When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple and called him by name, they were making a commitment to Jesus, their community, and to God. God has called each of us by name, and God is in it with us for the long haul.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   The Name of Jesus
   Texts: Numbers 6:22-27, Psalm 8, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:15-21

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

We all know about first days. The first day of a new job, the first day of being in love, the first day of sobriety or seeking help for mental illness, the first day of a diet and exercise plan, the first day of parenthood, the first day of New Year’s Resolutions. There is, along with fear and all of the other emotions that accompany these first days, a sense of newness, hope, energy, wonder. We know things are different; we are in the midst of the change. On the first day, we don’t know how things will look and feel in a week, or a year, or twenty years, and we may not even know if we will make it that far, but there is often a sense of readiness to take on the world, as though anything is possible. Although we know there will be challenges, on the first day we are not prepared for the inevitable ups and downs of the journey ahead. We are not yet settled in for the long haul.

A week ago, as we do every year, we celebrated a birth—a first day. And today, we gather on the first day of the New Year to celebrate the day on which this child was presented, circumcised, and named. This event feels very different from Christmas. Mary and Joseph, as they bring their son to the temple, are not in the first day anymore. They have heard the words of the angel Gabriel, and the words of the shepherds, telling them that their son is not just an ordinary child, but the Savior, the Messiah of the House of David, good news for all people, and Mary has been pondering these words, wondering what it means. She still doesn’t understand all that has been said, doesn’t know all that is to come, but as Mary and Joseph bring their son to the temple, they are making a commitment. As parents in this congregation do when they bring their child for baptism, Mary and Joseph are introducing their son to their faith, the traditions of their ancestors. They are presenting their child to their community of faith. They are publicly promising to raise their child to love and honor God. They are committing to be in it for the long haul. Mary and Joseph are calling their son by name: Jesus.

Whether to parenthood, marriage, friendship, recovery, the work God has called us to in the world, or those elusive New Year’s Resolutions, being committed for the long haul is not easy. It does not mean that we have everything “figured out,” that we know what it will look like down the road, or that we feel confident all the time about how we are living out that commitment. We may at times still feel as uncertain as we did on the first day. We may wonder why we ever made the commitment in the first place.

When we are committed for the long haul, we know the path will not be easy. Along with joy, love, fulfillment, and hope, there will be pain, uncertainty, fear, and doubt. Being committed, we accept all that is a part of this life to come. Mary and Joseph knew this, and knowing this, they brought their son to the temple, stood before their community, and called him by name: Jesus.

Being in it for the long haul is not something we can do on our own. It is a community affair. That is why Mary and Joseph went to the temple to present and call Jesus by name. It is why we celebrate baptism and marriage in the midst of worship, surrounded by our family, friends, and community of faith. When things get challenging, we face the unexpected, and we wonder if we can continue on the path, our community surrounds us, offering encouragement and hope, reminding us that commitment is not easy, and that we are not alone.

Even more important than community, being committed for the long haul is a commitment to God. Mary and Joseph, as they brought Jesus to the temple and called him by name, were following generations of faithful people who believed in God, and honored traditions that placed God in the center of their lives. As they presented Jesus in the temple, they were not only making a commitment to their son, and their community, but to the God of their fathers and mothers. They were promising to remain faithful to God, and to teach their son to be faithful also. And, as they called their son by name, Jesus, they were putting him in the care of the God who had always been faithful, trusting that God would love and guide Jesus as he had done for them.

As we start the New Year, the making of New Year’s resolutions has a “first day” feel to it, and we name goals for ourselves, with the best of intentions, that often fall by the wayside by Valentine’s Day. Today, we are invited to reflect on our relationships and commitments, and to remind ourselves and each other that we are in it for the long haul. We are called to consider what it means to us in this moment to be faithful to our friendships, our families, our vocations, and most importantly, to God.

And, on this day, as we share the story of Mary and Joseph bringing their son to the temple, calling Jesus by name, we recognize that they are honoring their commitment to a God who has never failed in commitment to them. To us. It is the faithfulness of God that makes commitment possible, for them and for us. When we know that God is in it for the long haul, we can trust God to guide us in all that we are called to, no matter what challenges and fears and doubts may present themselves. We can trust that, with God, anything is possible.

Like Jesus, we, too, have been called by name. God told Moses that Aaron and his sons were to proclaim to the people a very intimate blessing. The Lord keeps us. The face of God shines on us. God looks upon us with favor, and gives us peace. When we hear this blessing, we are reminded that we have been called children of God, and that God will never abandon us or forsake us. We have been named children of God. And God, the one who names us, is in it with us, for the long haul.

Thanks be to God!

This world is not safe for children, so God came among us as a child, calling us all to the unsafe path, the path of the cross and of risk, in order to transform this broken world and make it safe for all children of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Holy Innocents, Martyrs
   texts:  Jeremiah 31:15-17; Matthew 2:13-18

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

This world is not safe for children.

It’s a terrible indictment on all of us adults who ought to make it safe, but it’s true.  Children are regularly victims of war they don’t cause, poverty they were born into, hunger they can do nothing about, ambitions and power they have no control over, victims of even their own parents and families.  There are too many examples to bear.

This world is not safe for children.  We don’t want to run from our shock and horror hearing this story of Bethlehem so soon after Christmas.  We need to hold it longer.  This thing Matthew relates happens so often we barely register one before the next comes; eventually we hardly pay attention to any.  Feeling them all is more than we can bear, so we choose to feel none.

This world is not safe for children.  Not even for the Son of God.  Immediately this barely-arrived baby is threatened with death.  Others suffer tragically in his place.  “A voice is heard, lamentation and bitter weeping.  Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, because they are no more.”  How many mothers weep today, refusing to be comforted?  More than we can bear to think about.

This world is not safe for children and it’s not just the fault of the villains.

There is so much danger and wickedness, but we avoid facing our own part in it.  We always look to the perpetrators, as if that’s the answer.  Evil villains serve a useful purpose if we wish to avoid self-reflection.

Herod did awful things, that’s true.  He murdered his own sons, he murdered his own wife.  He tried to arrange a mass-murder for the day of his death so there would be someone who mourned on that day.  Herod had power, and he wanted control of his life, his reign, his kingdom.  So he used his power.  This decision to kill the children of Bethlehem took very little thought or energy.

But the problem lies deeper than finding a person to blame.  Whenever we have such a tragedy the bulk of our time is spent trying to figure out why the person did it, as if there’s ever a reason that makes sense.  If we can call the perpetrator evil, deranged, wicked, “not us,” we think we can move on untouched.

Yet this world remains unsafe for children, while we pretend these are isolated incidents.

When will we admit our own guilt in this unsafe world?

We don’t have Herod’s authority, and we say we don’t seek the death of others.  But we do like things comfortable, we like things our way, and we’re often careless about the expense of it all, while others pay that expense.

If our way of life pollutes this planet and depletes resources at an alarming rate far out of proportion to our numbers on the planet, what do we care?  We want what we want.  It’s too big a problem for us to solve anyway.  And so this world is not safe for children.

If our American spirit leads us to unchecked distribution of weapons and more and more prisons, what do we care?  We want what we want.  It’s too much effort to spend money ensuring all children get good health care and head starts on life; we’ll just pay far more in massacres and in more incarcerations than anyone else.  And so this world is not safe for children.

If our way of life leads our businesses and corporations to exploit people around the world, cause resentment and bitterness among whole nations of people, perpetuate patterns of hunger and oppression, what do we care?  We want what we want.  We can always use our weapons to clean up the messes we leave around the world.  And so this world is not safe for children.

Are we not Herod in every way except that we’ve left the final orders in the hands of others who do what our polls demand, our consumer hearts require?

There were no glib answers for the mothers and fathers of Bethlehem, and there are none for us, either.  This world is not safe for children.

We can’t sit in our comfort and prosperity and pretend all is well.  That if we don’t hear stories like this, or if we ignore them, they aren’t real.  Or they don’t affect us.  We can’t sit in our comfort and prosperity and pretend we have nothing to do with all this, either.  These children of Bethlehem, and Pakistan, and countless schools and villages and cities here, cry out for someone to care, to stand with them.

Maybe Rachel refuses to be comforted because she’s afraid this will never stop.  That others, that we, will continue to make decisions that affect her life, her children, but won’t stop because they, we, don’t care about collateral damage.

It should break our hearts.  It certainly breaks God’s heart.

That’s the whole point of this birth in Bethlehem.  God looked at the pain and misery and despair we’ve made and decided to come into our midst, as one of us.  Unwilling to use divine power and might to stop all this, for then God would simply be another Herod, only far worse, the Triune God who made the stars became a helpless infant whose fate rests in our hands.

Do you see what God has done?  We have made this world unsafe for children, so God came to us as a child.  God gave us the authority to decide if we want this God-with-us, this Emmanuel, in our midst.  To decide if children could be safe here.

There was no need for the manger to lead to the cross, unless we persisted in our selfishness, violence, and destruction.  We could have welcomed this child, heard his teachings as an adult, and followed, making the world a place of grace and life for all.  We still could.

Or we could reject him and kill him.  Jesus escapes Herod as a child, but only for a time.  The Herod in all of us finally catches up to him and puts an end to the nonsense about a way of love and peace between neighbors, between us and God.

Yet God’s answer to the mighty, to us, is always to be weak and vulnerable.

Our Prayer of the Day has it wrong.  We prayed, “by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace.”  We should have prayed, “by your vulnerability lived out in our lives,” do these things.  That’s the way of Christ.

God constantly goes to the only place worth going: to be with the children of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Damascus and Pakistan and Africa and America as they are killed.  The Son of God enters the brutality of the world we have made and lets us kill him.  And something astonishing happens.

Life happens.  God raises Jesus from the dead, and everything is changed.  God shows that the path that walks alongside the children, the path of weakness and vulnerability, is the only path that leads to life.  Standing in the way of power and letting it do what it will is the only way that saves anyone.

So ironically, the only way to ensure safety for others is for us to take the path that is not safe.  The only way to avoid trampling someone else is to allow ourselves to be trampled.  The only way we can avoid harming someone else is if we are willing to be harmed ourselves.  When enough of God’s children walk this way, walk with the least of these, risk everything for the sake of the other, step aside from anything that harms others, the world starts to change.  Life begins to happen.

God risked being a child to begin to make this world safe for children.

Will we join God’s way of healing and hope for this world?  Or will we remain on Herod’s side?
There is comfort for the Rachels of this world, even for us, when we begin to understand this path that lies before us now, the path that leads from the manger to the cross.  When we are willing to walk that path, we begin to see hope come to this world, and to us.

God’s reign of justice, love, and peace for which we prayed is the only hope for the children of this world.  Jesus has shown us the path to that reign: our own vulnerability and loss.  For the sake of all the children, let us pray the Spirit’s grace that we find our way onto that path and soon, and into the life God hopes for all this world’s children.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

This world is not safe for children, so God came among us as a child, calling us all to the unsafe path, the path of the cross and of risk, in order to transform this broken world and make it safe for all children of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Holy Innocents, Martyrs
   texts:  Jeremiah 31:15-17; Matthew 2:13-18

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

This world is not safe for children.

It’s a terrible indictment on all of us adults who ought to make it safe, but it’s true.  Children are regularly victims of war they don’t cause, poverty they were born into, hunger they can do nothing about, ambitions and power they have no control over, victims of even their own parents and families.  There are too many examples to bear.

This world is not safe for children.  We don’t want to run from our shock and horror hearing this story of Bethlehem so soon after Christmas.  We need to hold it longer.  This thing Matthew relates happens so often we barely register one before the next comes; eventually we hardly pay attention to any.  Feeling them all is more than we can bear, so we choose to feel none.

This world is not safe for children.  Not even for the Son of God.  Immediately this barely-arrived baby is threatened with death.  Others suffer tragically in his place.  “A voice is heard, lamentation and bitter weeping.  Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, because they are no more.”  How many mothers weep today, refusing to be comforted?  More than we can bear to think about.

This world is not safe for children and it’s not just the fault of the villains.

There is so much danger and wickedness, but we avoid facing our own part in it.  We always look to the perpetrators, as if that’s the answer.  Evil villains serve a useful purpose if we wish to avoid self-reflection.

Herod did awful things, that’s true.  He murdered his own sons, he murdered his own wife.  He tried to arrange a mass-murder for the day of his death so there would be someone who mourned on that day.  Herod had power, and he wanted control of his life, his reign, his kingdom.  So he used his power.  This decision to kill the children of Bethlehem took very little thought or energy.

But the problem lies deeper than finding a person to blame.  Whenever we have such a tragedy the bulk of our time is spent trying to figure out why the person did it, as if there’s ever a reason that makes sense.  If we can call the perpetrator evil, deranged, wicked, “not us,” we think we can move on untouched.

Yet this world remains unsafe for children, while we pretend these are isolated incidents.

When will we admit our own guilt in this unsafe world?

We don’t have Herod’s authority, and we say we don’t seek the death of others.  But we do like things comfortable, we like things our way, and we’re often careless about the expense of it all, while others pay that expense.

If our way of life pollutes this planet and depletes resources at an alarming rate far out of proportion to our numbers on the planet, what do we care?  We want what we want.  It’s too big a problem for us to solve anyway.  And so this world is not safe for children.

If our American spirit leads us to unchecked distribution of weapons and more and more prisons, what do we care?  We want what we want.  It’s too much effort to spend money ensuring all children get good health care and head starts on life; we’ll just pay far more in massacres and in more incarcerations than anyone else.  And so this world is not safe for children.

If our way of life leads our businesses and corporations to exploit people around the world, cause resentment and bitterness among whole nations of people, perpetuate patterns of hunger and oppression, what do we care?  We want what we want.  We can always use our weapons to clean up the messes we leave around the world.  And so this world is not safe for children.

Are we not Herod in every way except that we’ve left the final orders in the hands of others who do what our polls demand, our consumer hearts require?

There were no glib answers for the mothers and fathers of Bethlehem, and there are none for us, either.  This world is not safe for children.

We can’t sit in our comfort and prosperity and pretend all is well.  That if we don’t hear stories like this, or if we ignore them, they aren’t real.  Or they don’t affect us.  We can’t sit in our comfort and prosperity and pretend we have nothing to do with all this, either.  These children of Bethlehem, and Pakistan, and countless schools and villages and cities here, cry out for someone to care, to stand with them.

Maybe Rachel refuses to be comforted because she’s afraid this will never stop.  That others, that we, will continue to make decisions that affect her life, her children, but won’t stop because they, we, don’t care about collateral damage.

It should break our hearts.  It certainly breaks God’s heart.

That’s the whole point of this birth in Bethlehem.  God looked at the pain and misery and despair we’ve made and decided to come into our midst, as one of us.  Unwilling to use divine power and might to stop all this, for then God would simply be another Herod, only far worse, the Triune God who made the stars became a helpless infant whose fate rests in our hands.

Do you see what God has done?  We have made this world unsafe for children, so God came to us as a child.  God gave us the authority to decide if we want this God-with-us, this Emmanuel, in our midst.  To decide if children could be safe here.

There was no need for the manger to lead to the cross, unless we persisted in our selfishness, violence, and destruction.  We could have welcomed this child, heard his teachings as an adult, and followed, making the world a place of grace and life for all.  We still could.

Or we could reject him and kill him.  Jesus escapes Herod as a child, but only for a time.  The Herod in all of us finally catches up to him and puts an end to the nonsense about a way of love and peace between neighbors, between us and God.

Yet God’s answer to the mighty, to us, is always to be weak and vulnerable.

Our Prayer of the Day has it wrong.  We prayed, “by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace.”  We should have prayed, “by your vulnerability lived out in our lives,” do these things.  That’s the way of Christ.

God constantly goes to the only place worth going: to be with the children of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Damascus and Pakistan and Africa and America as they are killed.  The Son of God enters the brutality of the world we have made and lets us kill him.  And something astonishing happens.

Life happens.  God raises Jesus from the dead, and everything is changed.  God shows that the path that walks alongside the children, the path of weakness and vulnerability, is the only path that leads to life.  Standing in the way of power and letting it do what it will is the only way that saves anyone.

So ironically, the only way to ensure safety for others is for us to take the path that is not safe.  The only way to avoid trampling someone else is to allow ourselves to be trampled.  The only way we can avoid harming someone else is if we are willing to be harmed ourselves.  When enough of God’s children walk this way, walk with the least of these, risk everything for the sake of the other, step aside from anything that harms others, the world starts to change.  Life begins to happen.

God risked being a child to begin to make this world safe for children.

Will we join God’s way of healing and hope for this world?  Or will we remain on Herod’s side?
There is comfort for the Rachels of this world, even for us, when we begin to understand this path that lies before us now, the path that leads from the manger to the cross.  When we are willing to walk that path, we begin to see hope come to this world, and to us.

God’s reign of justice, love, and peace for which we prayed is the only hope for the children of this world.  Jesus has shown us the path to that reign: our own vulnerability and loss.  For the sake of all the children, let us pray the Spirit’s grace that we find our way onto that path and soon, and into the life God hopes for all this world’s children.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time. The good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken. God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day
   texts: Isaiah 52: 7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1: 1-12, John 1: 1-14

Joy and peace to you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since my youngest brother Kevin moved out of state many years ago, we have a tradition of talking on the phone every Christmas Day if he is not in town, and we always start out by singing to each other, as we did here this morning . . . “Joy to the world, the Lord is come . . .”  If Advent is about waiting, expectation, hope, Christmas is about joy.  Jesus has come, God is with us, Emmanuel!  Isaiah cries out to the people describing the beauty of the very feet of the messenger who announces peace and the fulfillment of salvation, and the sentinels sing in joy at the news.  God reigns, the promise has been fulfilled!  And it is good news.  Joy to the world, indeed!

The truth is, however, that Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time.  Joy as we experience it in this world is fleeting, dependent on external circumstances, and it is not easy to feel joyful in times of struggle.  We live in a broken world, and we are painfully aware, especially as we take seriously the voices calling for justice in our communities, of our own sin and need for forgiveness and healing.  And meanwhile, the ebb and flow of life continues around us.  There are people in this community today grieving the death of loved ones, walking through a loved one’s final days of life, experiencing serious medical crises, poverty, and homelessness, and facing many other very real challenges.  Grief, fear, and anger are present around us.  In the midst of these realities, the invitation—the command—to “be joyful” can sound like a directive to ignore the dark side of the truth and pretend everything is fine, or it can sound like an impossible task that quickly becomes evidence of our failure, weak faith.

We live in a world that tells us, and we often tell ourselves, “I could be happy if . . .” and “All will be well, when . . .”  Fill in the blank.  Spoken or unspoken, we all have our conditions.  If I complete this project perfectly.  When I lose 10 pounds.  If I get the right job.  When I am completely healthy.  These messages set us up for disappointment and failure on so many levels.  And the worst part is, when we hold on to these conditions, we are captive to the mistaken belief that rejoicing is only possible when the problems of this world, and our own lives, have been resolved, everything is in order, even perfect.  This is an expectation that we, and life itself, are never going to meet.  Our country is torn apart by violence, racism, to the point where at times it can seem so dark as to be beyond all hope, and it can even feel that we must have been abandoned by God for such sorrow, or pain, or devastation, to exist.

Thanks be to God, the good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken.  The promise in John is not that there is no darkness, but that the darkness has not overcome the light.  Isaiah’s cry is not to a people living in wholeness, success, and comfort.  Isaiah calls to a people living in exile, experiencing the reality of the destruction of the temple which they saw as the house of God.  As far as the people were concerned, God had been cast out and had abandoned the people with the tearing down of the temple, many had died, Israel was scattered.  Isaiah’s song goes out not to a people united and free, with a temple standing in glory, but to the ruins and the wastelands.  And as they stand in the ruins, the people are called to sing and praise, trusting in the comfort of a God who promises restoration.  They may not have been feeling joy, but they were called to rejoice.

We are, in many ways, living as much in the ruins and wastelands as the people of Israel were in the time of Isaiah.  As we hear Isaiah’s cry, and John’s promise, for ourselves, the darkness, the sin, the grief, the pain of this life we live are not swept aside or discounted, but assumed.  And the promise to us is the same as it has been from the beginning.  No matter how dark the world we live in, and how hard it may be at times to feel joy, the light of God shines in the darkness, and will never be overcome.

This Christmas Day, we come together as people of the light.  We know the darkness—it is all around us.  God came to this broken world in Jesus so that we also know the light.  We know that God is always with us, right in the midst of our very human experience, not only in the joys but also in the sorrows.  We know the extravagant love that brought our God to us, and God’s promise to heal and transform us and this broken world.  We know the faithfulness of the people of God in the stories handed down for generations and generations.  And we know the faithfulness of our God, who comes to us as light in the darkness.

We are called every day, but especially on this day of rejoicing in God’s coming to us in Jesus, to be the presence of God in this world.  We rejoiced in the light of God this week when we opened Mount Olive’s doors and the hungry among our members and the hungry among our neighbors shared food and fellowship at the Community Meal.  We rejoiced when we came together to provide gifts for children whose parents are struggling to cover basic needs.  We rejoiced as we decorated this sacred space, and rehearsed music, and prepared to celebrate liturgies together, claiming the promise of God alive in our midst.

We are called to continue to rejoice as we offer love and comfort to those in this community and in our families who are particularly burdened with the darkness of this life, letting them know that they are not alone and that the God of light stands with them.  We are called to rejoice as we stand with those crying for justice, and become willing to change so that justice is possible.  And, we are called to rejoice as we celebrate with those experiencing life, healing, and love.  All around us are opportunities to witness to the light that the darkness will not overcome.  How will you rejoice today?  To whom will you carry the light?

If Advent is about waiting and watching and hoping, Christmas is about rejoicing, regardless of our circumstances.  Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, has come to be a light in the midst of our darkness.  A single candle in a dark room can bring light for the one who carries it, and for those who stand near them.  And from the light of just one candle, countless candles can be lit, and the light grows.  The darkness will never overcome it.  God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice!

Thanks be to God!

Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time. The good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken. God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day
   texts: Isaiah 52: 7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1: 1-12, John 1: 1-14

Joy and peace to you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since my youngest brother Kevin moved out of state many years ago, we have a tradition of talking on the phone every Christmas Day if he is not in town, and we always start out by singing to each other, as we did here this morning . . . “Joy to the world, the Lord is come . . .”  If Advent is about waiting, expectation, hope, Christmas is about joy.  Jesus has come, God is with us, Emmanuel!  Isaiah cries out to the people describing the beauty of the very feet of the messenger who announces peace and the fulfillment of salvation, and the sentinels sing in joy at the news.  God reigns, the promise has been fulfilled!  And it is good news.  Joy to the world, indeed!

The truth is, however, that Christmas does not always feel like a joyful time.  Joy as we experience it in this world is fleeting, dependent on external circumstances, and it is not easy to feel joyful in times of struggle.  We live in a broken world, and we are painfully aware, especially as we take seriously the voices calling for justice in our communities, of our own sin and need for forgiveness and healing.  And meanwhile, the ebb and flow of life continues around us.  There are people in this community today grieving the death of loved ones, walking through a loved one’s final days of life, experiencing serious medical crises, poverty, and homelessness, and facing many other very real challenges.  Grief, fear, and anger are present around us.  In the midst of these realities, the invitation—the command—to “be joyful” can sound like a directive to ignore the dark side of the truth and pretend everything is fine, or it can sound like an impossible task that quickly becomes evidence of our failure, weak faith.

We live in a world that tells us, and we often tell ourselves, “I could be happy if . . .” and “All will be well, when . . .”  Fill in the blank.  Spoken or unspoken, we all have our conditions.  If I complete this project perfectly.  When I lose 10 pounds.  If I get the right job.  When I am completely healthy.  These messages set us up for disappointment and failure on so many levels.  And the worst part is, when we hold on to these conditions, we are captive to the mistaken belief that rejoicing is only possible when the problems of this world, and our own lives, have been resolved, everything is in order, even perfect.  This is an expectation that we, and life itself, are never going to meet.  Our country is torn apart by violence, racism, to the point where at times it can seem so dark as to be beyond all hope, and it can even feel that we must have been abandoned by God for such sorrow, or pain, or devastation, to exist.

Thanks be to God, the good news of Jesus’ birth does not come to a world unbroken.  The promise in John is not that there is no darkness, but that the darkness has not overcome the light.  Isaiah’s cry is not to a people living in wholeness, success, and comfort.  Isaiah calls to a people living in exile, experiencing the reality of the destruction of the temple which they saw as the house of God.  As far as the people were concerned, God had been cast out and had abandoned the people with the tearing down of the temple, many had died, Israel was scattered.  Isaiah’s song goes out not to a people united and free, with a temple standing in glory, but to the ruins and the wastelands.  And as they stand in the ruins, the people are called to sing and praise, trusting in the comfort of a God who promises restoration.  They may not have been feeling joy, but they were called to rejoice.

We are, in many ways, living as much in the ruins and wastelands as the people of Israel were in the time of Isaiah.  As we hear Isaiah’s cry, and John’s promise, for ourselves, the darkness, the sin, the grief, the pain of this life we live are not swept aside or discounted, but assumed.  And the promise to us is the same as it has been from the beginning.  No matter how dark the world we live in, and how hard it may be at times to feel joy, the light of God shines in the darkness, and will never be overcome.

This Christmas Day, we come together as people of the light.  We know the darkness—it is all around us.  God came to this broken world in Jesus so that we also know the light.  We know that God is always with us, right in the midst of our very human experience, not only in the joys but also in the sorrows.  We know the extravagant love that brought our God to us, and God’s promise to heal and transform us and this broken world.  We know the faithfulness of the people of God in the stories handed down for generations and generations.  And we know the faithfulness of our God, who comes to us as light in the darkness.

We are called every day, but especially on this day of rejoicing in God’s coming to us in Jesus, to be the presence of God in this world.  We rejoiced in the light of God this week when we opened Mount Olive’s doors and the hungry among our members and the hungry among our neighbors shared food and fellowship at the Community Meal.  We rejoiced when we came together to provide gifts for children whose parents are struggling to cover basic needs.  We rejoiced as we decorated this sacred space, and rehearsed music, and prepared to celebrate liturgies together, claiming the promise of God alive in our midst.

We are called to continue to rejoice as we offer love and comfort to those in this community and in our families who are particularly burdened with the darkness of this life, letting them know that they are not alone and that the God of light stands with them.  We are called to rejoice as we stand with those crying for justice, and become willing to change so that justice is possible.  And, we are called to rejoice as we celebrate with those experiencing life, healing, and love.  All around us are opportunities to witness to the light that the darkness will not overcome.  How will you rejoice today?  To whom will you carry the light?

If Advent is about waiting and watching and hoping, Christmas is about rejoicing, regardless of our circumstances.  Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, has come to be a light in the midst of our darkness.  A single candle in a dark room can bring light for the one who carries it, and for those who stand near them.  And from the light of just one candle, countless candles can be lit, and the light grows.  The darkness will never overcome it.  God comes to us in Jesus and brings the light, and in the light we can rejoice!

Thanks be to God!