Church of the Good Shepherd

Silent Night!  Holy Night!  The calm quiet of the snow on the ground; the lights all lit up on houses; the stores closed (finally!); what’s left undone will stay that way!  It feels good to get to this place, this quiet place of peace when we mark the birth of the Christ child, Jesus, “God with us!”  It feels good to sing the familiar carols, to hear the exquisite music, to say the familiar prayers.  Some of you have already trimmed trees or will go home to do so; some have eaten a wonderful Christmas Eve repast with one half of your family, to be duplicated with another half tomorrow.  But for now, for this moment in this peace, let us contemplate the mystery of God made human, God as one of us.

In the peace of this place let us each consider the places and times in our lives when we have known the sheer joy of being alive.  For some it is skiing down a mountain; for others the wind in their hair as they race a sail boat; for still others the smell of sea air or floating with snorkel and mask in the undulating ocean; or the feel of the sunshine on their skin on a summer day; for still others the thrill of looking down from a mountain top at the valley below and weeping for the complete beauty of it.  When I think of such moments, I include the first time I held my children or grandchildren, and the joy of watching them accomplish a dream like besting their already good time in a swim race.

For each of us it is probably a few of these moments or one of many others that we can describe with a sense of Holiness, the Holiness in which this Holy night enfolds us.  For most of us, the moments when we take in this full grace of being human are often sandwiched in between driving the children, getting groceries, deadlines at work, an argument with a child or spouse, a party with friends, doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, shoveling the snow, and a thousand other realities of being human that we all know and describe the way, the human way, we live.

That God became human, became one of us, knowing that the moments of peace and true joy would be sandwiched in between the rest of life is, I think, something quite awesome to think about this Christmas in the quiet of the night, this Holy night.  Jesus came into the world in a barn, not with fresh smelling hay and porcelain figures, but in a barn with dirty animals each with its own unique aroma, a barn full of their feed and their slop, their smells and their noises.  Chaos!  He was born of a woman.  Birth is no picnic for either mother or child, a wondrous and beautiful thing to be sure (and I say that as someone who has given birth to four children), but it is not a peaceful thing.  It is labor intensive, painful, and a bit scary.

The end result is worth the pain, of course, but still not the peace of the night we feel in this place at this time.  No quiet calm.  The Prince of Peace was born into a real world; and the reality of it struck his family almost immediately: strangers warning them, shepherds bringing their smelly sheep to catch a glimpse, and Joseph taking him hurriedly to Egypt to avoid the destructive intentions of Herod.

This is the world that God chose to be part of, the life God chose to lead, not because God thought it would be perfect and calm and peaceful, but because God loves us humans so much that God knew us and the chaos we surround ourselves with, and because God wanted us to know of that love.  And the only way to show us, God decided, was to embrace us fully, to sanctify human life, and be one of us.  And each year at Christmas we try to tame that reality.  We try to recapture it with perfect presents for our loved ones, with the perfect menu for family gatherings, ever cheerful parties, and, of course, beautiful services at church.  WE do this as if what God did were tamable: becoming human, being born in a barn, tamable.  We like to think of the first Christmas and all of our own Christmases as something like a manger in a snow globe.  We only want to see the “all is calm, all is bright” part of this incarnation of God.  But we all know that it just is not so!

I have come to hope that Jesus was one who treasured every moment of life, the chaotic and the calm.  I hope when he took a breath and felt the air fill his lungs, he thought to himself, “This is unbelievably wonderful!”  Or when he shared time with his friends, he wanted to weep for the pure joy of being with them, even when they did all sorts of crazy things.

Or at least I hope that Jesus was better at it than I am, for I admit to being one who forgets often enough to cherish the sheer joy of being alive; the chaos all too often becomes all that gets my attention.

I wonder, does this happen to you?

When was the last time you really thanked God for your life, for the miracle of this holy life we are living?  Was it on the fly in the middle of all else?  When was the last time you noticed how good it feels to exercise too much and get your muscles sore, that you can even get sore muscles?  When was the last time you listened to the rain, just to hear it pounding on the roof, or to the sound of the birds in the morning as they wake up, and they cheer the sun as it rises?

These are the things that Jesus knew in his life just as we know them in ours.  Every day such things as these are set before us like the most sumptuous feast imaginable, the feast of life, of being human, capable of recognizing God in these moments, capable of knowing what it is to love and be loved, capable of celebrating that love, of celebrating that life.  And yet, and yet, don’t we all too often forget to celebrate, and instead let ourselves be distracted by the busyness of life or negative feelings or even the conflicts that all of us also experience?  Do we not let the things not of God distract us all too often?

The Prince of Peace is born.  All is calm.  In the silence of this night I hope that you will resolve with me to honor that Prince of Peace and take time to relish life, the gift of breath and touch, the taste and feel of life.  But even more I hope that you will relish the people who touch your lives. And where there is brokenness that we will each be an agent of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Let us not allow the normal chaos of our lives, the driving, the grocery shopping, the arguments, the laundry, the dish washer unloading – any of it – do not let this human chaos distract us from recognizing the holiness of life, the holiness in each other.  The Prince of Peace was born this quiet holy night, laid in the manger in the dirty barn.  The Prince of Peace desires that same holy peace in the middle of the chaos for each and every one of us.  Let us embrace it as he did!

Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd