A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, December 24/25, 2020, The Feast of the Incarnation (Christmas Day)

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

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside still waters. … Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.”

Psalm 23 is not one of the traditional readings for Christmas, so it may at first feel out of place among Luke’s telling of the birth of Jesus and Isaiah’s lofty promises about the Prince of Peace.

But, in many ways, Psalm 23 is perfectly fitting for where we find ourselves as individuals, as a country, as a global community.  2020 has been a very rough year.  For some, it has been the darkest months of our lives.  Between the pandemic and the political climate, we have been ground down this year – and that’s if you’re one of the lucky ones who hasn’t suffered more personal tragedies and hardships. 

For so many, 2020 has been a year to make us cling to the 23^rd Psalm and its promise that though we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” we need not fear; we will be comforted.  And Christmas is the celebration of that sure comfort.  We hear it in the reading from Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.” 

In the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, the relationship between the 23^rd Psalm and Isaiah chapter 9, verse 2 rings out clearly: the “land of deep darkness” that Isaiah talks about?  It’s the same word for the “valley of the shadow of death” in the Psalm.  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” says Isaiah.  “Those who lived in the valley of the shadow of death – on them light has shined.” 

Right there in those valleys, says Isaiah, right here, right now, we encounter the God of love who shines light into the shadows and darkness that threaten us.  Today, this Christmas, we see that light: “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger.”

In a dark barn, a child is born.  On a dark night, angels appear “and the glory of the Lord [shines] around them.”  In our own dark places, God’s light is revealed to us in the baby in the manger, and the darkness will not, cannot overcome it. 

That is the very “good news of great joy for all the people” which the angel gives to the shepherds in Luke’s gospel.  The angel tells them, tells us: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 

The good news is of a child born this night.  And that same child is also a sign of the good news he embodies.  The Christ-child is both the sign of great joy and that great joy itself, both the sign of God’s light that shines in the shadows and the light itself, incarnate in our lives.   Mary’s son is a sign for us of God’s overpowering love and he is that love poured out for us in every valley, in any lonely place we may be.  In the person of Jesus, God’s light breaks into the darkness of our lives once again. 

But as comforting as it is to see Christ’s light, it is not enough for us to acknowledge it and leave it there.  It is not enough to see light in our darkness on Christmas Day and then, on December 26, return to the valley of shadows, go back to the way things have always been.  If we come to view the Christ-child and then revert back to life-as-normal, then we have seen the sign only and not what the sign points to.  All we’ve seen is a baby in a feed-trough and nothing more.  No, if we expect to see the light, then we must also expect to be transformed by it. 

The shepherds, after all, go from their ordinary vigil in the dark night, to terror at sight of the angel, to joy upon seeing Jesus and finally to the witness of their experiences to others.  They may go back to their fields when all is said and done, but they return as different people, changed by their encounter with Christ and “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” 

And so for us.  We ourselves are not God’s love incarnate, but when we encounter God’s Son in the person of Christ Jesus, we are made by Him into little signs of that love, too.  We, like the shepherds, are transformed into little lights, “glorifying and praising God for all [we have] heard and seen,” shining warmth and comfort, hope and light in others’ valleys of shadows, pointing to the Way out from the darkness. 

“Do not be afraid,” says the angel to the terrified shepherds.  Do not be afraid. 

What a timely word that is to us in these days.  For this has been a year of fears and shadows.  But the divine light cannot be overcome by darkness; our fear cannot withstand the good news we have in Christ incarnate.  Our hopes and fears, our joys and our tears, our fragile dreams and our broken hearts – all of it is bound up in the babe in the manger and redeemed on this Christmas Day. 

And tomorrow?  Tomorrow, we will go forward, into whatever valleys of shadow lie ahead, knowing that we “have seen a great light,” trusting that we carry that light of “God with us” to others, and fearing no evil.  Thanks be to God.  Merry Christmas. Amen.