Into
Lectionary Readings-
Old Testament: Isaiah 52.7-13
Psalm 98
New Testament: Hebrews 1.1-4
Gospel: John 1.1-4
Into our world.
Injected into our neighborhoods, our lives. Into our ICU beds where people lie dying, some from their own choices. Into our streets, where the death of black bodies by police becomes an everyday thing, not even newsworthy. Into our schools, where children not even young enough for puberty practice what to do when a shooter comes knocking. Into our political system, with extremists on the right seeking to overturn a democracy that the left is too cowardly to uphold. Into the homes of those who live in poverty, asking if food or rent is more important.
Here, into our sorrows and sins, Jesus was thrust.
Into the arms of a poor, disgraced teenage Jewish girl, Jesus was thrust.
Blood and afterbirth wiped off his eyes, Jesus began to see what this world he was born into held. Assumed to be a bastard by some, Jesus grew into this world, these tents we call home. Here is the son of glorious light, dingy, covered with dust sith our sins nipping at his heels. All because he was born into the world.
We may sing this day, singing of glorious angel songs and wounder blinded shepherds, but we do well to remember that this day, this Christmas, the incarnation still comes into our world. The first and final word of God echos in our time, our place, our circumstances, our sins. We do well to sing of peace on earth to humanity for peace sucked at the breast of that grace-filled Jewish girl.
As Mary nourished the Prince of Peace, creation began to lean in close, hoping, hoping, hoping that this was the awaited chain breaker. Stars may have risen at this birth, but into darkness, he was born. And into that darkness, the light of the world built his home. Here, with you in your pain, grief, regrets, and willful rebellion. Here, in a pandemic that kills like a sickle reaps a harvest. Here, in a systemically corrupt nation – indeed a systemically broken world. Here in famine, plague, war, and death – among the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Jesus was born, choosing the emptiness of incarnation that he might fill the world of our hearts with light.
This is the truth of Emmanuel, The God of the universe with us, sitting in our cold dark nights, bringing light, life, and love to all.
Now, even now, as we pray “O come, O come, Emmanuel,” we choose to rejoice, raising our broken voices in the deep, dark, sin-filled night, for he has – not shall, but has – come to us, through Israel, through the birth canal of an o so human Jewish girl, and into our world.