Christmas III, Year C
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
December 25, 2021
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page.
Welcome, and thank you for joining us this morning! Christmas services tend to hold a lot of new or returning faces, and for some of you, that new face just might be me. My name is Jonathan Hanneman, and I began serving as priest here at St. Andrew’s a little less than three months ago. We’re happy to have you here and hope that you’ll feel free to join us for one of our regular Sunday services as well.
It’s hard to know what to say about Christmas that hasn’t already been said. The radio constantly reminds us “it’s the most wonderful time of the year,” and I’d assume everyone who chooses to be in a church this morning already realizes “Jesus is the reason for the season.” I also know you aren’t here just to listen to me talk, so getting right to it, the gist of my message is “God comes down.”
God doesn’t hide from Creation. God hasn’t given up on humanity in our constant chaos, our violence, greed, and corruption. No, God comes down, descending right into the midst of it all: the pain, the poverty, and the sorrow; the love, the hopefulness, and the joy. God isn’t like a judge closed up in her chambers, reviewing the laws and striving to remain impartial. Nor does God wander the edge of the Cosmos, disinterested in what already is and dreaming only of new adventures or things to come. No, God comes down.
It can be scary to think about. We spent the last four Sundays preparing for the arrival of the King of Kings. We been struggling to set the whole world in order, to level mountains and fill valleys, to make ready the Royal Road. But like dishes or laundry, there’s still more to do—there’s always more to do. So we wait anxiously, hoping that when God comes down, they’ll somehow be satisfied enough with what we have accomplished to overlook what’s still lacking.
God is great—all-powerful, all-knowing, and present throughout everything that is—those things we can figure out for ourselves. Yet even if we’ve learned not to tremble, even if we recognize that God is love and God is good, Christmas offers us a truth we would never have figured out on our own: God is humble.
God comes down, not in fury and judgment but in weakness and vulnerability. God comes down in innocence, in need of nurturing, in need of care. On Christmas we stand in witness to mystery: the God who made all things, who spoke the light and stars and world into being, who knows each and every one of us by name, this same God needs us[1]—not for the sake of anything like loneliness or self-aggrandizement but because God chooses to need us, to be fed and cuddled and cherished, allowing all of us—God and Creation included—to grow into the fullness of what we truly can become.
God is humble. God comes down. God continues to come down. And because of that, we don’t have to be afraid. God has chosen to make their home not only near us but within us and among us. God cries out in the darkness and calls for our care. God arrives in our frailty and fear, both needing our service and opening our hearts to be served. God, in Christ, comes down—and will always come down, fully embracing humanity exactly as it is, growing in and among us and, through word and example, revealing the reality of God’s love as we make our way to the Kingdom, divine and mortal walking together along the path of life.
[1] “God…does not care in the least if his love makes him look as if he is dependent on us, as if he needs us: that is our problem, not his.” | Williams, Rowan. Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin. Sheen & Ward, 2002. Page 29.