The Light has come and has shown you God’s heart: that you share that heart and bear the Light into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nativity of Our Lord
Text: John 1:1-14, add 18

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness can’t understand it, John says.

But can you? Do you?

God’s Light, through whom all things came into being, entered our world as a human, but the world did not know him, John says. The Light came to his own people, whom he made, and they did not accept him.

Do you?

We have a problem with our vision and understanding, John says, when it comes to God. Everything we are and have is of God’s Light, made and graced by the Triune God.

But we struggle to see. To understand. To know. We want God’s light to shine on the shadows of evil in this world, to restore the creation, to bring all into the light of God’s loving embrace. We want what John today says about the Light of the World, about Christ.

But can you see it? Do you understand it?

The problem might be that we don’t appear to hope for the answer God is bringing.

When you imagine God solving the problem of world hunger, what do you imagine? A miraculous intervention changing all the deserts into fertile land? A power move overturning corrupt governments that deprive their people of needed resources?

When you imagine God stopping evil in this world, what do you imagine? God intervening with power in every terrorist act? God destroying those who live their lives to harm others? God going into Gaza or the Ukraine and taking away all the weapons and bombs?

That’s what we really want to see. But it’s not the way God works. And if you are devastated by the carnage and destruction that is happening in this world, know that God is even more. But God still is going to bring healing and wholeness another way.

This Child who is born shows you and the world the heart of God.

This Light of the World, this Word-made-flesh, John says, gives us inside knowledge of God’s true heart for the world. “No one has ever seen God,” John says. “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made God known.”

Because of Jesus the world no longer needs to speculate as to the nature of God, the heart of God. We never have to look at a natural disaster again and wonder, “was God angry with those people?” We never have to face a tragedy of evil and ask if it was punishment from God. We never can claim violence and killing as the way of God. Because now we’ve seen God’s heart in the face of Christ Jesus. The heart of the Triune God is and always will be love.

But God’s answer for the pain of this world is and always will be love, too. It’s the only way to stop the evil and insanity.

This is the only true light that can end the darkness.

Coming in person revealed God’s heart as love, and, because the shadows of evil rose up against Christ Jesus, hanging him on a cross, this in-person love also showed the power of God in losing, the strength of God in self-giving. Rather than fight the shadows of this world by destruction and force, the Triune God entered the shadows to transform them from within.

God said, “I’ll open myself up to evil and it will do all it can to me, and light will still win.” When God doesn’t fight evil but stands in its way on our behalf, stands even in our way as we make evil, God brings a light that darkness cannot understand or overcome.

But the plan was never meant to stop with Jesus.

From the beginning of creation God’s plan has always been to care for the world through the children of God. So, to those who see this Light of the World, who trust in Christ, John says, God gives power to become children of God themselves.

God’s solution to everything that ails this planet, everything we wish God would fix, everything wicked and ruined and oppressive, all comes down to this. God will bring healing through you, through me, through all God’s children, across this globe.

We are children of God; so we, like Jesus, bear God’s heart in the world. We, like Jesus, become people who are always love, all the time. We, like Jesus, become people who stand as light in darkness not with power but with a willingness to lose, like God.

Even divine power able to create universes couldn’t fix God’s greatest pain about this world: the hearts of God’s children were cold and selfish, the root of all that is wrong in this world.

Change the hearts and you’ve got something, God thought. You’ve got changed people. And then a changed world, because these people are going to go out there and make a new creation with God’s Spirit giving them grace to do it.

In the coming of this Child, now you can see the truth clearly, and trust it.

Jesus, the Light of the World, the Word made flesh, has made God’s heart known to you. Now you, a child of God yourself, get to reveal that same heart, that same love, to the world, and see God’s healing begin.

And God’s light will shine in you. And no shadows, no darkness, will be able to stop it.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

God can’t do this without you because there is no “this” without you.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord
Texts: Luke 2:1-20; Isaiah 9:2-7

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

If you look carefully tonight, you’ll see signs of what God is really doing.

You’ll see ordinary people, living in the fields where they work. You’ll see ordinary villagers, engaged to be married like millions of others, anticipating their coming life together.

You’ll see another family of villagers inviting this pregnant couple into their home, but, with no room in their guest room on the roof, having them settle in on the main floor amongst the rest of the family and the family’s animals.

You’ll see a perfectly normal human birth, with the cries of the mother in pain, and blood and mess, and with an experienced aunt as midwife, the tension and release back and forth, leading up to the final arrival.

When the Magi looked for this child, they went straight to the seat of power, Herod’s court. As well as they could read the sky and stars, they missed these other details. They missed that, for God, the plan from the beginning was always about ordinary people.

There’s no secret to what the Triune God is hoping for with this birth.

Peace on earth to all of God’s people, those working shepherds were told. A Prince of Peace, Isaiah says, who will establish endless peace, a reign of justice and righteousness. A light to shine in the darkest shadows of this world, Isaiah says.

From the beginning, our Scriptures say, this was always God’s dream: a creation living in peace and harmony, with humans in charge of caring for the garden and each other and all God’s creatures. Everything God tries to do with all humanity, and eventually the chosen people, throughout the Hebrew Bible, is to get people back to this original dream and hope of God’s.

Coming as an ordinary human being, a poor one in an oppressed country, was just the next step of this plan. To live among us and show us the path that had been laid out since the beginning. Love God and love neighbor. Share the abundance of this creation so all are filled and safe and the creation blooms.

And God’s plan only works if everyone, all God’s children, are a part of it. Including you.

We sometimes think the whole point of God’s coming in Christ was to forgive us.

Certainly, the Son of God made it clear that you are forever loved and forgiven by God. Clearly, in Jesus’ death and resurrection you have the promise of that forgiveness and restoration. A love is revealed that will not stop until all are found and brought home in grace.

But forgiveness happens throughout the Scriptures long before Jesus’ death and resurrection. God repeatedly forgives God’s people, again and again, individually and collectively. God didn’t need to be born as a human being to forgive you, or me. The Scriptures are clear about that.

That’s what you need to understand tonight: God’s plan all hinges on what God can do and what God can’t do. God can and does forgive. All the time.

What God can’t do is make you love.

Force you be a peacemaker. Make you care for others and this creation. God’s greatest hope and dream depends on you, and me, and everyone, choosing to obey, to love, to walk the path of God.

Start in Genesis and keep going, and you’ll see. God always reaches out to ordinary people and calls them to follow, to care for strangers, to end oppression and poverty, to love God and neighbor. But God’s whole dream is that people do this willingly. So God has to wait and see who will.

Now you see why ordinary people are key to tonight’s story.

The shepherds likely weren’t expecting God to do much to fix the world. They just lived and worked their lives. But it was to them, not the royal court, that God sent heavenly messengers. And after seeing, they returned to their fields “glorifying and praising God” for all they’d heard and seen. Telling others. The message got to the people God needed, ordinary people who’d come to find the path of peace and love and walk it. And tell others.

The same for Mary and Joseph, their family in Bethlehem and their family in Nazareth. Coming amongst common folks meant that the plan from the beginning remained: God would not use power over anyone to force love. So it’s no surprise God avoids Herod’s power and starts a love insurgency from the ground up, with an ordinary but holy child. It’s the only way God will do it.

Ultimately, it’s the only way true peace on earth will ever happen.

Isaiah promises tonight that in this coming peace of God, “all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.”

But if God’s not planning a bigger army to destroy the warring armies of this world, which Scripture clearly says God will not do, how will army boots and bloody uniforms become fuel for furnaces to keep people warm?

Only when the soldiers themselves take off their own boots and uniforms and toss them onto the burn pile. This peace God dreams of, this world of justice and mercy, will only happen, can only happen with the consent and participation of all God’s people. When we all put down our weapons and throw our violence onto the burn pile and start loving God and neighbor as God always dreamed we would.

God can’t do this without you because there is no “this” without you.

That’s the joy of God’s coming for you tonight. The shepherds were critical because they, too, were God’s children, and needed to be invited and called. But the only answer God needs here tonight is ours. Yours. Mine. Peace on earth to all God’s beloved, that’s the plan. You are critical to it.

So, should we go to Bethlehem and see this thing God has done for us and for the world? It might change you. In fact, God’s counting on that.

But let’s go.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen