This sermon was preached for the Feast of the Nativity, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024. The texts for this sermon were the Christmas Lessons and Carols.
I sent two recordings of my daughter singing herself to sleep to her godmothers a couple weeks ago. If you listen closely to the first, you can hear that she’s singing her very own two year old version of the Jewish sabbath blessing for the bread and in the second, O Gracious Light, the Episcopal hymn we’ve been singing as we light our Advent wreath each night. The godmothers were delighted. “Here’s the thing that I know for sure,” one said in response. “...There are things we can only learn about God from children. There are things we can only learn about God from a little tiny voice singing blessings to fall asleep.”
The Christmas pageant we did here earlier today was another one of those times that drives home for me, that there are things we can only learn about God from children. Things that children just know about God that maybe us adults have forgotten; that God is present in chaos, that God’s essence is wonder and delight, that God’s stories are actually about every single one of us.
Here is the wonder of Christmas, though: there are things God could only say to us in a human body, as an infant. On this night in particular, let us marvel in this miracle: God came to us, not as a fully grown prophet in a beard, but as a tiny newborn. Because there are parts of God’s message for us that are said best by the Christ Child tonight. By his tiny-throated wail that pierces the heart, by his teeny grasping fist, by his hungry, suckling mouth and little kicking feet, that all say to us, without words: I am here. I am yours. I love you with all that I am. I have done, I will do, everything for you.
It’s not just children, though, who have something to teach us about God. I sat with someone recently who lamented how different Christmas feels without little ones around. Yes, there is something about experiencing Christmas through the joy and wonder of a small child. But other experiences of Christmas are sacred, too. The glad tidings of Christmas heard, really heard, for the first time by a brand-new Christian. A stranger’s Christmastime generosity received for the first time by a downtrodden newcomer to our community. That raw, broken-open experience of a first bittersweet Christmas without a loved one. Each of these Christmases, they are Jesus Christ known in a new, holy way.
Many years ago, a colleague of mine told a story about serving in a soup kitchen ministry that I’ve never forgotten. This feeding ministry, like many other feeding ministries, drew in lots of different folks; some down on their luck, some chronically homeless, some elderly on dwindling fixed incomes, some struggling with addiction. Some were a joy to serve, easy to love and some quite a bit harder. Upon catching sight of a particularly difficult repeat customer walking in through the door one day, my colleague muttered to himself, “Oh, Christ. It’s you.” But then it dawned on him, “Oh, Christ. It's you.”
There are several great saint stories - St. Martin of Tours and St. Christopher, for example - in which a saint helps another person, only for the beggar or child to be revealed to be Christ himself. And it was Mother Teresa, who said of the children and elderly she served, “Each one is Christ in disguise.” Every Episcopalian, in our baptismal covenant, commits to seeking and serving Christ in all persons. What else does that mean except relating to each person we meet as God incarnate?
What if each person has something only they can teach us about God? Things to teach us as Christ embodied? How we might relate to one another differently if we believed that?
I had a mentor who taught me when someone is really annoying me, like driving me up a wall, to pause and silently say to myself, thank you, teacher. Thank you for teaching me something really crucial about who I am and what I value. We are one another’s teachers, and one another’s students, regardless of age or experience, or personality clash.
There are some things we can only learn about God from children, from infants, even. There are some things only the dying can teach us about God. Some theology only the destitute can explain. Some things only a refugee knows about the divine.
There is something only you can teach me about God. And I can’t wait to learn.
For now, though, as we approach the humble manger tonight, it is with the hope and trust that this Christmas, this particular Christmas, has good news for us, right now in this moment. We are different, you and I, than we were last Christmas. Older definitely, maybe wiser, maybe more tired, maybe more grateful, maybe more full of doubt. The miracle of Christmas is that the Christ child arrives to us just the same, no matter what we have endured or celebrated or lost. Baby Jesus reaches his tiny arms out to us all the same. It is we who are different, ready to hear God’s glad tidings in a new way.
May the Angelsong bless you this night. Let the carols and candlelight lead you in. May you feel, deep in your bones, God’s all-encompassing, outrageous love for you and for this whole, wide, weary world. May you teach each person you meet what you know about God, even if you, like baby Jesus, don’t have the words. And may you receive a new lesson from every child of God of any age whom you encounter, Christ in disguise.
Amen.
Christmas Eve blessing:
There are some things only you can teach us about God. There are messages of goodwill God says best with your mouth, good deeds God does best through your hands, and people God loves best with your heart.
You who have come to adore him at the manger - go now, out into the weary world, rejoicing, believing. Go to seek the Christ Child in the lost, the least, and the lonely. Carry the flame of Christmas spirit with you; protect it, honor it, and use it to rekindle hope, faith, and love in every heart you meet.
May the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be upon you, those you love and those for whom you pray, this holy night and always. Amen.
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