Amanda McMillen, “God is in Your Family”

Merry Christmas! It is such a joy to be with you all this beautiful Christmas
morning. All of our Advent awaiting, all of the hectic Christmas cheer has led us to
this quiet morning moment. I can’t quite put it much better than the angel of the
Lord who stood before the shepherds as they watched their flock by night and said:
"Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the
people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,
the Lord.”

We celebrate this Christmas baby born in the city of David, as one who was
born into a human family. And what is a human family, like all of ours, without
some rough edges? Mary and Joseph were certainly one of the most unsuspecting
human families to receive this glorious gift of God’s presence with humanity. And
that’s because the story of Mary and Joseph is one of scandal. Mary conceives, just
as the angel Gabriel tells her she would, as a young, unmarried virgin - a miracle.
And Joseph is now tasked essentially with raising someone else’s child. This was a
scandal to all who witnessed it. Joseph initially decides to divorce Mary quietly,
until he is told by an angel that Mary is not lying to him, that she really is a virgin,
and that this baby really did come from the Holy Spirit, and now he has to
convince himself and the rest of his family that this miracle is true. It has scandal
written all over it.

At Christmas we celebrate when God came into the real world, into a family
situation that was precarious; he was born in a stable and he napped in a feeding
trough. God, whose glory is unmatched, was born into gritty, fragile, vulnerable
humanity. This means that our real human lives with their grittiness and fragility
and vulnerability are significant to God. It is these real lives we live, with all of
their rough edges, with which God is most concerned.

Our families are made up of those rough edges, aren’t they? We really can
relate to complicated family situations. For all of us here, we might have family we
love, sure, but also family we miss - the stocking that doesn’t get hung up, the
ornaments that remind us of happy times that have past; there’s family we have
and struggle to love, of course - family that makes us feel unknown, or family that
feels far away even when they’re sitting right in front of you at the table; and
there’s family that we long for, that we once wished we’d had but still haven’t
found. Maybe you look at happy families around you and think - how did that
happen? We receive Christmas cards and think, gosh that family looks so
wonderfully blissful. And why is mine so much more complicated?
But it is exactly this real, complex, gritty, vulnerable family that we have
which God comes to be with at Christmas, as a baby, in the arms of an
unsuspecting mother, in a family situation that everyone calls scandalous. That is
where God chooses to dwell. Right here, right with you, in your actual gritty, and sometimes difficult life. The hopes and fears of all the years really are met right
here, in a dirty manger, in Jesus.

In 1861, writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s second wife died from
burns sustained on her body after her dress caught fire accidentally. This was
Longfellow’s second wife to die unexpectedly - his first wife died almost 20 years
previously after having a miscarriage. Longfellow was a man who was familiar
with brokenheartedness and longing. In 1864, 3 years after his second wife died,
during the height of the Civil War, Longfellow wrote this familiar poem that was
eventually turned into a popular Christmas Carol:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn

The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Longfellow was full of longing for the family that he wished he had, in a country
longing for unity and peace on earth. Maybe you look around at dinner on
Christmas at your own family and think - there is certainly no peace on earth here.
Maybe you look around at dinner on Christmas and think - I miss that chaotic
family, I miss the time when I used to wish for peace here. This is where God has
come to dwell, in all of our longings. And not just to dwell and be with us, but also
to be for us. God has come to be with us, and from that presence, to finally deliver
us, from brokenness and longing, from the pain of complicated families, and
eventually from all sin and death. Wherever you are today, whatever you are
experiencing, some cocktail mix of joy and longing, God is with you, and God is
for you.

Merry Christmas. Amen.

Bonding time the Nativity in Townsville. Artist Jan Hynes.