Once Again, This Christmas

Incarnation

God taking on the ordinary things of the world saying – this is holy.

Redeeming the world by entering into it. Putting on flesh and bone.

This is God with us, Immanuel.

Collision of Opposites

• The poor are of immeasurable value
• The king isn’t in the palace or mansion but is found outside
• The outcast & ignored, the ones at work in the middle of the night are the most important, the first to hear the gospel
• In the darkness, the brightest and most brilliant radiance
• In the messy chaos of a birth, the greatest beauty
• In the ordinary, something more extraordinary than anything
• The mundane, dirty, unclean, and plain is the holy dwelling place of God
• The pain, labor, suffering, the cries of those giving birth are the sounds and scene for a new creation
  • The birth of Christ who turns the world to God and God’s way of abundanct love & everlasting life. The child who will beckon, “Come to me all, here is life FOR YOU, unending love is my gift and it is given to you”

Grace & Love Embodied

Here in this Jesus, born this night, grace and love are made real, the spirit and flesh together

This real, embodied grace and love are a gift for those who know they are unworthy of receiving any gift

This is a handout for those humble enough to know we depend on it.

Body and blood, bread and wine, word enfleshed, love made specific and real

Once again, this Christmas

• Those who have been told there is no room for them are the ones in whom we see Christ
  • Families and kids at the border who have been told there is no room when they’ve been forced to flee their homes thanks to violence and extreme poverty
  • LGBTQ youth who are homeless because their families, the ones called to love them, have told them there is no room for them at home any longer
  • Those estranged from family
• The ones who are hopeless are the first to see Christ, to receive news of grace & love, because they are holy, and what they are experiencing, God is entering into
• Those of us who have come to believe we’re simply ordinary & nothing beyond the ordinary can or will happen
  • Christ is born ordinarily, revealing to us this is the holy place and these are the things of God, too
• Those trapped in cycles of violence and oppression
  • A child is the savior and his name is Wonderful counselor, mighty Lord, Prince of Peace
    • He frees us and creates a new and liberated world that shines light and love to drown out any hate and violence
    • And this small, vulnerable one, who the powers will seek to oppress, suppress, and kill will overcome any and every force of evil and opposition to God’s shalom, even death

This is the Good News of Christmas:

Love has come in Spirit and Body, right here among us

Love that liberates a world in bondage from systems of oppression and removes the limitations we have placed on love.

Love that radiates life and grace and peace that nothing can overshadow – exposing our sins and faults and forgiving them. Shining so brightly that we shine, too.

Love has come and we have done nothing to earn it

Love has been given to us and we cannot lose it for Christ refuses to leave us

Love has come for you

Love is here in spirit and body for you, your best friends, your worst enemy, and your neighbor you have yet to meet

Love incarnate that binds us to God and one another

Love who reshapes the world

Love who brings us to life everlasting starting this night in this place for these people

Love is a savior born for us and for the whole world

JESUS THE CHRIST