Christmas Day 2022

 Christmas songs have been playing on the radio since November 1st. So I have a question for you: Have you had enough of George Michael yet? “Last Christmas I gave you my heart / The very next day you gave it away / This year to save me from tears / I’ll give it to someone special.”

George isn’t the only one who sings about love at Christmas. Do you know what the #1 song in America is right now? It’s Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” 

These songs take ideas of romantic love and togetherness and wrap it up into Christmas package and put it under the tree.

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Why do you think they put romance into Christmas? I think it’s because we have a fundamental need for love. Brene Brown says, “Human beings are hard-wired for love and belonging.” If you’ve ever felt love, you know how true that is. And if you’ve ever been rejected, you know how much that hurts—because we’re not getting the love and belonging we need.

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Ultimately, that’s what we want from God. We want love and acceptance. But many of us wake up uncomfortable in our own skin, we put on our armor, we build up walls, and we tell everyone we’re “fine.” But, really, we’re not. So we take this deep need for love and we sort of try and see if God will meet that need, since he’s the one that supposed to meet that need, but in so many places we hear about God and judgement and cliches that aren’t helpful.

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God did NOT need another angel. He HAS given me more than I can handle. And there’s NOT always a silver lining in every situation.

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So the idea we have of God gets wrapped up in judgement and criticism and anxiety, so we take our need for love and we bring it to Christmas—which is supposed to be about this love coming towards us. But we tried that before and it got all tied up in judgement, so we’re just going to make Christmas about red cups at Starbucks and romantic comedies on the Hallmark channel and Mariah Carey.

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Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s take your need for love and look for fulfillment in the people around you. George Michael and Mariah Carey will help you figure that out. And that’s exactly what many people try to do because human love seems more real, immediate, and present than this God thing.

Today, I want to talk about the shepherds and how our story from Luke 2 is good news for us.

With the shepherds in our story today, an angel shows up to the shepherds and it turns out that the Christmas pageant was wrong. Angels are not sweet; they’re terrifying. So the shepherds are terrified when the angels show up. (This is God showing up to the shepherds.)‌ When God shows up, most people think God is going to knock them flat or wag a finger at them or bring judgement because we know we have not lived up to our expectations, others’ expectations, the world’s expectations. You know you haven’t lived up. So when God shows up to the shepherds, they’re terrified.

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Here’s the situation: We need love and acceptance, but we think God is all about judgement, so we try to find that love and acceptance we need in other places.

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So how can God come to the shepherds and to us in such a way that we might know that God actually loves us? So we know that God cares for us and he doesn’t want to scare us or drive us away? So that we know he actually wants us to come closer. What sign could God possibly send?

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A baby. ‌A baby that’s sent for us—for us who are terrified of God coming in and judging us and condemning us. Think about it: if God wants to let us know that he is love, what better way to show up than as a baby? Babies show up and you start talking different. “Aw, look at those cheeks!” Babies show up and you want to pick them up and hold them. There’s no fear, no judgement, in babies.

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To these shepherds, the angels say, “Here’s the sign: Go find the baby.” ‌This is what Christmas says to you, and to me, who think God is all about judgement. This is what Christmas says to us who think that God isn’t happy with us. It says, “Come and see this baby and know that God wants to come to you in a form that is so endearing that you can’t help but to drawn to him. God wants to say, “Don’t be scared. Come closer. Because I’m all about love.”

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This is why Jesus comes as a baby. God is NOT here to crush you. He is here to invite you in.

But there’s still what I call the Jacob Marley problem. You’ve seen a Christmas carol. Maybe you’ve even read the book. Maybe you’ve seen the Muppet Christmas Carol 

or the one with Jim Carrey or the Mickey Mouse version, whatever version you’ve seen, Jacob Marley—Scrooge’s partner—shows up from the afterlife and he’s wearing chains and he’s pulling anvils and carrying heavy weights. He represents the human condition. He’s carrying what we call “baggage.” There are burdens that you carry—from your past and from your present—things that you cannot carry because they’re too heavy for you.

So you come to this Christ-child burdened with these sins—the weight of things done and left undone—ways that you’ve been hurt and ways you’ve hurt others, and you come to this child, wounded and scarred, and you look and you’re drawn. What can this child offer you? How can he deal with your problem?

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So this child draws you in and as you look closer, you notice something: He is scarred. The first thing that happened to this child when he came into the earth was to have the cord cut that bound him to his mother for 9 months. And so he enters the wounded human condition. The first thing he gets is a scar, a wound. And it is the beginning of his life’s work of taking on human wounded-ness and pain and brokenness and sin and hurt, and taking it onto himself—because he is the one who can carry what you can’t.

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Your grief, your unhealed places, the hardened places in your heart, the darkness in you, your depression—whatever it is in your life that you cannot carry, this child comes to draw you in and to take that away. That will be the ministry of his whole life.

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In the cradle, we begin to see signs of the cross. This child comes to offer you love, healing, peace, joy, and freedom. This is God’s self-giving love for you. That’s what grace is—one-way love. God loves you. God comes to you.

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God comes in the most humble way possible, in the least threatening figure. This tells us something about the character of God—he’s willing to show up so vulnerable. This also shows us how God acts. When he wants to come into your life and do something, you may not even see it. It may be in a small, out-of-the-way place.

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He comes into the dark and difficult places to save and redeem you. Light comes into the darkness, and light conquers darkness. We don’t escape the darkness. The Christian message is NOT about escape. We will go through dark times, but the good news of Christmas is that the light of God has come into the darkness of the world and, in the end, he will redeem everything that is rightfully his.

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God gives us this Savior that he might redeem us. We don’t redeem ourselves. Please don’t try to redeem yourself with a New Year’s resolution. Trust in God and remember what the angel said, “Do not be afraid.” Do NOT be afraid because God has brought peace among those he favors. And, if you’re here or hearing this or reading this, you can be guaranteed you are one that God favors.