Isaiah 7,
Verse 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.
Immanuel Tonight on this holy eve we pause at the threshold of mystery.
Immanuel,
God with us.
Not God far away watching from a distant heaven.
Not God absent or aloof,
But God with us.
Entering into the fullness of our humanity,
Into our vulnerability,
Our joy,
Our sorrow.
Before the angels sang their glory song,
Before the shepherds ran to sea,
Before the magi began their journey,
There was a young woman saying yes to the impossible.
Mary's body became the dwelling place of the divine.
The word made flesh began in the womb of a teenager from Nazareth in a moment both ordinary and extraordinary.
This is the scandal and the beauty of the incarnation.
God chose to need us,
To be held,
Fed,
Changed,
To learn to walk and talk.
To know hunger and fatigue,
To experience friendship and betrayal.
God chose the limitations of a body,
Our limitations,
To show us that nothing about our embodied existence is too mundane,
Too small,
Too human for the presence of God.
When Jesus breathed his first breath in that Bethlehem stable,
God sanctified every breath we will ever take.
When he felt the ache of tired muscles and the sting of a scraped knee,
God honored the reality of our physical experience.
When he laughed with friends and wept at grave sites,
God validated the full spectrum of our emotional lives.
Emmanuel means we are never alone in our humanity,
Not in our deepest pain,
Not in our highest joy,
Not in the mundane rhythms of our daily lives.
God is with us in the doctor's office and in the boardroom,
In the nursery and the nursing home,
In our prayers and in our silence,
In our certainty and in our doubt.
This Christmas Eve,
Perhaps you come carrying questions,
Perhaps grief,
Maybe exhaustion or confusion or disappointment,
Or perhaps you come with joy that feels almost too large to contain.
Whatever you bring,
Know this,
Emmanuel meets you here,
In your body,
In this moment,
In your reality,
Not in some sanitized spiritual version of yourself,
But in the beautiful messiness,
Sacred truth of who you are right now.
The God who chose to enter the world through a woman's body honors your body as a dwelling place too.
The Christ child who nursed at Mary's breast dignifies your need for nourishment,
Physical,
Emotional and spiritual.
The toddler who learned to walk reminds us that every step of our journey,
Even the stumbling ones,
Matters to God.
Now take a slow deep breath in and as you exhale,
Whisper or think these words,
Emmanuel,
God with me.
Breathe in deeply and breathe out slowly,
Emmanuel,
God with me.
Notice any places in your body that feel tight or tense,
Imagine Christ as a child vulnerable and dependent,
Completely present,
Being held in those very places God is,
With you in your attention,
In your tiredness,
In whatever you're carrying tonight.
Breathe into those spaces and let your exhale be a gentle release,
A surrender to the reality that you don't have to hold everything alone,
Emmanuel is here.
If your mind wanders to your to-do lists or tomorrow's concerns,
It's okay,
Even that wondering is held by God.
Gently return to your breath,
Remembering the truth that you are loved exactly as you are right now.
In this time of reflection and meditation,
Envision in your mind the angels proclaiming glory,
Glory to God in the highest and on earth,
Peace to those on whom his favor rests.
God's favor rests on you.
Not because you've earned it or performed perfectly or gotten everything right,
But because you are God's beloved child and God chooses to be with you.
As you prepare to move from this meditation back into the activities of Christmas Eve,
Carry this truth with you,
Emmanuel is not just a doctrine to believers or a name to remember,
Emmanuel is God's promise enacted in flesh and blood that you will never walk alone.
When you light a candle tonight,
Remember that you too carry a light.
When you sing of the Christ child's birth,
Remember that you too are being continually born into new life by God's spirit.
When you share the good news,
Remember that you yourself are good news,
A living testimony that God delights to dwell with humanity.
Now may you know deep in your bones that God is with you.
May you rest in the wonder that God chose to become one of us.
May you trust that every moment of your life,
The sacred and the mundane,
The joyful and the sorrow is held in the presence of Emmanuel.
John 1 verse 14.
The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory,
The glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
Merry Christmas,
Dear friend.
Remember God is with you.
God is with us all.
Amen.
