Sermon - December 31st, 2023 - The Rev. Emily Collette

So, very Christmas, my friends.

When I was little, I can always remember feeling just a little bit sad on Christmas night because

you spend so long preparing for this one day.

I mean, I can remember our tree being in our living room and like more and more presents

were coming underneath it and they were all, my mother loved like glitter paper.

So it was all very shiny and pretty and we had these plans and we were looking forward

to them.

Just all month long, things just got better and better and just like spiraling towards

this one day and then it just happens, right?

It just sort of happens and everyone shows up and the presents are unwrapped and then

they're put away and the dishes are done and the food is put away and then it's just sort

of quiet.

And I always remember feeling just a little bit sad on Christmas night because it just

happened.

It was so quick.

So I've always been very thankful that the church calendar doesn't do that.

The church calendar gives us a full 12 days to celebrate Christmas and we almost, we always

get at least one more Sunday to celebrate Christmas and I'm especially thankful for the

years that we get to.

And so there's, this is not one of those just in case you're wondering, but I'm especially

thankful for the years that we do get to.

This has always been a particular favorite season of mine that we get 12 full days to

celebrate and think about and praise God for the birth of Jesus.

And I love that we got a chance.

I talked to Jack this week.

I was like, listen, we're busy and we're only in the office like one day this whole week,

but what if I just totally change the service on Sunday and so that's what's happened here.

So if you hate it, you can send emails to me.

But I love doing Christmas lessons in carols because we get to read the story one more

time.

We get to hear the full story of God's incarnation and we get to sing the songs that I love,

we only have this short little season to sing and we get to hear it without all the

busyness of Christmas, without all the busyness of waiting for what's next.

Our relatives are coming, the food is in the oven and we're sort of waiting to get out

of church on Christmas Eve.

So today we get a chance to just hear the story, sit with it and live with it.

But we also get a chance to hear the beginning of John's gospel.

And John's gospel doesn't start with a traditional Christmas message.

John starts by unraveling the mystery that is God's incarnation, the mystery of God choosing

to become fully human and to share life's experiences with us, the wonderful and the

terrible and the miraculous things that make up our days on this earth.

John tells us that our salvation has always been part of God's plan from the moment of

the fall in the Garden of Eden, from the moment that humans had to start grappling with

sin and death and shame and evil from that very moment God has sought us, God has kept

seeking us, God has called us again and again to come back home.

John's gospel starts with the reminder that there is absolutely no link that God will

not go to to rescue us from the powers of evil in the world.

John reminds us that God would choose to even become human, to dwell among us and in doing

so redeem every aspect of the human experience.

The miracle of Christmas is that we have a God who has chosen to be in the thick of life

with us.

God doesn't just tell us that God will be present, God jumps in fully, becoming one

of us experiencing the fullness of human life.

That's the miracle and the mystery of Christmas, the miracle and the mystery that John names

for us in the beginning of his gospel.

In Jesus we have a God who has and is and will always will be present with us.

Not a passive observer but someone who knows what it means to love and to hurt and to try

and to fail and to laugh and to cry.

In Jesus we have a God who not only knows our hearts and our souls but has experienced

the things that affect our heart and our souls.

God promises to be with us in our best moments, in those times of joy.

God makes them fuller and sweeter and richer but perhaps more importantly we have a God

who has promised to be with us in the worst things, in our fear and in our grieving that

God reminds us when we are loved and redeemed and cared for even when we don't know how

to go forward ourselves.

To paraphrase John's gospel today, Jesus is the light of the world and try though it has

nothing in this dark world has ever overcome it.

And wherever you are this Christmas, however you find yourself and wherever and however

you find yourself and all the Christmases ahead and the years in between those Christmases,

I hope you know that God is with you.

Whether they bring joy or grief or anxiety or contentment, God is with you experiencing

those things with you.

The great mystery of Christmas is that Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, chose to become human,

chose to become human to fully defeat every single thing in creation that would ever try

to separate you from God.

So Merry Christmas my friends, we have a few more days yet to celebrate and to praise God

for the most singularly amazing event in human history.

God's love for all of creation manifested in the birth of Jesus Christ.

Amen.