Introduction

This is the sermon I had planned to preach at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Friday, Dec. 25, 2009, for Christmas Day. A blizzard forced cancellation of worship. So the congregation will celebrate its Christmas Day service on Sunday, Dec. 27, 2009.

+ + +

Readings

Isaiah 52:7–10
Psalm 98 (antiphon v. 3)
Hebrews 1:1–12
John 1:1–14

+ + +

Prayer

Father in heaven, grant us times of quiet thoughtfulness, that we may rest in your Spirit, listen to your voice, and ponder in our hearts the good news of your Son’s birth. Amen.

+ + +

Message

If we stop and listen …
we can almost hear the great sighs of relief
wafting up and away
from the homes here in Beatrice
and across the whole country.

We made it. It’s Christmas morning.
All the presents that could be bought
have been wrapped carefully and then quickly unwrapped.
The food we will eat fills our fridges and cupboards.
Most likely the planes and cars
have landed and parked
and loved ones have reached their destinations.

And so we sit and sigh,
we rest and sag gratefully into our chairs
as we watch the twinkle of lights
catch the eyes of our elders
and the dazzle of decorations
entrance the imaginations of our children.

And maybe the sighs turn to prayers,
“Thank you, Lord, for another year,
for bringing us this far,
for watching over us,
for keeping us safe.”

Or perhaps we exhale a prayer
in sighs too deep for words,
“Ah, Lord…Amen.”

But whether we speak or sigh our prayers,
we find ourselves turning naturally to God,
telling him what weighs us down,
what lifts our spirits.

This prayer is our conversation with God.
And we can do nothing more basic
as his children who gather around him,
just the way our children gather around us.

We come into his presence
and we speak the thoughts on our hearts,
we sigh out our weariness,
we breathe out our gratitude,
we pray our sorrows and our joys.

And the great mystery and blessing and gift of this day
is that we make our prayers to a God
who is more intimately grounded in our lives
than we find ourselves, than we are to one another.

The mystery of Christmas is this:
God himself deigns to dwell in our midst.
The One who made us and all things
is now himself one of us and one with us
in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

St. John speaks of Christ as the Word of God,
announced and enfleshed in our midst.
And with an echo of affirmation,
the writer of Hebrews turns poetical,
“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors
in many and various ways by the prophets,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son….” (Hebrews 1:1-2a, NRSV)

Jesus Christ, that Son, is the Word,
spoken by the Father in the power of their Spirit,
spoken from all eternity and before all worlds,
but also uttered in our midst
as the baby, the boy, the man,
who is rabbi, healer, preacher, miracle worker,
who suffers, dies, and is raised again,
who will come on that last day to judge.

He is the Word of God
whom we hear each moment
with our ears of faith.
And in reply,
we raise our prayers,
our words spoken in faithful response.
This is our contribution, then,
our part and participation in the life of God,
in the conversation that goes on within God himself.

And the great mystery and blessing and gift of this day
is that this Triune God does not only talk to himself,
but he invites us into his divine conversation.

And like our elders who sit with us at the Christmas table,
and who ask about us and genuinely listen to our replies,
God invites us to his Table
and wants to know what we have to say.

This is one way for us to embrace his invitation
to come to our Lord’s Table.
Our Father welcomes us to feast upon his Son, his Word,
broken and poured out for us.

We listen with our ears of faith
as we eat the bread become the body of Christ
and drink the wine become the blood of Christ.

And as we do,
we find it doesn’t matter so much
whether this day is the first of many more days
or the last for us of many days gone by.
What matters is that we know and trust
that all our days and nights rest in the strong and gentle hands
of the God whose fatherly hands made us,
whose brotherly hands stretched out in sacrifice for us,
whose spiritual hands guide and comfort us.

When we settle into this promise,
we may rest securely in it,
warm and protected and loved
by our God and Father,
who by his Spirit,
speaks his Word for these last days,
for each day and for that Day,
the one that will never end. Amen.