December 24, 2024 (9:30 pm)

In Those (Not-So-Normal) Days

Let us pray. Living God, as we meditate on the story of your Incarnation: open our eyes to see your light; open our minds to perceive your love; open our hearts to make room for you. Amen.

If you had asked me six months ago what I was hoping for this Christmas, I had a ready answer: I was looking forward to a normal Christmas.

2024 is the fifth Christmas of the 2020’s decade, and each year has been different. In 2020, it was the first pandemic Christmas. In 2021, we gathered six feet apart and wore masks. In 2022, we had a surge of COVID right before Christmas. In 2023, for me personally, I was grieving my mother’s death.

So, 2024 was supposed to be normal…

but Hurricane Helene blew through in September.

I know, that was almost three months ago now, but the reminders are everywhere. Trees down in the woods and piled on the roadsides. Trash and pipes, and even cars, are stuck in mud and debris along the rivers. I still have water containers lined up in my garage, and a camp stove on my porch. And there’s traffic for days – oh my goodness, there’s traffic!

Even though Christmas is here, and we have so much to be thankful for (like running water), and so much to celebrate – there’s still this persistent feeling that we’ve been through something. We have some new scars to prove it, and this Christmas doesn’t feel quite normal either.

Now, maybe you’re here tonight and Christmas feels normal to you this year. Maybe everything is squared away in your life, people are in the right place, presents are under the tree, plans are unfolding as you intend. If that’s where you are, God bless you and Merry Christmas! (Please sing extra loud on the final hymn!)

But… I bet there are more than a few of us for whom this Christmas is not as squared-away as we hoped it would be.

Maybe you’re finding your way in a new home, or in a new chapter of life. Maybe you’re missing someone you love, or maybe you’re worried about what the new year will bring. Maybe you’re feeling the tenderness and pain of a world that is beautiful and broken. Maybe you feel the grief of wars that don’t stop for Christmas, of a climate that’s changing rapidly, and communities who are fragile.

If that’s where you are, if these are “not-so-normal” days for you, there is good news in the very first line of Luke’s Christmas story.

In this first line, Luke gives us historical details to understand the context of the Christmas story. He begins with these words:

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

We’ve heard those words so often, they sound a little like “’twas the night before Christmas …”.  But look closer. They contain clues about the context into which Jesus was born. And spoiler alert: he was born in not-so-normal days.

Jesus was born in Palestine around 4 B.C., when the nation of Israel was ruled by the Roman Empire. We think of the Roman Empire as ancient, but it was relatively new at that time. It had gone from being a republic to an empire in a violent revolution only a few decades before.

The Emperor Augustus was relatively new to the throne, as was the local governor Quirinius. It was a time of uncertainty and transition, made even more uncertain because the empire lived at the whim of the emperor, or whoever was in power closest to your house.

Mary and Joseph did not want to leave home in Nazareth to go to Bethlehem. In God’s cosmic plan, this journey to Bethlehem fulfilled prophecy about where the Messiah would be born.

But in their “day-to-day,” this requirement of the census was a huge burden of travel, and worry, and even fear. These days were “not-so-normal” days.” It must have landed hard with Mary and Joseph as they arrived in a strange place; sought shelter with kind strangers; as they prepared to welcome their first-born son in a spare room where the animals kept warm.

They were “not-so-normal days,” and in those days Mary gave birth to Jesus. In those days, the long-awaited Messiah came into the world. In those days of uncertainty, exile, or confusion, and displacement, the Savior was born.

The gospel of John puts it this way: “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.” The light of Christ came into the darkness of the world in not-so-normal days.

When I remember the first Christmas of this decade, 2020, I realize how the light of Christ sometimes shines even more brightly when things are not normal.

We knew we could not gather for worship in person that year, but we had planned to light Church Street with luminaries and do a drive-by Christmas Eve celebration. Caitlin and I and our family were at home having dinner and preparing to come to church, when we looked outside and it was snowing. Before long, it was clear we would not have a drive-by Christmas Eve on Church St. We would be stuck at home.

The snow piled higher, and then the power went out. We left our dishes at the table and got our candles and started singing Christmas carols and songs. We started with O Come All Ye Faithful and ended with Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. Pandemic restrictions had already made Christmas weird. The snow was beautiful, but without power the house was getting cold. There was nothing normal about it and it was holy ground.

The light shined in the darkness in those days.

The birth of Jesus Christ is God’s arrival as light in darkness; Jesus is God’s healing intervention in a world that is groaning for wholeness. God is to restore the good creation and to reconcile us to God and one another, and that is what the gift of the Savior is about. Reconciliation and new life.

As the angel said to Mary, it’s good news of great joy for all people! But it’s especially good news for people who know that the days are not-so-normal, that something is off, that things are not all squared away. This is hope for people who know the world is broken and needs healing. In your home and family, in Asheville and Western North Carolina, in Gaza, and Ukraine, and Sudan, and China, and Cuba, and Guatemala.

The light shines in the darkness because the Savior is born.

Life is not a Southern Living Christmas cover with an impossibly perfect three-layer white cake. It’s not an envy-worthy Instagram post of a smiling family around the tree, no matter how hard we try. Life is fragile and messy. It’s full of more joy than we realize and more pain than we can bear.

Into just this life, in these days, Jesus Christ is born for you.

If you feel unworthy and undeserving, if you’ve never felt like you measured up, the love of Jesus is for you.

If you are tired of beating yourself up, the mercy of Jesus is for you.

If you have made a mess of your life, the forgiveness of Jesus is for you.

If your best plans aren’t working out and anxiety is tearing you up, the peace of Jesus is for you.

If you long for a world of justice, the way of Jesus is for you.

If you’re worn out trying to save a world you can’t save, the accomplished salvation of Jesus Christ is for you.

The Savior of the world, God’s greatest gift, is born for us: in those days, in these days.

Welcome him. If it’s for the first time or the fifteen hundredth time. Make room for him. Trust in him. And have a blessed Christmas.

Amen.

Rev. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Ph.D.

First Presbyterian Church

Asheville, North Carolina

 

 

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This