Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church,
Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2021

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.

I know I sound like a grade-school teacher when I say it, but the scriptures that we hear tonight have some grammatical problems.  The writers of these texts can’t seem to figure out what tense to put their verbs in. 

The prophet Isaiah talks about people who “lived in a land of deep darkness” – firmly in the past – but on whom “light has shined,” which is to say, it started shining a while ago and is still shining now.  The salvific child “has been born” but his coming is somehow incomplete since everything he is to accomplish is in the future tense: “his authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace” and “he will establish” a just and righteous kingdom.  And “the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do [all of] this.”

The psalmist, too, wants us to “sing to the Lord a new song” and to “tell it out among the nations [that] the Lord is King,” right now, but that same Lord “will judge the people with equity” and “will judge the world with righteousness” some time in the future, “when he comes to judge the earth.”

And then there’s the writer of the letter to Titus who sounds a bit like Marty Mcfly, jumping from present to past tense and then back to the future.  In four short verses, he uses or implies at least three different tenses, depending on how you count.  God’s grace “has appeared” and through that appearance that at least began in the past, continues to bring salvation to all now, “training us […] in the present age to live” godly lives, “while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” who is to come again (having already appeared, remember), at some future date. 

Wait, what?

If you’re confused by what exactly happened when – or is happening or is going to happen – it’s no wonder.  So am I.

Indeed, so much is confusing these days that the shifts in tense in our scriptures sort of fit right in.  Here we are, at the end of 2021.  How many of us, this time last year, with vaccines starting to become available, thought we’d be done with the pandemic by this Christmas?  (Even that sentence mixes tenses badly!)  I know a year ago I didn’t expect us to be where we are now.  And yet here we are.  Still fighting the pandemic.  Still trying to discern scientific fact from internet fiction.  Still trying to convince skeptical family and friends of data we don’t quite grasp ourselves.  Still confused.  Still longing for a way out, an escape from it all, salvation. 

The muddle of tenses fits with the tense muddle around us. With so much of the world in chaos and a cacophony of opinions stated as fact swirling around us, with covid numbers climbing right alongside the cost of milk and gas, with no clear picture of how – or when – this all ends, how can we make space to celebrate Christmas this year? 

Isaiah places the people who “lived in deep darkness” firmly in the past, but our experience this year – these two years – feels very much in the present tense.  Look around and we see deep darkness still.  To the psalmist’s assurance that the Lord will judge the world with “equity” and “righteousness,” we respond with the deep longing of heartbreak: how much longer must we wait? When will come the judgement that will make all things – at last – right?

And if you are feeling that tension, that heartbreak, that confusion this Christmas, know this: yours is the most faithful response for Christians today.  Our joy tonight cannot be untinged by sorrow and longing.  We are too realistic for that. 

But we can nonetheless feel real joy mixed right in.  We can hold on to the hope of our faith: that the incarnation of our God in the person of Jesus Christ, in the baby who is born tonight and was born two thousand years ago and will yet be born in our lives tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, that incarnation is still the good news that shines light right now in our deep darkness.  When we celebrate that incarnation, we remember that just as we know the sun is still there even during our night, so too, God’s kingdom is a reality that we trust exists even when we can’t see it clearly. 

In the end, you see, Isaiah and the psalmist and the letter to Titus got it right: the light has shone in our darkness.  The child has come, is coming, and will come into our broken world and our broken hearts.  We can still live righteous lives in times and places that are all very wrong.  Because as Christians, we know and trust that our whole selves are caught up in the already-but-not-yet of Christ’s kingdom, in the everlasting holy moment of God’s time, which is not our time. 

Tonight, amid all the darkness, amid the confusion and fear and frustration, our faith teaches us to “joyfully receive [Christ] as our Redeemer” who has come already to dwell with us, and gives us the “sure confidence” that we will yet again “behold him when he comes to be our Judge.”  Tonight, amid all the bad news in the headlines and the anxiety of the present moment, let us cling faithfully to what the angel proclaims to shepherds and to us: “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy. To you is born this day […] a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  Good news indeed.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.