Sermons

Dec 24 - The Rev. Brian Taylor - Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve 2007
Receiving God’s gift of life

A baby boy was born at night, in the cold winter. Mary and Joseph somehow got through the birthing process. The animals watched, knowingly, for they had been through this themselves. The newborn infant gazed up with that amazingly clear first look, taking in the strange new world around him. Joseph wrapped him tenderly against the cold and was surprised how tiny his little fingers were, how dark his eyes. Like every birth of a new human being, this was a miraculous gift of joy, of love.

You might recall right now a birth you have experienced, or even the last time you held a newborn baby. There is nothing like it. I remember quite clearly the birth of my first son. As he came out I couldn’t believe my eyes; it was so astonishing, like watching a bird flying out of someone’s ear. This tiny, pink, living being, squirming and filling his lungs with the first breath of a long life: where did he come from; how did this happen?

I was weeping with joy, and so was the doctor. That struck me later on. It was certainly not his first delivery, probably more like his thousandth, and he cried. The next morning we wrapped him in warm, soft things and put him in the cold, hard car. I drove as carefully along those violent roads as if I were negotiating a minefield. I had precious cargo.

The days that followed were suffused with tenderness. One day we noticed – miracle of miracles - that he turned towards the light outside, and we exclaimed Quick, look! He’s looking out the window! The world was new, everything about it - the green leaves against the blue sky, the faces of people on the street, the wind whistling in our ears - it was all alive, pulsing with vibrancy, magic.

If you know this experience, you know that life – everyday, ordinary life - is a gift. It is a miraculous gift of joy, of love. And when we sense this, we are, in turn, giving to others. Gratitude begets generosity. That’s the feeling we recreate every Christmas, or at least what we aim towards with these carols, mangers, fire-lit evenings and gifts for one another. We evoke the miraculous gift of joy, of love. We feel grateful, and we act generously.

For Christians, the baby Jesus represents all this: not only as a newborn baby in a manger, but in who he became, who he is for us. The same feeling of tenderness, the same gift of joy and love is evoked when we hear about how he stopped a mob from stoning a woman caught in adultery, and sent her on her way in peace. It is evoked when we imagine him handing out loaves and fishes to a hungry crowd, when we hear him say Blessed are the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure in heart, for they shall see God. It is evoked when we gaze upon him on the cross, and he says Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing. Jesus is, for those who follow him, a miraculous gift of love and joy, given by God to the world.

It is amazing to me how this free gift, this good news of Jesus has been twisted by so many into bad news. You know how it goes. “Walk the straight and narrow or God will punish you. Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior or you’ll burn in hell. Be afraid, watch yourself, think the right thoughts, behave like you’re supposed to, feel guilty, and don’t ever stop trying to earn God’s favor.” This is heresy. It is a perversion of God’s free gift of Jesus to the world. He came to give us abundant life, to set us free. He came to help us be grateful and generous, like he was.

But not only is Jesus a gift; all of life is, too. Look around you. See the stars up above, feel the warmth of the sun, see the light of reason in human eyes. Behold what amazing shapes and colors people paint, what beautiful music they sing. Marvel at how weird and funny people can be, how tender, how skilled. Even marvel how we feel such sorrow, loss and pain. Every day is a gift of abundance. There is plenty to be grateful for, plenty of people to be generous with.

We don’t always experience life this way. Suffering is not evenly distributed, and it is often unfair. Sometimes it is hard to view life as abundant. Sometimes it is hard to receive the gift of life. But remember this about gifts: they are not only given; they need to be received.

Tomorrow morning, what would happen if you tried to give someone a wonderful present, one you spent hours thinking about, looking for, or maybe even making, and then you presented it to the one you love, all wrapped and shiny, and they said Oh, no I can’t accept this? And what if this wasn’t just false humility, but they really meant it?

What if they said I’m really too busy to accept anything new in my life right now. I’m so filled with worry, I’m so preoccupied with what I have to deal with that I don’t have room for your gift? What if they turned you away, closed the door on you, and went back to their hard little life? I wonder, is this how we respond to God’s gift of life?

Sometimes we can receive God’s gift of life, and sometimes we can’t. There are so many things that get in the way. We work so many hours that we are too tired to be open and trusting, to be grateful. The pressures and misfortunes of life grind us down. Our inner demons, old scars, and habits of thought keep us clouded and only half-alive. We resort to shallow entertainment, food, overwork, things that will never deliver – things that will, in fact, prevent us from receiving the gift of life’s joy and love.

The work that is set before us in this life is the emotional and spiritual work of exposing, learning about, then unlearning everything that keeps us from receiving God’s miraculous gift of life. There are millions of pathways that take us into this work, unique to each individual, and there is no shortcut. It is a lifelong pilgrimage of becoming. And like all pilgrimages, it is filled with God’s grace, with helpful strangers and wondrous surprises along the way. As we go, we are never alone.

This journey is not a luxury, or a self-indulgent hobby for the introspective. I believe that it is the primary responsibility we bear to our Creator. God has given you and me this wondrous experience we call “life.” What are we going to do with it? Put it on the shelf until we’ve got time to unwrap it? That day may never come. As a friend of mine recently said about an epitaph she hoped would never be written about her: She let the really important things slide, and then she died.

God has gifted us with a universe that is amazingly beautiful and abundant, an earth filled with remarkable people. God has gifted each of us with a unique character, outlook, and creative abilities. Our purpose in life is to receive this gift, to embrace, celebrate and develop it, and then to be generous with it towards others.

We are responsible for what we do and don’t do with this free gift of our life, but not as some sort of fearful test: will we measure up to God’s expectations? Instead, it is our joyful responsibility to flower, to learn about and let go of everything that stands in the way of that blossoming, and to relax and be what we were created to be.

Why? Not just for our own happiness and self-fulfillment, but so that we can be generous, so that we can be of good use to God. So that there will be more love, more mercy, more peace, compassion and justice in this world. So that this life will become a little more of what God intends it to be: a creative, harmonious, and abundant place for everyone.

For as we undo our obstacles and receive the miraculous gift of God’s life, as we become more fully the people we were created to be, we naturally gravitate towards goodness, towards service, and towards a self-emptying love for all. This is in our spiritual DNA. This is what is meant when we say that “we are made in the image of God.” This is who Jesus was, and what we become as he lives in us.

Tonight and tomorrow, as we celebrate this great festival of giving and receiving, we learn again the great lesson that God taught us in sending us the gift Jesus Christ: that we are created in order to be grateful, to be generous. As we receive and give the gifts of music and light, prayer and hugs, presents and food, we participate in the very essence of God, the very purpose of this abundant life. Merry Christmas.