The Rev’d Stephen C. Holton
Christ Church, New Haven, Conn.
The Eve of the Feast of the Nativity
December 24, 2022
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. +
Wherever you find yourself this Christmas, whether at home with the weather and watching online, or here in person with friends or family or even alone, or if you’re traveling and watching from afar, a very merry Christmas to you.
One of the joys of this Christmas eve service together is hearing again the Christmas story, seeing it acted out again in the scene of the crèche, just in front of the font in the back of the church. There are oxen and donkeys and sheep and shepherds and even a little dog gathered around the Holy Family. Everyone is gazing at the infant Jesus. You can feel the warmth in the soft candle glow, in the goodwill folks bear for one another, in memories we hold and bring with us of Christmases past.
One of my favorite memories is of Christmas pageants—live tableaus acting out the Christmas story, or even live nativity scenes with their animals and scratchy bales of hay, a little baby either asleep or, if the feeding isn’t timed just right, screaming in anticipation of the next meal of milk.
Everything seems beautiful in the manger scene, in the pageant—everything seems right with the world.
In fact, one of my favorite Christmas memories is of a church pageant with a third grade sage called Sarah. Sarah was an angel in the cast of eighty some odd children; she had dutifully been to all six rehearsals. She’d learned her songs by heart. She’d taken care of her wings and halo. She was all in. And when a less Christmas-pageant-experienced adult asked young Sarah what she liked about the Christmas pageant, she replied, with only the wisdom a third grader can muster,
The pageant is a place where we can act out heaven.
Sweet, right? The scene at the manger, the Christmas pageant, is play-acting for heaven.
Except that, for any of you who have ever managed a Christmas pageant—or even for those of you who have children, or have prepared a casserole for a family Christmas dinner, or made any Christmas plans whatsoever, the reality of the situation behind the scenes is that the pageant is complete chaos! The holidays are chaotic! Our world—our lives—are full of chaos. Anxiety. Discomfort. Even perhaps fear.
The fear of that little girl standing up to sing her solo at the microphone, bedecked in tinsel and bathrobe with a gold lamé sash. The fear of an immigrant family crossing the desert in the cold, trying to escape from violence and poverty and despair. The fear of a parent wondering if 2023 will hold a new job, or even a pay rise, to cope with the rising costs of food or housing. The fear of someone living rough wondering where they may find a warm place to be safe for the night. The fear of a Ukranian mother wondering if the next missiles will hit her apartment where she and her children are huddled close trying to stay warm this Christmas night.
Friends, it was no different that first Christmas in Bethlehem.
Mary and Joseph were traveling—while Mary was pregnant. They didn’t find a comfortable place to stay and to give birth; they made do with a stable. The shepherds were living rough, out in the cold, trying to scratch a living out of the hills for their animal stock. The citizens of Judea were under Roman occupation—it was, after all, the governor’s call for a census—to create a roll for purposes of taxation.
The world was just as complicated then as it is now. There was just as much fear. Mary and Joseph were as worried as that Ukrainian mother. The shepherds were just as anxious about next year as any parent. And soon Mary and Joseph would take little Jesus and flee to Egypt to avoid violence and even death.
That world of anxiety, fear, and violence is the same world that Jesus was born into. The same world into which God breaks forth. The same world that God loves.
The hazy soft warm glow of the candles around the crèche, the Christmas memories, the warm feelings of peace on earth and goodwill I can hold onto for about twelve hours—those feelings are lovely, and I’m giving thanks for them. But those feelings aren’t the whole story. Behind the scenes at the pageant everything’s chaos, and God is breaking in.
Our little friend Sarah was right; the pageant is a place where we can act out heaven—not just the good feelings, the warm feelings, the feelings of hope and joy—but also the places of anxiety and fear into which God comes—into which the angels speak those words, Don’t be afraid.
Do not be afraid. Jesus says it constantly throughout the gospels. And here the angels say it first. Don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid. God knows your fears, your anxieties, your joys and your sorrows. God knows and is accompanying you in those places. God is here now in the warm glow of candlelight—and in the dark and cold apartments in Kiev. God has come, Emanuel, God with us, precisely to those places of fear and chaos to speak radical words of love:
Do not be afraid. You are mine. All will be well. The kingdom of God is near—and the kingdom of God will come.
It’s in the quiet place of that manger in Bethlehem, in those silent fields, that God speaks this word of hope: Do not be afraid.
It’s in the quiet, even the vulnerable, places that God shows up. That Jesus breaks in. That the Word is made flesh and dwells among us. Not in the saber-rattling, the gunfire, or the bombast, but in the quiet mangers of the world. In the fields among poor shepherds. Around the animals. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. I am here, through all of it. I am for you.
When you go out into this night to whatever’s next, to dinner or presents or celebrations or to time alone or quiet or sleep, remember those words of the angels—those words sent from God. Do not be afraid.
God has come, Emanuel is with us, in the chaos, in the joys, and in the sorrows of our lives. Precisely in the chaos of those places. The Christmas crèche is where we get to act out heaven. Where we anticipate the peace and joy and wholeness of dwelling solely within God’s love, God’s realm, within the kingdom of God.
But for now, friends, be not afraid.
Take those words with you.
Take Jesus with you. Come to this altar and receive him again. Take him out into the world.
Be not afraid. O Come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.