Adoring the Cross

​Last night, we heard Luke’s version of the Christmas story, with its two very different scenes.
 
The first scene is all fireworks and excitement. Angels bring the shepherds good news of great joy, shine with terrifying glory all around them, and then allow the shepherds to witness a whole multitude of the heavenly host having a celebratory party.
 
The second scene is a lot quieter. No more angels at this point. When the shepherds arrive, it’s just Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus lying in the manger, with maybe a few animals around them.
 
My children are older now, but I remember having babies in the house. We were like most new parents. We did NOT welcome people just stopping by. If guests came anyway, the first thing we said was, do not excite the baby. And if our babies were asleep, we wouldn’t let our would-be visitors inside.
 
The Holy Family was more generous than Carrie and I were inclined to be. They welcomed a group of unknown and disreputable shepherds even when they showed up unannounced! Still, I’m guessing Joseph and Mary insisted on quiet.
 
As I imagine that scene, the shepherds quietly introduced themselves, quietly shared with Mary and Joseph what they had just seen and heard, and then spent a few minutes in quiet adoration of the Christ child before taking their leave.
 
One scene full of excitement, and one scene of quiet worship and joy.
 
The Christmas season as a whole tends more towards the first scene. It can be a time of almost frantic activity.
 
Carrie and I have been busy enough with our respective work that we only recently shifted into full festive mode. But that’s where we will be as soon as I get home from this service.
 
Christmas morning for us is nothing like it was when our children were young. That was total craziness! But today will have its share of excitement.  
 
We’ll have a big breakfast, exchange presents, and then get to my favorite part: the scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt is the last true remnant of the excitement of our Christmas pasts.
 
Every year, Carrie hides riddles all around the house, with directions in each one where to find the next. Benjamin and Nicholas compete to be the first to find each riddle and answer it. Then comes the really fun part. They race to the next room for the next riddle, with me doing my best to delay them every step of the way.
 
Since I know where the riddles are, I can get a small head start so that I can block them. They try to get around me or over me or shove me out of the way. It’s like a running wrestling match. At this point, of course, they have to be careful not to injure me. But it’s rough and tumble, just like in the days when they were small. I love it, and I think they do too.
 
That’s how I think of the spirit of our Christmas Eve service as well. No actual wrestling. But it is happy chaos. The Church is full. Kids are squirming with a strange mix of excitement and boredom. With the notable exception of parents of small children, who I think of as mostly exhausted and harried, everybody is in a good mood. We sing our praises to God. It is all great.
 
That is our Church version of scene one, a big party with the multitude of the heavenly host, and I enjoy it every year.
 
But I am also grateful for the opportunity to come together this morning in scene two mode. The Christmas Eve service is behind us. More Christmas fun may well lie ahead. But for a few minutes we pause together for quiet adoration of Christ.
 
And for that, this morning’s Gospel reading is perfect. It is not as sweet as Luke’s version of the Christmas story. But it presents us with the full mystery of the incarnation of God, the Word becoming flesh, full of grace and profound truth.
 
I’ll read the passage again, more slowly this time, pausing for a few seconds at different points. During the pauses, I invite you to meditate on the words of Scripture and the Christ they describe. If you are comfortable, I invite you to close your eyes and take it in.
 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God….
 
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…..
 
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it….
 
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him…..
 
But 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 man, but of God…..
 
And now the Christmas verse: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…..
 
On this Christmas Day, I want to emphasize that last bit. John the apostle knew Jesus in the flesh. He literally saw the glory of the Son of God, full of grace and truth. We don’t see Christ’s glory with our physical eyes in the same way that John did. But in our reading, we are invited to make John’s words our own, to open our eyes to see Christ’s glory around us.
 
In a sense, we are like the shepherds on that first Christmas. Their challenge was not seeing God’s glory reflected in the angels. That must have been easy. The challenge for the shepherds was to see God in the helpless baby lying in the manger. Our challenge is analogous. Our challenge is to see God all around us in all kinds of different forms.
 
Our Gospel reading invites us to take on that challenge, to see Christ’s glory in the world around us that was made in and through Christ, to see Christ’s glory in each other who are the body of Christ, to see Christ’s glory in our neighbors, in whom we serve Christ, to see Christ’s glory in the sacrament we are about to share, where Christ is mysteriously present, to see Christ’s glory every time we come together in Christ’s name as we are doing right now. Our ultimate challenge is to see Christ’s glory always and everywhere.
 
Seeing Christ’s glory, quietly meditating on Christ as God incarnate, changes us, if we just pause long enough to let it sink in. Pausing that way is the gift of this service.
 
My prayer for me and my family, my prayer for all Christian people at this time of year, is that we can find time for true adoration of Christ, and that those moments of adoration can carry us through the more frantic times, no matter what form they take.
 
In Christ’s name. Amen.