This sermon was preached on Christmas Day, Wednesday, December 25 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 62:6-12 , Titus 3:4-7 , Luke 2:(1-7)8-20 , and Psalm 97 . The way I thought about Christmas completely changed for me when I watched my sister give birth to my nephew in November of last year. I’ll spare you the details but I will say this: watching one human you love give birth to another human being is an incredibly sacred experience. No one had warned me, though, for the moment right after my nephew arrived. He was blue and unmoving when they placed him on my sister’s belly and I swear my heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe until he did, slowly stirring into life. In that moment, I felt how just thin the veil is between life and death, how much we all just hang in the balance. Now this will not come as surprise any of the parents here. My nephew had only been in the world for a few heartbeats. The only thing he’d at this...