Isaiah 9:2-7  Titus 2:11-14  Luke 2:1-14(15-20)  Psalm 96

Wow!  It is Christmas again!  I think we all agree that Christmas comes quicker and quicker every year.  As children, we waited in awesome wonder, seemingly endlessly waiting for Christmas to come.

My brother and I would beg my mother to drag out the decorations earlier and earlier each year.  We had a favorite tree ornament that, I’m sure, came in a flimsy carton of ordinary ornaments from WT Grant’s in Great Bridge.  But, my brother and I thought this particular ornament was the most beautiful ornament ever.  It is a small round ball of clear glass; it has alternating bands of white snow-like glitter and transparent green.  We had never seen an ornament so unique, and we would take turns being the one to hang it on the tree year after year, standing in awe of its beauty.  To anyone else it is non-descript and 1960’s out-of date, but I treasure it still because of these memories, and it now hangs on my tree every year.

Why is it that that sense of awe wanes as we grow older?  The faithful simplicity and freedom from inhibitions that allowed us to be present there next to the manger, waiting endlessly for the babe’s arrival, gets diminished and distracted by the cares of adulthood – perhaps diminished to the point that we come to worship on this eve of the Nativity wondering what happened to the awe, maybe wondering why we are even here.

We don’t stand on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay wondering what happened to the awe.  Whether the mountainous waves are crashing on shore as a terrific storm approaches or mere tiny ripples are lapping gently peacefully onto the sand, the constancy of the sea reminds us of God’s power.  The sea is awesome.  We never outgrow that sense of awe; the sea is a constant reminder of the omnipotent omnipresence of our Creator God.

Neither should we allow ourselves to outgrow the sense of awe that we come to celebrate and relive on this night.  Just as the sea is constant, so also, is our all-powerful, ever present, all knowing Creator constant in his love for us.

This love is so powerful and so constant that God the Father sent God the Son to be born of human flesh – God the Son, to live and die as one of us, to take the sin of all creation upon himself, rising victorious above evil and death so that we and all creation might be redeemed of the sin we brought into the world.  God came among us in the meek, seemingly powerless human nature of Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, born in a stable in Bethlehem; God is forever constant with us in the all powerful divine nature of Christ –the Messiah, Emmanuel – God with us.  How can we ever allow the awe of this truth to wane?

God’s love for us is so awesome that he came to be born as one of us, to suffer and die as one of us.  God’s pure love comes with no expectations, except to be love.

In love, God the Son being born of human flesh assures us it is okay to be human.  Jesus Christ was born of human flesh to help us understand that it is not God who punishes us for our sins, but our human sins themselves that punish us.  Jesus came to show us how to live as redeemed humans in relationship with all God’s creation.  How can we not remain in awe of this love that transforms our painful sins into God’s guidance for how we are to live in relationship with one another?

Jesus doesn’t wait for us to become saints before he calls us to follow him.  Remember his motley crew made up of fishermen, a tax collector, a carpenter, a hotheaded zealot, and other virtual unknowns.  Two of them were so arrogant as to request that they be seated on the left and right of Jesus’ heavenly throne.  Even after three years of such a close relationship, Jesus’ very human disciples denied him, doubted, and betrayed him at the end of his earthly life.  But, they were redeemed by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and they were transformed into amazing apostles, spreading the awe of the Good News of the Christian message to all the world.

The disciples were human like us – as Jesus was human; they were redeemed as we are redeemed because of Jesus’ humanity; they followed as we are called to follow – all through the awesome power of God’s love come down to us in the Incarnation that we are gathered here to celebrate, the awe of the Incarnation into which we are to live each day.

So, we are here on this night because of the constancy of God’s love – love so powerfully awesome that God the Father sent God the Son to be born of human flesh, to live among us that we might know how we are to live.

Come, little children.  Come into the warmth and light of the stable.  Kneel beside the manger; be present in faithful childlike simplicity, uninhibited by the world.  Kneel there so close that you can feel the calm breath of the Christ Child; kneel there where you can gaze into the new baby’s big dark eyes; kneel there, suspended in awesome wonder, as the babe turns to look at you.  Kneel there where you can see so clearly your own reflection in the eyes of the tiny Christ Child – your own reflection in the eyes of the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, God Incarnate.