for the world, and for all of creation. It’s a huge claim, but that’s what the Christmas message says: God became human in Jesus to share in our joys and sorrows, to share in our triumphs and disappointments, to share in life and death. That’s what the angels are celebrating in their hymn of pure praise, not some martial triumph, not some military victory, but an act of self-sacrifice, of giving up power, of becoming vulnerable. After all what’s more vulnerable than a baby, soon forced to be a refugee in Egypt, before – not finally – dying on a cross. It all stands in complete contrast to the powers of the world, as represented here by Emperor Augustus and Governor Quirinius, and to their agendas.

The incarnation also stands for the possibility of transformation. In our Epistle, the extract from Paul’s letter to Titus (2:11), we heard that Jesus, “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” In the 1^st century Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons wrote: “He (Jesus) became what we are so that we might become what He is.” That is another massive claim: God, who is love, became a human being, so that we might become like God, that is loving beings – loving God and loving our neighbour. It is God’s hope and desire that we humans should embody the presence of God’s love in the world.  The angels sing (in the Authorised or King James version): "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward all.” God’s glory is most served by peace on earth and goodwill from all people to all people. In that sense we are still a long way from giving God the glory God desires. There is currently no peace in Ukraine, no peace in Sudan, no peace in Georgia, no peace in Syria, and definitely no peace in the Holy Land, in the West Bank and in Gaza, where instead what Paul calls impiety and worldly passions reign: revenge, intolerance, ambition, lust for power, greed ….

Achieving peace and goodwill to all may therefore seem impossible, but for God nothing is impossible. (Luke 1:37) For many people, both the beginning – the incarnation – and the end – the resurrection – of Jesus’ earthly life would be seen as “impossible” – but we believe in them and in their power to change and transform us. And that is what you are here to celebrate, with angels and shepherds: The good news is that this day, Dec. 24, 2024, is born a Savior who will transform us and the world, the Messiah, the one sent by God to connect heaven and earth, and the Lord, the only one we should really serve. And so, together with the angels and shepherds let us sing: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward all.” And then let us go out into the world and make it happen.

Amen.