The Eve of the Nativity 2012

The Eve of the Nativity 2012 “Suppose someone in hiding stirs, showing their whereabouts there. God does the same. No one could have found God-God gave Himself away.” This is a quote from Meister Ekhart who was a medieval mystic, and I can think of no better way of talking about why we are gathered here together on this holy night. Tonight, we give thanks for the many ways that “God gives himself away” and for the many ways that God reveals God’s self to us. In the beginning, God gives himself away in creation, putting part of God in all that there is and then breathing God’s breath into man and woman, creating us in the image of God. But we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. And so God reveals God’s self to Abraham, and God promises that God would be our God, and we would be God’s people. But we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. We become enslaved, and God brings about our liberation. But we quickly forget our liberation, and we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. So God reveals God’s self to righteous people, to matriarchs, patriarchs, judges, heroes, kings, and prophets, but we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. And we become enslaved again, people who walk in darkness, until God liberates us again with God’s great light, but again we turn away from God and seek our own will and way. Again and again, God gives us glimpses of God’s self as God calls us back to God. Again and again, God invites us to follow God’s way and not our own. Until, in the fullness of time, God gives himself fully to us and becomes Emmanuel—God with us. God reveals God’s self fully to us in the person of Jesus, who is always on the side of the weak and the powerless, who shows us that the way to God is found in truly giving up ourselves, our way and our will. He shows us that we find God when we live lives of mercy and kindness. He shows us that we find God when we live lives of forgiveness and reconciliation. He shows us that we find God when we give and we find God when we love. And by giving himself up to death, Jesus shows us in the resurrection that God’s love, God’s self, God’s desire to be reconciled with us is stronger than everything. Stronger than our own will and the ways that we turn away from God. God’s love is stronger than the mistakes that we make. It is stronger than sickness; it is stronger than evil that we can never hope to understand. God’s love is stronger, even than death. It is what we call “the mystery of the Incarnation”—that the fullness of God is made present in our lives and in our world. But the story doesn’t end here. God continues to call us. God continues to choose us. When we realize that God is calling us and choosing us, not for a task or a role but to be the revelation of God’s self in this world each in your own unique situation, then we are living the truth of God with us, and we become a part of God’s revelation of God’s self. We become a part of the way that God gives God’s self away in this needy and dark world. We become the people who have walked in darkness who have seen a great light, and through the grace of God, we reflect that light through the way that we live our lives. “Suppose someone in hiding stirs, showing their whereabouts there. God does the same. No one could have found God-God gave Himself away.” Thanks be to God.