The Christmas Story
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2023
Our Savior’s, Faribault, MN
Luke 2.1-20
It seems that Christmas is a good time for stories, and no doubt many will be told this year, around the Christmas tree or table.If we were to gather, our family would tell the story of a bachelor uncle who grudgingly came each year, demanding that we not get him a gift yet get anyway. We’d talk about the year that all four of us children got identical clock radios by parents who scrupulously made every Christmas equal, down to the last penny. And there’d be that poignant Christmas when my sister, then too old, got her last doll. And I’d tell about the Christmas time when I baffled that same sister by disguising her present so well that it made her crazy. Then there’d be the time my mom made lutefisk because my Swedish great aunt and uncle came to dinner, a dinner that stunk up the house for days.
Of course, in many homes the Christmas story will be told again in one fashion or another, either around the tree or the table. It’s the story about how God took on flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth, as the Gospel writer John tells us. It strikes a chord in us, not just because it’s about a cute, vulnerable, baby. And not just because it involves angels and shepherds and animals and wise foreign visitors. It strikes a chord in us because we want to be reminded that God cares about us enough to be with us.
Unfortunately, there’ll be competing stories told this Christmas that stand against this one. Some of us will tell ourselves that God is distant and doesn’t care about us anymore, if at all. We’ll tell ourselves the story that God may come for other people, but God doesn’t come for us. We’ll tell the story that we have done such awful things that God couldn’t possibly come to us. Or perhaps we’ve bought the story that our worth is based on what we give or what we get. Most deadly, we tell ourselves that we must be happy because this is a happy time of year, and everyone else is happy so we should be happy, too.
I’m not going to tell you those stories aren’t true, because they might be your truth this year. Rather, I want to invite you into the larger one that encompasses these smaller stories. The Larger Story of Christmas tells us that God meets us where we are and as we are, no matter what. Two thousand years ago, God came to a people “who lived in great darkness” amid oppressive governance and so God continues to come to us, especially in our darkest times. The Larger Story says to the Smaller Stories that, evidence to the contrary, God continues to come. And, as Mary, who pondered all these things in her heart, we take to heart the Larger Story that surrounds our stories.
As you gather around the Christmas tree or table this year to tell stories, please hear the Larger Story of God’s love for you. Hear of a love so strong that God will go to any length to show you that love. In a few minutes, God will come down yet again and be made flesh in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. You will hold God in your hands and know that the one who gave God’s self at Christmas continues to give that Love over and over again. We think that this story is too good to be true. Rather, it is too good not to be true. Merry Christmas, God’s Beloved. Amen.
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