A Spark [Christmas Eve 2015]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Luke 2:1-20

A Spark

I’d like to begin tonight with a poem, by Scott Cairns, called

Annunciation

Deep within the clay, and O my people

very deep within the wholly earthen

compound of our kind arrives of one clear,

star-illumined evening a spark igniting

once again the tinder of our lately

banked noetic fire. She burns but she

is not consumed. The dew lights gently,

suffusing the pure fleece. The wall comes down.

And – do you feel the pulse? - we all become

the kindled kindred of a king whose birth

thereafter bears to all a bright nativity.[1]

It changed everything, you see.  All of creation defined by a single moment, like the world spinning on the head of a pin.  Just one single human birth split time in two – and now it is before and after.  Just a birth: special, but nothing special.  Everyone has been born, made of the same stuff, all shaped of the same ancient clay. 

The angels sang in the clear, dark sky – the night the spark hit the tinder.  Creation must have felt the impact – the fall from Heaven to Earth is impossibly far.  It should have stopped time, that first tiny cry, an echo of the very word that called all things into existence.  But it didn't.  In the loud world, it was like a whisper – drowned out by Babel-sounds and white-noise.  Other babies came into the world that same evening, one assumes.  They cried too – just as loudly – clearing out their little lungs.  Jesus crying out in his first act of solidarity.  We don't know those other Christmas babies; we don't remember them now; but on that night they were celebrated with as much pomp as little Jesus. 

While God was being born into our human family, people were doing their people things.  It just kept going: the wars continued, the laughter continued, the pain continued, the joy continued, all of the stuff that is so human continued – all unabated.  Only the Holy Family and some shepherds were interrupted.  Everything changed and no one noticed.  No rooms even opened up in the inn.

Is this the entrance of a god?  When he died there was an earthquake and darkness gathered.  But by then: too late.  The entire wired world watched in rapt silence as Prince George of Cambridge took his first breath; Jesus got some shepherds, local shepherds, who were living in a field.  His formal welcome from the royal family was a death warrant issued by Herod.  Long live the King, indeed.

This is Christmas.  Caught between the world of Emperor Augustus and the plan of God, is this tiny baby – both, at once, new creation and Creator.  In the Incarnation, the Subject becomes subject to the whims of the sinful society in which power and violence and money are the currency of kings.  Into that God brought no fight, no status, no riches.  God chose weakness as the way in.  God conquered the world through vulnerability.  Christmas is God exposed.  It was a precarious plan – and the salvation of the entire cosmos depended on it.

CS Lewis wrote, “In the Incarnation, God the Son takes the body and human soul of Jesus, and, through that, the whole of Nature, all the creaturely predicament, into [God's] own being. So that '[Christ] came down from Heaven' can almost be transposed into 'Heaven drew earth up into it', and locality, limitation, sleep, sweat, footsore weariness, frustration, pain, doubt, and death, are, from before all worlds, known by God from within.  The pure light walks the earth; the darkness, received into the heart of Deity, is there swallowed up.  Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?”[2]  

Christmas is like an island: there are mountains just below the surface.  There is so much more going on than the manger scene suggests.  Jesus wasn't much to see; he was a newborn baby – all pointy head and wrinkly skin.  But behind his eyes was the ancient story of salvation.  In his lungs was the breath of life.  In his heart was the love that held together the entire universe.  God entered the world as a tiny spark – the pure light that would swallow the darkness.  And that tiny spark set everything on fire. 

And – do you feel the pulse? - we all become

the kindled kindred of a king whose birth

thereafter bears to all a bright nativity.[3] 

It changed everything, you see: Christmas.  God refused to give us our distance.  And now here we are: the kindled kindred of a king – set on fire by the same spark that made the angels sing and the shepherds run, that made the prophets hope and Mary magnify the Lord.  Christmas is not a thing that happened during the reign of Emperor Augustus.  We are not commemorating an event that took place half-way around the world 2000 years ago.  We celebrate Christmas because the world is still pulsating with the impossible love of a God who risked too much and got too close. 

Incarnation is still happening.  It is happening in us.  God still refuses to give us our distance.  God is still getting under our skin.  We are now the body of Jesus, the Incarnation of the Incarnate One.  The spark is now in you and in me.  And so the light still walks the earth, carrying the salvation story, a story now entrusted to the kindled kindred of the king.  

   

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[1]   Idiot Psalms, 81.

[2]   Surprised by Joy: December 25.

[3]   Idiot Psalms, 81.