Christmas Eve 2013

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve

One Sunday not too long ago, I paid a visit to our Middle School Sunday School class where the kids were engaged in an intense discussion.  When 4th-7th graders are engaged in energetic conversation, we might easily and understandably think the topic is sports, a recent movie or new video-game, or relationships.  But our kids were wrestling with the topic of eternal life and whether or not eternal life is something we can earn.  If we can earn eternal life, what do we have to do?  Someone suggested that perhaps there are spiritual coupons and when we earn enough coupons by doing good deeds, we have earned eternal life.  Others doubted that any of us could ever build up enough coupons to earn eternal life.  Then what?  What if we come up one coupon short?  Or is eternal life a gift?  If so, what's the point of being good?  One young person pointed to a person who had been very generous in her lifetime and done much good.  Has she done enough? And if she hadn't, who had?  And how would we know when we had earned enough coupons for eternal life?  The kids saw the advantages and disadvantages to the idea that we have to earn eternal life, as well as to the idea that eternal life is a gift.  I left the class at noon not having thought that hard about eternal life in a very long time.

Tonight, the issue is not eternal life, per se, but salvation.  The angel says to the shepherds "to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."  A savior is the agent of salvation, and the questions about salvation are the same as the young people's questions about eternal life.  What does salvation mean?  Where does salvation come from ?  Is salvation earned?  How can we be sure?  

Rather than give us a doctrinal explanation of salvation, Scripture tells us the story of the birth of our savior.  When we let the story speak, we hear everything we need to know about salvation, even if all of our questions are not answered.  First, we learn that salvation is an act of God and nothing we can earn no matter how many spiritual coupons we try to accumulate.  From the time the angel Gabriel tells Mary that God has chosen her to carry the Christ Child to the angel's announcement to the shepherds that the Messiah has been born, God is the primary actor in this drama.  Salvation is all God's action, not ours, and a gift, not anything we can earn.  

Secondly, salvation happens in the midst of our every day lives.  Mary and Joseph are traveling to Bethlehem to be counted for the census.  The shepherds were tending their sheep.  I wonder if the shepherds even knew they were waiting for a Savior when the angel bursts in upon them.  At least Mary and Joseph had some advance notice.  The Christ child was born in the midst of ordinary people going about their everyday business.  But that does not mean everything stayed the same.  In the Christmas story, the shepherds go back to tending their sheep, but they do so glorifying and praising God.  Mary now has to be about the everyday work of raising a child, but she treasures the words of the shepherds and ponders them in her heart.  Salvation, we learn from the story, is an extraordinary gift that we experience in the midst of our ordinary lives, but salvation also changes our lives in ways we cannot predict or control.

Lastly, salvation is not a private matter.  The story tells us that the sky lit up and the heavenly host sang of Jesus' birth.  The message of the angel was one of great joy for all the people, not just a few.  After visiting Jesus, the shepherds made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.  The story of Jesus' birth is not ours to hold on to, as if we have some control over it.  The story of Jesus' birth is meant  to be lived to that all the world can know the wonders of God's love.

The story of Jesus birth tells us that salvation is all God's action, that God's saving work bursts into our everyday lives when we are least expecting God to act, and that the story of the birth of salvation is not ours to have and to hold, but ours to live, so that our lives can speak to the love of God in the world.  "For to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."

Amen.