Sermon for December 25, 2020 - Christmas Day - The Rev Elise A. Feyerherm

Isaiah 62:6-12                                                                                    

Psalm 97                                                                                                        

Luke 2:8-20

It is morning, after a long night for Mary, Joseph, and the newborn infant Jesus. The events recounted in our gospel for this morning are hours old – the multitude of heavenly hosts have gone back whence they came, the shepherds have returned to their fields and their sheep, and an exhausted mother is left to recoup her strength and, as Luke tells us, to ponder all these words in her heart.

There must have been some serious adrenaline pumping through Mary and Joseph the night before. The urgency of birth, the inescapability of it all, may have kept them going. The sudden appearance of shepherds, bearing with them the certainty that God was moving, bringing salvation so surely – I can imagine that joy, or something like it, felt very close that night.

But in the morning? What happens then? When the baby – God or not – needs its first diaper change and you’re not sure you actually heard the shepherds right when they said that this child is Christ the Lord? What if you can’t hold on to joy?

Christmas “magic” has always been fleeting; so fleeting, in fact, that we begin to wonder if it was ever there. I remember it as a child, but it has been, to tell the truth, a very long time since I could feel the feelings the way I did as a child. In fact, Christmas has often been for me just one more occasion for not measuring up – not enough (or any) time and effort given to decorating or sending cards and presents; not enough service to the poor; not enough charity and festive cheer in general.

It is possible, and we’ve all seen it, to spend altogether too much time and energy trying to generate “the Christmas spirit.” It can become frantic, desperate, at times – even more so this year, when we are in such need of hope. Just the right music, just the right lighting, just the right present, just the right sermon to infuse folks with that magic Christmas cheer. And for those of us who don’t quite have, or who have lost the feeling, it can seem as if we have failed. Failed each other, failed ourselves, even failed God.

I’m sorry if this is beginning to sound like a Blue Christmas sermon rather than a sermon for the great festival of the Incarnation. But hear me out. Because I think – I know – that there is good news here – really good news.

God has been teaching me over the course of my lifetime, and is still teaching me, something crucial – that I do not have to depend on feeling the right thing for it to be true. My feelings – our feelings – come and go. They tell us important things, but they are not permanent, and they are not the only, or even the most important, arbiter of truth. I will catch a glimpse of joy, and then it will disappear like frost on a late fall morning. I will weep at all the death and pain in the world, and the next moment I will bear that sorrow with equanimity. I will lash out in anger at what we humans do to one another, and the next day forget all about it because my life is still pretty comfortable. My heart will burst with gratitude and certainty that God so loved the world, and later on I will wonder whether I was just kidding myself.

Our feelings come and go. I have no doubt that this was true for Mary, for Joseph, for those shepherds, and even for Jesus himself.Remember that this infant Messiah, thirty years later, on the cross, cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Our feelings come and go. But the news this morning frees us from the tyranny of our emotions.  That is perhaps the best news of all, that we don’t have to feel this love come down at Christmas for it to be real, and true. Our feelings come and go. God, however, does not. This good news of great joy is held for us by the Church, the Body of Christ, as something outside of us – steadier than the serotonin in our brain, bigger and better than the beating of an excited or terrified or weeping heart.

Daughter Zion is told, “your salvation comes.” Regardless of whether she can “feel” it. They – we – are called “The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord” whether or not our hearts are bursting at the moment. The salvation of which Isaiah speaks is real because God has sought us out, not because we have been able to generate the right feelings.

Those shepherds? The angel came to them with good news of great joy. This is God’s doing, not ours. Whenever we lose heart, we can remember this.

Recently, an email from the Massachusetts Council of Churches contained a recording of a song written by Shirley Caesar, a gospel singer and preacher. It’s called – This Joy I Have, and here are a few lines:

This joy I have the world didn’t give to me
this joy I have the world didn’t give to me
oh this joy I have the world didn't give to me
the world didn't give it – the world can't take it away

What we have, what is given to us this day and beyond, the world didn’t give it to us. The world tries to make us think it can give us joy, but generally succeeds only in ramping up emotions that don’t last and desires that have us grabbing for cheap (or expensive) thrills. This great joy, this good news, the world didn’t give it to us. God did.  

This love I have (Shirley Caesar wrote) the world didn’t give to me
this love I have (the angels sang) the world didn’t give to me
this love I have (Mary pondered) the world didn’t give to me
the world didn't give it – the world can't take it away…

If the world didn’t give it, who did? Shirley Caesar took her answer from the gospels: Nobody but Jesus, she sang. Nobody but Jesus. This joy I have, Jesus gave it to me. To us.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us. On this day, Love became flesh and lived among us, and nothing can take it away. Glory to God in the highest.

Let us pray:

God of rough hands and hardened feet,

giving light to the [children] of earth:

in agony of birth and gentleness of newborn skin,

may we discover your ordinary beauty

in the heart of our longing world,

[knowing that the world cannot take our joy away]

through Jesus Christ, the Icon of the Unseen God. Amen.

-         Steven Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church. New York: Church Publishing, 2009, p. 4 (adapted).