The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III
Christmas Eve Sermon/Message
Christmas Eve has a feeling like no other night: an aura of intense expectation envelopes everything. It isn’t just the anticipation of children expecting brightly wrapped packages that will fill the space beneath the tree, or stockings bursting at the seams that will be hung by the chimney with care. It is an eagerness centered on what our story tells us is coming: a baby will be born in a manger. But it isn’t just any ol’ baby. It is the One whom prophets foretold. This child will lead the world to salvation.
At times like this, we sing inspirational carols like “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night.” We make all sorts of preparations: buying gifts, sending cards, baking goodies, and the like. And on nights like this, there is a serene, peaceful spirit that pervades the hearts of believers and nonbelievers alike. But I sometimes think we forget about how absurd all of this is. As the late British evangelical theologian J. I. Packer once said, “The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.”
How true! How absurd that our all-powerful God — the one who fashioned the universe out of nothing, the one who could dash it to pieces with a wave of his hand if he so chose — how utterly bizarre that the King of all creation would choose to come to the world not just in person, but in the form of a poor, helpless child. It’s preposterous! It certainly isn’t the way that we think about power, might, and anything regal. If you were writing a story about a hero about to enter the narrative, it would be dramatic. It would be accompanied by a flourish of trumpets. There would be fanfare. There would be reverberating shouts of joy. The sky would open!
Not here. Not this story about the humble birth of a humble child.
The incarnation is a pivotal, historical moment. To wax theological (if only lightly and briefly), our faith claims that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. This is the miracle of miracles. Towards the end of the third of his Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot writes,
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled[1]
It is a “gift half understood.” It conquers all that is contrary to the Gospel and reconciles all discord. How else can we possibly explain this event?
Think of it another way. Imagine a person who is someone you’ve heard an awful lot about. You’ve even been told that this person did unparalleled things in history. You’re told that this person is responsible for your very existence and that this person loves you with a love like none other. And yet, this person only remains some sort of mythic figure. He has never appeared, not really. Sure, people have spoken of that person’s thoughts and deeds, but he is as detached from physical reality as some distant cluster of stars. You can’t hold that in your hands. It will seep through your fingers like vapor.
In order to save a fallen humanity, God had to be here himself. That is what this night is all about. That is why we celebrate Christmas. That is the reason for the season. I love what the American theologian Gabriel Fackre has to say about this. Fackre writes, “In this decisive chapter [of the Christian story] is an act of involvement with us that shows the depths and lengths to which God will go in the struggle with sin, evil, and death.”[2] God knew we were lost and would continue to be so if we followed our own way. Therefore, he appeared in the flesh to bridge the gap that no else could. As St. Athanasius so beautifully declared in the fourth century: through the incarnation, God became human so that we may become divine.
Let the divinity of Christ fill your humanity this night. Let it show forth this season and in all the days, weeks, and months that the New Year will bring. Let the world know that God has made the impossible not just possible, but tangible, and he has showered the world with a grace beyond compare. The hope, peace, joy, and love that we have been celebrating for the past four weeks of Advent fill this sanctuary and will flow like a river of blessings from our doors when we leave this evening. May it shine bright on this silent night, this holy night — and may it wash the world with all that is sacred.
May the merriest of Christmases be with you and yours., for Christ is born. Amen.
[1] T.S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages,” from Four Quartets, cited in The Poems of T.S. Eliot (The Annotated Text), vol. 1, “Collected and Uncollected Poems,” eds. Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 2015), p. 200, V., ll. 32-36.
[2] Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story: A Narrative Interpretation of Basic Christian Doctrine, vol. 1, 3 ed. (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 99.