St. John’s Lutheran Church
24 December 2024 + Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Eve)
Luke 2:1-20
Rev. Josh Evans
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn –
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn –
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
–Madeleine L’Engle, “The Risk of Birth, Christmas 1973”
***
I looked up what was going on in 1973 when Madeleine L’Engle wrote this poem – because, well, I wasn’t there.
Starting off in January, President Richard Nixon was sworn in for his second term, all the while deep into the thick of the Watergate scandal. Later that year, a flurry of Justice Department resignations related to the scandal would come to be known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
By March, the last US troops left Vietnam, following the official withdrawal after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords earlier that year.
On March 11, in New York, the first official meeting of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, today known as PFLAG, was held at Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church in Greenwich Village. Just over three months later, on June 24, an arsonist’s fire would break out at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans, killing 32 people and leaving 15 others injured, becoming the deadliest attack on a gay bar in the US until the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016.
In April, the World Trade Center officially opened in New York City with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, becoming the world’s tallest building, with the North Tower standing tall at 1,368 feet. Not to be outdone, the Sears Tower in Chicago (yes, Sears…spelled W-I-L-L-I-S, pronounced “Sears”) opened a month later, claiming the title for itself for over two decades, standing at an impressive 1,450 feet tall. (I had to throw a fun one in there – and obviously Chicago-related.)
Meanwhile, the year rolled on, and in September, a military coup in Chile led to the death of President Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America.
And in the Middle East, in October, the Yom Kippur War broke out on the Sinai Peninsula, the fourth war in the as-yet ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict – at the time heightening tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and ultimately leading to a US oil crisis following an embargo by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, more commonly known today as OPEC.
“This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate,”
Madeleine L’Engle writes, 51 years ago.
51 years later, I’m afraid she’s still right. You know the headlines: The world is engulfed by ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza – the very land of Christ’s birth cries out from under the literal rubble of war. Our country is plagued by deepening political hostilities that only seem to get worse with each passing election. The planet itself cries out under the devastating and perhaps irreversible effects of climate change.
This is no time for a child to be born…
And what about closer to home?
Are you ready? Everything checked off your holiday to-do list?
All is calm, all is bright? No chaos at all or lingering mental distractions, right?
All throughout these Advent weeks,
we have been getting ready,
preparing the way of the Lord…
but friends, I have to confess I don’t feel ready.
Maybe you feel the same way.
We are weary.
We are burnt out.
We aren’t ready yet.
We still have gifts to buy, trees to trim, cards to send, meals to prepare, bulletins to print, sermons to write…
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” the well-meaning advice goes –
except I’m not a runner, and I don’t really care for either,
thank you very much.
This is no time for a child to be born…
no time for Christmas – not yet.
Can’t we have one more week of Advent?
Just one more day of the week? “Thurfriday,” as the parish administrator at my internship congregation in Omaha would often wish for.
Except – I suspect – even with all the “just one more days,”
we probably still won’t ever be fully ready,
and there would always be “something else” that needs to get done.
Thank God it doesn’t depend on us.
Thank God a child is born anyway.
Thank God love still takes the risk of birth.
As one pastor aptly puts it:
“God comes into this world whether or not we are ready. (Jesus’ mother would tell you that in a heartbeat. Being placidly regarded by a cow while in the midst of uterine contractions was not a part of her original birth plan.) Every Advent text about how the day of the Lord is coming unexpectedly will echo this: Christ’s becoming a child on earth is in no way contingent on our being properly prepared.”
(Victoria Larson, More Than Words/Barn Geese Worship, emphasis mine)
Ready or not, love is born –
and a weary world rejoices.
“It came without ribbons,
it came without tags,
it came without packages, boxes, or bags…”
as all the Whos down in Whoville flocked to their village square
to join hands and sing their song of Christmas joy.
***
Again from Madeleine L’Engle:
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace
He came when the Heavens were unsteady
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
He came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
–Madeleine L’Engle, “First Coming”
***
Christ did not wait – and neither can we:
to share “with haste” this “good news of great joy”
for a weary people, for a weary world.
Good news. Great joy.
Tonight, tomorrow, the day after.
For me, for you, for all people.
Ready or not, love is born.
