Christmas Day, 2016
I wonder what it was like the next day. We know all about the heavenly pyrotechnics of that Holy Night, the story which is always at the center of Christmas Eve worship: the angels shattering the darkness of the night and filling the silence with their joyful proclamation. “A child is born in Bethlehem which changes everything’ peace is coming to earth because God’s favor has been poured out.” We know all about the shepherds’ reactions to such amazing news: first terrified, then transfixed, then eager to go and seek. We know that fresh from their visit to the manger they “returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen…” We know all about that; we can recite Luke 2 by heart. But what was it like the next day?
The sun came up as it had every other day. Their sheep still wandered over the hillside in search of a little greenery. Across the valley they could still see Roman soldiers keeping the peace in town. Heading out for another day on the job, their nostrils must have flared with the familiar, hot smell of dust and manure they knew so well. The world did not look very different after their holy night.
I wonder if they wiped their eyes and asked, “Was it all a dream?” Did they awaken, like a drunk from a bender, unsure exactly what had happened the night before, doubting their memories? After all the hype, did they feel slightly deflated by the realization that life continued pretty much as it always had?
Perhaps we and the shepherds have something in common. Though we observe the Nativity of our Lord this morning, it was last night when the walls echoed with celebration: We sang the great Christmas hymns. The trumpets blared the exhilaration of Christ come down. Our hearts were warmed by candles reverently piercing darkness in hope. It is hard for it not to feel a little anticlimactic isn’t it? More than that, perhaps we wonder what difference it makes that Christmas has come.
I graduated from FurmanUniversity. Many say that Furman now has one of the most beautiful campuses in the country—but it was not always so. My Dad, who was on the faculty when Furman began to build its present campus, likes to tell about the day they began construction. He and the president and few other dignitaries stood in field amid the scrub pines of upstate South Carolinaand turned the first shovel. The next day that field looked pretty much the same; that small action did little to transform the landscape. There was still a lot of work to be done, but that first turning was a powerful symbol that there would be no turning back. One shovel full of dirt signified a commitment to transform that land into a beautiful university.
On this Christmas Day there is still a lot of work to be done before the promise of the Christ child is fully realized. We are far from peace on earth. The world may not look so very different than it did 2000 years ago, but something has changed. That holy birth was God’s proclamation that there will be no turning back. In a birth as ordinary as that first turning of the soil in SC, we see God’s commitment to make this world bloom with righteousness, not by standing far off, but by coming among us—Emmanuel, God with us.
The day after Christmas Eve is not anticlimactic; it is simply the next day in our journey toward a hope which God has guaranteed will come in the fullness of time. In Jesus, God has made a promise to be with us amid all the challenges we face. That is worth celebrating. Like the shepherds, let us leave this place “praising God for all we have heard and seen.” God has made us a promise and its fulfillment is sure.