Journey's Weekly Homilies

Christmas Vigil  2003
December 24th, 2003
Homily:  Nancy                                                                        

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 1:1-14

“…and this will be a sign for you.”

The preacher said, “All we can do is receive.”  All we are is gratitude.  We stand powerless in the flow of a God who is the giver of Gift.  This night is in memory of God’s becoming human, God in a supreme act of self-donation.  It is dark, and out of that darkness a light rises that cannot be measured. 

“…and this will be a sign for you.”

Last week, my friend, John, who was paraplegic, a Vietnam Vet, bound to a wheel chair, said to his wife how dark it was, how he knows in the Winter about his longing for light.  He said that the challenges of his life make him feel like midnight sometimes, even in the middle of the day.  He asked her, “Are you still hopeful?”  “Yes,” she told him.  Then in that night he went home to God. 

“…and this will be a sign for you.”

A few days ago a cosmic event happened…we call it the Winter Solstice.  The planet we ride took one more turn toward the sun, and the hope of Spring began.  This day, today, held a few minutes more light than last Sunday.  The long nights still rule our lives, but each day the light grows, now.  And Missy and Mary’s brother counts his red blood cells, and looks with courage into the light of life he wants to see in his own future, each day with more light.  He keeps his faith alive.  He washes himself in the love being offered to him from all sides.

“…and this will be a sign for you.”

A wall is built through the middle of Berlin, and the German people, and the whole world divide themselves, and stand on one side of the wall or the other.  Years pass, the darkness of the dividing wall grows until it pervades and symbolizes lives, and people, and nations  everywhere.  And in the darkest of those hours, a miracle happens.  People reach toward each other, and the wall begins to crumble.  Not long after, another city begins to divide itself, a holy city, Jerusalem.  And a wall is being built.  And people must choose on which side of that wall to stand, in the very city where the holy one of this night was lifted up on a cross and died in completion of his mission among us.

“…and this will be a sign for you.”

A church grows in power and wealth, and men are called to lead all believers in joining together to proclaim the Word, to try to make the Kingdom come.  The prayers are spoken in a language only a few understand, and the distance between the people and the table of the Lord grows and grows, there is a wall dividing the people of God.  In the darkest of those times, the white smoke rises and a man named John takes the staff of leadership in his hand, and opens the windows of that church for fresh air.  A council is held, and here we are, 40 years later, being church and calling the Winter Name of God together in one voice.  Here we are, knowing in our bones that Christmas is in preparation for the cross.

“…and this will be a sign for you.” 

The reign of God is at hand, but still it is dark.  The world we live in explodes somewhere, almost daily.  The politics and absurdity among the people who govern seems never to end. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.  There is more addiction, more cancer, more mental illness than we can measure.  And in this deepest of darkness, rises a circle of people, a church of people, lifting candles of hope, and cure, and care for one another.  In the darkness the sons and daughters of God become family.  Dom Helder Camera wrote, “The midnight is pregnant with dawn.”

To be here tonight is to declare belief, even if it’s a struggling belief, in a God who is making the signs for us.  To be here tonight is to know again the ultimate act of love from that God who sent a son to become one of us, pitched a tent among us, joined us in the middle of a night over 2000 years ago. To come out in the darkness on this night is to hear the throats of a world in mourning, crying out to us for help.  To come out in this darkness is to stand with one another to be reminded of a louder cry…a child being born, screaming the anguish of knowing what it means to be human.  To come out tonight is to know that the child will be offered up, will be crucified, will be our Redeemer.

“…and this will be a sign for you.”

God, our scripture teaches us, is not in the whirlwind, not in bluster and show.  God is in the whisper of faith, in the very atmosphere around us, in the little things that shape our lives.  God is in the contradictions that assail us, in the circumstances that challenge us, in the crosses we must, ourselves, carry, like our brother.  God is in the motives that drive us, the goals that inspire us, the burdens that wear us down, the actions that give witness to the values in our hearts.  God is in the stuff of life.  God is where we are, even in the weaknesses within us, that wear away at our souls.  God is the Giver of Gift.    

The One born of peace, as the story goes, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and warmed by the sweet breath of animals.  This is our reality, too: people… born of time, born of the light of the new fire of Easter. In the midst of deepest night, we become who we are in the breaking of the bread in his memory.   And on such a night, as we pass the plate and cup, we can find ourselves, and see the reflection of our God in the eyes of the person next to us.

“…and this will be a sign for you.”