Luke 2:8-20
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
All throughout Advent we have been discovering the promise of Christmas, and this morning, as we celebrate the birth of Christ, we come to the promise of joy. We thought about joy earlier this year, as something which depends not on the ease of our circumstances but on the goodness of God, and which can be a radical act of resistance in a bruised and broken world, a gentle protest against all that should not be and a defiant hope in all that will come to be.
I wonder what has been bringing you joy. Where have you seen the goodness of God in this season? Perhaps in the kindness of a stranger in the last mad dash to Christmas, or in a particularly thoughtful gift received this morning... These are all things to share with praise as the shepherds did, and store up like treasure in our hearts as Mary did.
Joy is wonderful, but let's be honest, it can feel really hard to get hold of, even at Christmas. Perhaps especially at Christmas, when there is so much that is trying to make us feel merry that if we're not feeling it, we can retreat away from it or become even more conscious of its absence.
At the very beginning of Advent I said we would be loosely drawing on material by Kate Bowler, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer in her mid-thirties, and has spent the time since her recovery trying to understand how to live with the knowledge that life is beautiful and terrible and absurd.
If you listen to Kate speak, she has an infectious enthusiasm for life in all of its beauty and terror and absurdity, and I think that may be the key to joy, to be able to look at the world and see it for all that it is and love it anyway. Love it with abandon. Love it in detail. Love it without ending. Love it as God loved it when he became flesh and blood and made his dwelling among us.
Thank you God for your promise of truth. May we speak with lament and hope of the world as it is and can be.
Thank you God for your promise of justice. May we raise up the humble and fill the hungry with good things.
Thank you God for your promise of restoration. May we rebuild ourselves and one another and our world through your Spirit in us.
Thank you God for your promise of compassion. May we wonder anew at you coming to live and feel with us and for us and as one of us.
Thank you God for your promise of life. May we live fully and abundantly as Jesus came that we might do.
Thank you God for your promise of joy. May we be people who know the world is beautiful and terrible and absurd and love it anyway.
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