The Word of Love

The Word of Love
Christmas Eve 2006

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son
(Hebrews 1:1).

These opening words from the Letter to the Hebrews focus for us the amazing mystery and the deep Good News we celebrate this night. They proclaim that the God who created the universe, who set the moon and the stars in their courses, who formed man and woman out of the earth and made them “but little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8), even in the face of continued human resistance and hostility, took the final step. Despite our inability and unwillingness to live out our given identity as children of God, God did not condemn or destroy or abandon the human race. Rather God, who had sent numerous prophets to call his human offspring to claim their true identity as children of one Father, spoke one final irrevocable word. In a complete gift of self, God sent his Son, Jesus, to become flesh and dwell among us. God spoke the last word, the word that continues to resound throughout all creation, the word of love.

That is the great Good News of Christmas. That is why for centuries we have celebrated in song and pageantry the birth of the human but divine child. That is the underlying truth which, despite layer upon layer of increasingly suffocating consumerism, never is extinguished. God, who “in many and various ways … spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets … in these last days … has spoken to us by a Son.”

In these last days, these last 2,000 years, a blink of an eye in the lifetime of creation, we human beings have not heard well this word of love. As John tells us, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.” In fact, it has often been those who claim to have received him, who assert that they above others have heard and understood God’s word of love, who seek to impose that understanding on others with anything but love. Human history is rife with this easy but unfaithful response, right to our present day.

In last Sunday’s comic section, the strip titled ironically enough “Non Sequitur” summed up our latest version of this recurring pattern. As the little girl and the horse are trudging up the snowy hill with their sled, the horse objects, “Um … you lost me there. Explain that again?” “OK,” she replies. “One group of followers willingly sacrifice themselves to blow up people who follow a different religion.” “Yessh,” affirms the horse. “Can’t get more fanatical than that, eh?” “Well,” the girl goes on, “the other group of followers are willing to commit all of their resources to launching overwhelming military strikes in retaliation.”

“And how about the third group of followers?” asks the horse, as they reach the top of the hill and stare down the steep slope. “They’re willing to blow up the entire planet.” Beginning their descent, the horse inquires, “And why are they doing all this to each other?” The girl answers, “To prove which one is the true religion of peace.” As they pick up speed, they elevate off the earth and soar through the air. Coming to rest on a limb high up in a tree, the horse reflects, “I’ll never understand how you guys made it to the top of the food chain.” “Well,” responds the girl, “they don’t call it blind faith for nothing.”

If we did not laugh, we would cry.

What we act out nationally and globally, we also live personally and locally. We cannot merely point the finger at religious zealots and politicians. Our comfortable faith also blinds us to the far-reaching implications of the mystery we celebrate tonight. To return to the original metaphor, in many ways we do not hear and receive the word of love God speaks to us. We contribute to or tolerate the violence in our society. We hold grudges and promote divisions among us. We ignore rifts in our families and do not actively work to bring God’s love to bear on our relationships, those we choose and those which are thrust upon us.

God still raises up prophets among us, of course, to call us deeper, to show us how the love of God ought to resound more vibrantly in our deafened world. The Amish community in Paradise, Pennsylvania stirred all of us this year. Rocked by the senseless shooting of five of their daughters, these committed believers refused to respond in kind. They met with the killer’s family to assure them of their forgiveness and prayers and to invite them to the girls’ funerals. They created a bank account to raise funds for the killer’s children. They participated in his funeral. One of their members wrote in a published statement, “I wish yet to say that with God all things are possible and that in heaven the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.” What a witness. What a moving embodiment of God’s word of love. What a celebration of God’s grace, continually and surprisingly at work in the world.

Tonight let our celebration make us attentive to God’s word of love. Let the scriptures awaken in us God’s invitation to let that love extend through us to others near and far. Let our joyful singing proclaim our hope in the power and the resilience of God’s life-giving grace.

Some of you may have seen a front page article in Wednesday’s Chapel Hill News. It described our monthly Monday night service here in the church, an amazing opportunity to worship with our neighbors and friends with developmental disabilities. This month’s service was the traditional free-wheeling Christmas pageant in which everyone gets a costume and a rhythm instrument for making a joyful noise to the Lord. “Not So Silent Night” was the headline! One of our student leaders, who regularly tells a scripture story at these services and talks about what it means for the participants, was quoted in the article as saying, “Honestly, every single lesson boils down to ‘God loves us, and we all love each other.’” Our celebration tonight proclaims the same lesson, that same deep mystery: “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.”

Hebrews 1:1- 12; John 1:1-14