Christmas Night 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14

Here is the news, news of great joy: Your God reigns!

What does that reign look like? It looks like life, breaking out, all over the place, in every place that had become a wasteland. New life, come into being.

Come into being, in the deserted places of our lives. Yours, and mine. For here is the Christmas miracle: just as the Son of God came into the world not by the will of man but by the will of God, so we are born anew, children of God—sisters and brothers—not by biological means but by the will of God.

Now, I said that the Son of God did not come into the world by the will of man, and I meant man specifically, not human. For human will was involved, in cooperation, in partnership, with God’s will: and that was the will of his mother, Mary. Mary said ‘yes’ to God, believed that God could transform her empty womb into a cradle of life—into the Cradle of Life. That Life which gives life to me, to you.

This Christmas Night, I wonder, what is the new life that God desires to bring to birth in me, in you? What deserted place does God want to fill, to bursting, life that will grow until it cannot be contained, but breaks out for the blessing of the world? Perhaps in this very moment, you have felt this Life kick you, from inside, as if to say, “I’m here and I am on the way!”

Impossible, you say? But wait: Your God reigns!