Christmas Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Elise Feyerherm, Dec. 25, 2024

Christmas morning is a strange and liminal time – I have come to love it far more than Christmas Eve, because somehow it does not have to try so hard. Christmas morning does not strain to carry the weight of having to create magic, does not groan under the pressure to provide that perfect Christmas experience. Things are, in a way, so much more ordinary.The angels have returned to their heavenly perches; the shepherds have taken their flocks home; and we are left with a young mother, her betrothed, and this tiny, helpless infant.

But it is easy, this morning, to wonder if all that happened in the night was simply a dream, a self-induced hallucination, born of a longing so strong that it paints an image of its own fulfillment. It is easy, this morning, to doubt the miracle, to lose our grasp on that moment of joy.

One thing I do when I lose sight of joy is I read poetry. Poetry, because it refuses to say too much, refuses to offer certainty, rekindles the yearning in me, opens up the window to wonder. This is why on Christmas morning we hear as our gospel, John’s poem in praise of God the Incarnate Word:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through him,

and without him not one thing came into being.

What has come into being in him was life,

and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness did not overcome it.

No history, no doctrine, really, just an image – God speaking forth creation into the void, and a light shining that no darkness can destroy. More than that, a promise that God’s Word of life is meant for the world, meant to bring hope. God knows the pain of the world, and leans toward it.

R.S. Thomas, the Welsh poet and Anglican priest, points toward this in his poem “The Coming.”

And God held in his hand

A small globe. Look, he said.

The son looked. Far off,

As through water, he saw

A scorched land of fierce

Colour. The light burned

There; crusted buildings

Cast their shadows; a bright

Serpent, a river

Uncoiled itself, radiant

With slime.

On a bare

Hill a bare tree saddened

The sky. Many people

Held out their thin arms

To it, as though waiting

For a vanished April

To return to its crossed

Boughs. The son watched

Them. Let me go there, he said.

“Let me go there, he said.” A reminder that while there are many reasons to move in with someone – convenience, financial hardship, desperation – God comes simply out of love. God the Son, whom John reminds us is not separate from but one with God, sees pain and need and says, I want to be with them. I want to become flesh and live among them, be one of them, not watch from a safe distance.

The poem we know as John’s gospel captured this good news in nine words: And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

But this world is not safe for flesh and blood, even for a body that is also God. The Love that came down at Christmas puts itself in terrible jeopardy, the same jeopardy that all flesh faces each and every day.

Madeleine L’Engle, in her poem, “The Risk of Birth, Christmas 1973” describes a world that we all know and fear:

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate

And a comet slashing the sky to warn

That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honour & truth were trampled by scorn –

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn –

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

In our own world, the risks are manifold, the places where Love takes the risk of birth crying out with pain and fear and sorrow. The Word risks dwelling in Ukraine, in Israel, in Gaza, in Afghanistan, in Roxbury, on the corner of Mass and Cass. The truth of Christmas points us to places where the world’s heart is breaking, to where our own hearts are breaking, and speaks peace.

On this ordinary day, when the magic seems like a dream, we are invited to receive once again this extraordinary gift, knowing that God has become one of us in Jesus Christ. I am with you, God says. I share all your pain, and all your joy. And the darkness will not prevail over our union. When is the time for Love to be born? Now, and always.

Amen.