Christmas Eve: Midnight Homily
Two advents ago, I sat incognito in my street clothes in the second pew from the front and I watched as three- and four-year-olds portrayed the heavenly host to the best of their ability and kindergartners dressed in shaggy browns and grays played the friendly beasts gathered at the bedside of the incarnate God.
One of the sheep, righteously angry about being thrust into such responsibility, cried angry tears where the pulpit normally stands.
“Gosh,” the man’s voice behind me said, “if I could be her age all over again, I wouldn’t make most of the decisions I’ve made … I’d do my life different if I could do it over again.”
The man was homeless.
I could feel his breath, smelling vaguely of booze, against the back of my neck.
His honest, almost reflexive declaration struck me as the perfect distillation of what we mean by the word, church.
His was a confession given freely, even winsomely, as a reaction to the gospel and in the trust that he was in a space made safe by grace.
Mary, played by a fifth grader and appearing virtually in a pre-recorded performance, appeared not only to be pondering the gravity of the annunciation but her next lines; meanwhile, the angel Gabriel delivered his glad tidings so fast you’d think there was an angel labor shortage and he had places to be.
When Gabriel announced his goods news of great joy to the shepherd petting his cottony sawhorse sheep, I heard a different voice behind me whisper to the man, “Can you imagine getting a message like that from God? Wouldn’t you love it if God said something like that to you?”
The man replied with the same astonished honesty:
“If God spoke to me, I don’t expect I’d care much what he had to say to me. Just God speaking — to me — would be enough. Shit, that’d be a miracle.”
I didn’t have to look behind me.
I could hear that he was crying.
He might have wept harder had he known how right he was.
Because, of course, it is a miracle.
The one the angels herald is Immanuel, God with us.
And therefore, the God who took flesh in Mary’s womb takes up accommodations even more modest than a manger.
Immanuel— the Risen Jesus— encounters us in proclamation: in word and water, wine and bread.
Just so, unlike the shepherds, you don’t need an angel.
You’ve got something better than an angel.
You have a preacher—
You have a Preacher with a capital P.
You have loaf and cup.
You have his risen body, the church.
“You know my favorite part of that story?” the man behind me said to the woman seated next to him at the pageant’s end, “The you. “For unto you is born this day…a savior.” That you means me.”
Once again, he was absolutely correct.
Because the one the angels herald is Immanuel, God with us, what the angels once said to shepherds in the past, the Lord says to you tonight.
The “you" means me.
The “you” means you.
For you, the savior is born.
The disarmed, disarming love laid in a manger is for you.
This is the Lord’s word to you.
The "You" Means Me