Christmas Day sermon 2005

Christmas Day Be Born In Us! 12/25/05

No matter how often we sing them, the simple words of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" transport us to the night in which the Christ child came to earth. Through a gentle, quiet tune and pictures drawn with words, we enter the time and place when God was born into human history---in terms humans can best understand. As the carol proceeds, our words become a prayer. In song, we ask for something incredible, a gift that only God can give: O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray: Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today." We pray that the miracle be reproduced---and, that this time, the event will happen to us!

All of history has been affected by the birth of Jesus. We count time from what is long thought to be the year of Christ's birth. In that human sense alone, it can be counted the most outstanding event in history! One medieval writer said that even if it were to happen a thousand times as it first occurred, we might still be lost, alone, and estranged. Nothing would change in you, in me, or in our world unless that birth happened---not only in some geographical location---but inside the center of our beings. Inside--in our hearts, where we are grasped most deeply by what matters. Inside---where we decide what to live for and what to die for. Inside---where Martin Luther says we are "taught by God."

Through the centuries many have written of the human heart as the intended birthplace of Christ. Luther's Christmas Day sermon in the year 1520 reads: "This child is sent to fill thine heart, and for no other reason is he born. No word can say nor understand that so small a thing should hold so great a treasure. Thus the great and wonderful sign is repeated, and the heart is made sweet and glad and fearless, for it is at peace with all the suffering that may befall it, for what should cause it woe? Where the Child is, all will be well. The heart and the Child cannot be parted." In 1534 or 1535, Luther wrote a Christmas hymn for his children, titled "From Heaven Above." This hymn includes the lines: "O dear Lord Jesus, for your head, now will I make the softest bed. The chamber where this bed shall be Is in my heart, inside of me."

What does Christ in the heart have to do with Christ in history? Jesus was not known outside his tiny homeland until after he died, rose, and ascended. He conquered no armies. He wrote no books. He built no monuments as reminders of his mission. But, Jesus changed people's hearts, and through them, changes history! Luther pointedly stated that even the devil believes that Jesus was born, but the devil has never had the personal experience of faith. The way to observe Christmas, Luther wrote, is for "Christ to be formed in us. It is not enough that we should hear his story if the heart be closed. I must listen, not to a history, but to a gift."

There is perhaps no more persistent theme in the long story of Christian spirituality than that of God asking entrance into the human heart, your human heart! In the New Testament we read not only of Christ born in the heart, but of the coming of the Spirit to us, among us and into us; of Christ's life as our life and of God within us. For some, these ideas are inspiring; for others confusing; for others, still, nonsense.

Christ born in us is more than a romantic notion or poetic talk. Asking God to be born in us is inviting that life which is greater than our own to take command, to reign and rule within us. It is not just asking, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." It is saying, "Thy kingdom come into my heart. Thy will be done through my life as it is done where you, Lord, are present." We are asking, "Don't just be above me or with me. Reign in me! Take over! Be the Lord of my life as well as the God I worship and whose birthday I celebrate! Christ must be born where we are, in our time, in us, to change and use our lives for the sake of others."

"Faith," wrote Martin Luther, "is the 'yes' of the heart, a conviction on which one stakes one's life." It is the response of the whole self to God. It is not just our words---the creeds we confess, the prayers we pray, the way we argue our faith or teach it to our children. It is not just our faithful service or acts of love. This "YES" is an inner assent of the will. It is a willingness to receive God's grace and guidance, no matter how it is "wrapped" nor how often it is offered. It enters us so deeply as to cause a real conversion of life, a turning to go in a completely different direction. It always involves, as Luther wrote, "daily deaths of the person we have been so that we can fulfill our reason for being alive---to accomplish God's will in our time and place." As we read in today's Gospel: "To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God." (1:12-13)

We cannot do the will and work of God, but God can do it through us. We cannot continue the incarnation of God on earth, but the Child, born in us, can continue the work. God can do what He would do if God lived in our shoes, in our families, in our congregation, in our city, with our talents and our jobs, in our time. God can do what God would do in spite of our humanity and through our humanity. God can love the world through us! And so we sing, and so we pray: "O Holy Child of Bethlehem...be born in us today!" Amen.