By The Rev. Dr. John F. McCard, STM ’03

As I anticipated this year’s very unusual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services—and the silence and loneliness that many of us are feeling by not being together in the church. I was reminded of an experience I had with a group of pilgrims on a visit to the Holy Land many years ago. 

It happened at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, on the West Bank. Now when you watch the History Channel, all these holy places are never crowded. That’s because all the pilgrims are cleared out and all you see is the knowledgeable scholar offering their perspective on each particular spot. 

However, when we first walked into the Church of the Nativity, the place was completely packed. It was far removed from the peaceful crèche scenes we have in our homes this time of year. But despite the crush of people there was, in this crowd, a powerful sense of being part of a shared holy experience. 

Now if you were with a group of pilgrims in Bethlehem and wanted to break out into song, what particular Christmas hymn would you pick?  (Hint, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is not allowed on the list.) If you guessed “Silent Night”, you’re right.

As one group of pilgrims started to sing that moving and peaceful hymn others soon, began to join in the singing—each in their own language. And for one moment I had one of those rare transcendent experiences, when I could feel God’s presence among people who were longing for a connection to the place where Jesus was born. 

Alas, this moment was not meant to last, as an orthodox priest standing in the front of the church began to stomp his feet and shout for all the pilgrims to be quiet. The group tried to ignore the priest and continue to sing but his icy stare, bushy beard, and shouts from other people began to drown out their voices.

Gone was any feeling of kinship, and soon the church returned to a tension-filled silence with occasional mutterings from the crowd. It was, my friends, truly a silent night in the church of the nativity but one that lacked any sense of warmth or hope. 

As I stood there in the place of Jesus’ birth, I couldn’t help but feel that “religious people” had once again gotten the message wrong. Like the shepherds on that first night, the pilgrims who in this case came from China, Nigeria, eastern Europe and the rest of the world understood that Jesus’s birth was not an event to be greeted with silence or fear. 

It was a time to fill the heavens with songs and shouts of joy.  The shepherds left Bethlehem not being able to contain themselves with the message of Jesus’s birth. 

They knew the good news of Christmas was about Jesus belonging to all people of the world, not just grumpy orthodox priests. Trying to control or be in charge of the message of Christmas has ancient roots. Remember King Herod? He was frightened by this birth. He even sent the wise men to spy on this new king. 

Herod feared losing his throne to the child and this paranoid madman was willing to commit any crime and countless atrocities to stay in power. Herod’s desire to control events thankfully came to naught. But at this time of year, there are still plenty of people, not just orthodox priests, who wish to control the message or have some kind of power over how we choose to celebrate Christmas. 

You have heard the voices that I speak of. They say that Christmas is too commercial, that we need to put Christ back in Christmas, that our culture has somehow ruined it. Some Christians act as if Jesus is some kind of commercial commodity that only the church has the marketing rights to promote.

The story of Jesus’ birth at Christmas is the story of God being among us: the least likely people, in the least likely times and places. Jesus is not just for those who are watching our service tonight, or even for people who once visited the Holy Land. 

Christmas celebrates the most incredible gift that God ever gave to all the people of our world. I love the way that John’s gospel describes this gift. It says the word became flesh and dwelt among us, among people just like you and me, with all our faults, our anxieties, and our uncertainties about the future in this pandemic.

Our church’s celebration of Christmas reminds people that our God is a God of abundant love and generosity, a God that draws closer to his people at Christmas, a God that was willing to come into the world: to a manger, in a cave, in a city called Bethlehem.

The Christmas story reminds us that God is able through difficult events; Unwed parents, a birth in a stable among animals, and a child hunted by government authorities to achieve God’s purpose.

In a world much like ours, gripped by a pandemic, filled with hate and full of strife. God is somehow and in some miraculous way able to bring hope to our weary lives. The Christmas story told in the Bible shatters the illusion that Jesus dwells only in perfect people or with so-called Christians in their churches. 

In fact the good news of this night, is that in some mysterious and unfathomable way, God is able through the power of human love and our own frailty to bring about God’s plan for our salvation. 

This is what the birth of Jesus means to me on this night. Despite my many sins and faults too numerous to name, Christmas is a message of hope to you and to me, to a world that suffers, grieves, and wrestles with forces that wish to silence this outpouring of God’s love. 

When I am tempted to feel sorry for myself in this pandemic and for what we have lost in the past year, I think about Mary and Joseph on that first Christmas night. They probably had the most reasons to feel like the most hopeless and God-forsaken people in our whole world. 

But they had faith in God’s promise, and an invincible hope that God would be with them no matter what dangers came to pass. They trusted in God’s purpose, and they had courage to go forward into the uncertainty of that bleak mid-winter night.

Tonight, even though we cannot be with one another in our beloved church, the challenge for us is still the same as it was for Mary and Joseph. Can we find that same kind of courage? Can we go forward together in our own bleak mid-winter nights? 

I believe that we can, for you see Christmas is not found in church buildings, or among perfect people, or even grumpy orthodox priests that don’t care for Silent Night. The hope of Christmas is found in your broken heart and in mine. It is found in the promise that God will never abandon us to the bitter cold of this night, to the fear of the past eight months, and that through the incarnation, God’s love has come again to transform your life and mine.

Emmanuel means God with us as we are, not God with us as we wish we were. And there is, my friends, no disease and no person that will ever be able to silence the songs of joy that Christmas brings to our lives. And more importantly, the courage and hope of God’s promise that our church family can once again offer to this weary world. 

Merry Christmas.

The preceding is adapted from a sermon preached at St. James’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia, by the Rev. Dr. John F. McCard. Dr. McCard completed the Master of Sacred Theology (MTS) degree at Nashotah House in 2003 and Doctor of Ministry Degree at Virginia Theological Seminary in 2007.  He serves as a vestry retreat leader and consultant and is an authority on the writings and life of C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia.