AB: When I first moved to Gainesville from Chicago 13 years ago, the hardest adjustment for me was getting used to the idea that it could be 80 degrees outside and still be Christmas. And I will admit that I still miss the snow on Christmas Eve. For the past 10 days the rest of our country has been living in a polar vortex, but the closest we came to a chilly day was on Tuesday, when it was so cold there was a high of only 61. Brrr! We’re busting out the sweaters and the winter coats, while in Chicago, if they had a 61 degree day they’d be in shorts and shirt sleeves, dancing for joy in the streets.

I had to reframe my understanding of Christmas when I moved down here. I considered changing the lyrics of “White Christmas” to sing, “I’m dreaming of some fresh citrus…just like the ones we juiced last year…” but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

I still have to catch myself when I say things like, “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas, living here in Florida.” Because, what does that even mean? Even in the city of Bethlehem on the West Bank this week, the lowest temperature they got to was 40 degrees. I  have to remember that, not only is there no mention of snow in the Nativity story, but there is no donkey for Mother Mary to ride on, no Santa, Rudolph, stockings, cocoa or sleigh rides…those are all just our projections and traditions that we have applied to this sacred night over the years. But this year we’re looking for something to bring us hope and light in a different way. This year we’re trying to listen with new understanding to the ancient story told every year on this night.

SW: I don’t miss the snow, thank you very much, but I agree—I definitely bring memories and expectations that I connect unconsciously to the season that make it “feel” like Christmas. I love to hear Will and Liz read that old simple story… so rich and sweet, because those words take me back to the time when I first held a baby whose birth was a miracle to me.  A time when I read that story in China huddled on Christmas Eve in a hotel room with other new parents as we prepared for the next day when we would adopt our daughters. Julianna came to be my baby on Christmas Day. The old Christmas tales are all woven together with our stories–wrapped up with children’s excitement and travel and family and our wistful, unrealistic expectations.  (Both singing:  It’s the most wonderful time of the year!)  Wrapped up with the aromas of cookies freshly baked or the Christmas tree’s scent, the stories evoke something in us. Maybe you have a favorite memory to go with the reading, like that one magical Christmas Eve when you heard it read in a candlelit midnight mass in some cathedral someplace or gathered with your cousins around your grandparents’ kitchen table.

AB: Or maybe this story doesn’t make you merry and bright. Maybe it dwells more towards the other direction; and instead of happy hearts and families gathering together, the memories it evokes are of days long past and merriment run dry; instead, this season of the longest night is just that—a time when it might feel like a new day will never dawn and the light is hard to find; finding it would require search and soul-work, and initiative that is hard to find right about now.

SW: But you know that is part of the story, too. Do you know that the early crèche scenes included all the usual suspects, the shepherds and wise ones and the holy family, but many of them also included a tiny grinning demon who sat perched in the shadowy back corner, behind the manger–the symbol of all that, even in that sweet scene, threatens to harm the holy family. The Christmas story is edged about by these continual contrasts: the star shines as guide through the long night, poor shepherds sit by rich magi, Herod the King looms over the helpless baby lying in a manger, and juxtaposed with those proclamations of good tidings of great joy, is an endless refrain. God’s reps, the multitudes of the heavenly host, keep saying it, over and over again, as if everyone needs reassuring,

Andy: which we do,

Be not afraid!

AB: That wasn’t just slipped in there. In fact, one could argue that that refrain is actually the driving message of the entire story. Be not afraid! Gabriel says it to Mary and to Joseph. The angels say it to the shepherds.

SW: In fact, Isaiah the prophet foretold the Messiah would come to bring hope in times of fear. He wrote,

AB: The people who have dwelled in the deepest darkness, on them has the light shined.” But be not afraid to look at what we shall see when the light has dawned.

BOTH: Be not afraid!

SW: Look again at the context of this ancient story. Feel its resonance in our history, in our world today. Caesar Augustus decrees that all must go home to be registered. What does he look like, this Caesar who strikes such fear that at every turn there must be angelic reassurances? What does his voice sound like? Like ice or broken glass? Like the sound of weeping in the streets? Does his decree separate them–each one to his own city, it says–mothers and fathers and grandmas and babies, split apart. Choices reduced, along with hope.

AB: The roads and waysides are filled with the wandering making their way through a war-torn world; struggling to do what is best for their families while still abiding by the ruler’s demands. Yet, they can find no place to lay their weary heads. There is no house of safety for them to sleep; even in their place of deepest need, they can find no refuge.

SW: This is where tonight’s story unfolds. In a world that leans towards violence, racism, exclusion, and fear. And to those people who are most on the fringes; those most outcast, and those most vulnerable, the words of God’s holy messengers come. Be not afraid! God sees you. God is in you. The Christmas story seems simple and innocent, but underneath, it is a revolution.

AB: And its revolutionary message brings hope and challenge to a world that needs both.  Consider this thought from author and activist Jim Wallis. He said, “the theological claim we celebrate at Christmas that sets Christianity apart from any other faith tradition is this: God became like us to bring us back to God and show us in Jesus what it means to be truly human.” On the surface that sounds simple –even predictable. But remember that the overlays we have applied and the expectations we have might actually cloud the truly revolutionary message that is being delivered. If it is God we seek, then we must first find God in the arms of this brave, unwed, teenage girl. She and her fiancé? They’re homeless. And poor. Their skin tone is different from mine. And this child in her arms? He will one day be martyred to an occupying government, not surviving past his 33^rd birthday; and through his death and the memory of his life and the controversy of his teachings, God is revealed. Wallis believes that for us to understand what it is to be truly human, then we must find be willing to see God revealed in one such as this.

SW: Tonight is a night when we hear the question sung in hushed tones and under foreboding skies, “What child is this?” All season long, we pray for God to be with us, and to ransom our captive hearts from exile. And we are told that within this story, “the hopes and fears of all the years” can be found once again. And we dare to hope that all around us, as we keep watch, abide out in the field, study at school, interact with our friends, confront our fears, transform our own views, be the change in the world for justice, open the doors, stand in the gap, live through our days,

AB: dare to hope that the Holy One whose law is love and whose gospel is peace is being born into our world again;

SW: and into our hearts again, as we face a world of challenge.

We will not be afraid.

AB: The poet and theologian, Howard Thurman wrote these words in 1953, a haunting variation on Mary’s Magnificat. He pondered the daily struggles he endured as a black man living in a world often steeped in meanness and fear. He wrote: “The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out.

It has long ago been learned by heart;

It repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit.”

SW: But Thurman’s hope will not give way. In the midst of the racism in his own day and as his words ring out for us anew today, he speaks the Christmas miracle again:

“I will sing a new song.

I must learn the new song for the new needs.

I must fashion new words born of all the new growth of my life–

of my mind– of my spirit.

I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before, That all that is within me may lift my voice unto God. . . Therefore, I shall rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding.  I will sing, this day, a new song unto the Lord.”

AB: It is time for us to join in that new song of hope for a world greatly in need. It is time for us to heed the ancient prophet’s call, and make a way for good news to come to those most in need in this world. It is time for us to take to heart those words of the angels, and say it to ourselves and to one another the words we all need to hear.

Do not be afraid.

AB:  Do not be afraid to confront your own fears and your own prejudices. For there is good news waiting for those who have ears to hear it.

SW: Do not be afraid to rediscover the miracle of being fully human by living awake on the Earth.

AB: Do not be afraid to welcome the stranger, to love who you love, to live a life that matters.

SW: Do not be afraid to search for truth. To go with each other into the dangerous places, to find the Holy One in the most unlikely disguises, in babies, in barns, in snow and in summer,

AB:  in the longest night and in the light that dawns at last. May it be for you, that this Christmas, if your old song has wearied out, you will find a new song,

SW: And that the Light of world will shine anew in your heart.

Merry Christmas.

 PRAYER:

SW: Let us pray: May we refuse fear, this holy Christmas tide.

AB: May we accept the light and hope and joy and peace, and share them by the way we live.

SW: May we hear again the songs of angels and remember the whispered truth that Love is born this night. Amen.