December 25, 2016 – Christmas Day – John 1:1-14
John 1.1-14
Light in the Desert
Nativity of our Lord – Christmas Day – December 25, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Last night on Christmas Eve we sang beautiful carols.
So many beautiful carols!
Some of them spoke of snow – ha! Ahahahahaha!!!!! [we are expecting 30 cm for Sunday!]
We sang of winds moaning in the bleak midwinter and
we sang of the baby Jesus being wrapped in rabbit skin.
We’ve decorated our space with evergreen wreaths and a huge fir tree adorns our space.
And yet. And yet.
As biblical scholar Talitha Arnold reminded me this week, Christmas begins and ends,
not in a wintry forest – but in the desert.
The Christmas story is actually a desert story –
although to look outside this morning you’d never know it.
Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, and Nazareth, where he grew up, are both desert places.
Both receive less than 20 inches of rain annually –
which is enough to grow crops in good years if you are also able to irrigate your land.
This is where Jesus was born – and this is where Jesus lived: in a desert place.
But, as Talitha Arnold also reminds us, he was also born in a desert time, under Roman rule.
The law of the land was enforced with violence, threat and intimidation.
Taxes were crushingly high and went to pay for the very army that oppressed you.
And so when Caesar said “Jump!” you jumped!
Go to your hometowns to be counted!
I want to make sure I’m got everyone counted so that
I can make sure I’m taxing you as much as possible!
Yes; even you, Joseph, with your pregnant wife!
So off they went to a strange town – where Jesus is born.
In a desert time and in a desert place – and the story stays there for a long time.
After Jesus is born his family has to flee to another desert place, Egypt, because
Caesar’s puppet king Herod can’t stand the thought of a rival king.
Born in the desert. Raised in the desert.
And ultimately ministering in the desert.
His cousin John calls people to the desert – and announces a great light has come to the desert.
And in the desert they heal and feed and forgive –
and announce God’s coming rule of gentle justice and healing peace.
The Christmas story begins and stays in the desert –
and maybe that is the best part of the whole thing.
For if God can be born there, then maybe – just maybe –
God can be born in the harsh, desolate landscapes of our lives and of our world.
Jesus brought life to the desert – he brought welcome to the stranger and
inclusion for the outcast.
He brought the freedom of forgiveness to those oppressed by guilt.
He brought drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry.
He brought healing to the sick and hope to the hopeless.
And he brought life to the dead.
And so, for a time, the desert bloomed and joy sang in the sands.
John announces Jesus’ arrival in the desert:
he came to what was his own and his own did not accept him.
Jesus knew about the harsh desert landscape and he experienced it in his own body.
The alienation and the rejection and the death.
And yet he met those harsh dark realities with light.
From a cross he pronounced forgiveness to those who put him there.
From a desolate tomb he came forth with a life that is stronger than death.
And he came forth in order to give that light to you.
So that he might bear with you in a desert time, and in a desert place.
Be born in us today, we sang last night.
Be born in us, be born in the deserts with us, Jesus.
Be born to us in the desert that you know all too well.
Help us navigate by day and give us warmth and comfort at night.
Grant us – not the harsh killing light of the desert – but your gentle, Christmas Eve candle light.
Light our way with it.
And help us to light others’ lights along the way with it.
That together we might shine brighter with the gentle life-giving lights of
kindness, and gentleness, and warmth, and generosity,
and manna-sharing and mercy-giving.
Be born in us, be born in our desert places – and help us to bear your light of love to the world.
Help us transform the desert places into gardens, where beauty and food are plentiful.
Turn our deserts into springs where
all might find a thirst for comfort and companionship quenched.
Come and be born in the desert again – where you lived, where you died,
and where you rose again.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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