Isaiah 9:2 – 7 / Psalm 96 / Luke 2:1 – 20
This is the homily given at St. John’s,
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Friday, December 24, 2021.
“THE CHRISTMAS STORY: A LOVE STORY”
(Homily text: Luke 2:1 – 20)
It
can be refreshing and helpful to step back from a very familiar story in order
to ask ourselves, “What is the basic message or truth that we’re supposed to
glean from this?”
The
Christmas story, familiar to most of us who’ve had any experience with the
Church or with the Bible (OK, I admit there are fewer people who fall into one
or both of those two categories these days than there might have been in times
past) know the basics of the story, either from Matthew’s account or from
Luke’s account. It’s Luke’s account which we are hearing and considering
tonight.
What’s
going on with these accounts of Jesus’ birth?
I
think, if we try to see some unifying message, it would be that this is, at its
most basic truth, a love story. A love story about God’s love for the world He
created and which He sustains, and a love story about human beings, whom He
also created and with whom He wants to have a deep, enduring and intense love
relationship.
Love.
It
might be a good idea for us to consider just what love is, for I think, in this
present age, the concept of love and the ways we might expect to experience it,
need a bit of refreshing, a step back, if you will, to see just what love
really is.
When
we think about love, perhaps we think of it as an emotion, as when a person
loves another person, for example. And, in truth, when our culture thinks about
love, it’s likely that it’s romantic love that’s in view. But, in truth, love
isn’t just an emotion, love is really a force, a powerful force that can change
things. For example, consider a spouse who’s caring for their partner who is
very sick…that spouse might well do extraordinary things to support that other,
beloved one who’s in deep need. That sort of love is a force, a powerful agent
for making things better, for improving the life of another.
Oftentimes,
in our culture today, we equate love with permissiveness, as if to characterize
it by saying, “If you really love me, you’ll let me do whatever I feel like
doing”. But if we really and truly love someone, we might want to reach out to
them to correct something they’re doing that is harmful to themselves and
perhaps to others. This sort of love sets limits that seek that loved person’s
ultimate welfare and wellbeing. An example might be the parent or grandparent
who makes comments about a new driver in the family whose behavior behind the
wheel is dangerous to themselves and to others. Saying such things oftentimes
isn’t easy to have to say, or easy to have to hear. But true love seeks the
best for that other, loved person, simply because we want the very best for the
other.
If
we consider what we’ve just said, we might boil this definition of love into
two themes: 1. Love is a force for change, and 2. Love seeks the best for that
other, beloved one.
Now,
let’s apply these two observations to the Christmas event.
First
of all, we might say that God, in sending His only Son, Jesus Christ, sent Him
into the world to be a force for change. By His life, Jesus showed us the way
that God wants us to live and love. That sort of love meant that God would have
to come into the world and assume our humanity to the full. As Jesus lived
among us, as a full and complete human being, He experienced all the things we
human beings are able to experience, including not just the “good stuff” of things
like wonderful and fulfilling relationships with others, but the “bad stuff” of
suffering, disappointment, rejection and death.
In
sending Jesus Christ to live among us, God’s intent is to show us the way to
live that brings about full, complete and true happiness and joy. In so doing,
God demonstrated to us that the true meaning of love means that there are
things God would want us to be doing, and things He would warn us not to do.
There are limits involved in this sort of love, limits that can protect us from
things that can separate us from each other and from God.
Considering
this business of love, consider what people who do not know anything (much)
about the Church might think that the Church stands for. Perhaps the answer
would be that people outside the Church might think that the Church is a place
where hate is preached and practiced.
But
the Church’s business, its reason for being, its mission, is to be a place
where love, true, abiding and lasting love, is preached and practiced. The
Church is in the “Love business”. The Church is a place where the goal is to
introduce God to people and people to God, and to nourish that relationship in
love.
That’s
why we’re here tonight, to hear about God’s love story, God’s intense, deep,
abiding love for the world and the people who live in it. The Christmas story
invites each of us to a deeper, more intense loving relationship with the Lord,
to return to the Lord the great gift of love He has for us by loving Him in
return, and to make that love known to an unloving and oftentimes cruel world
by the things we say and the things we do.
AMEN.
