Christmas Day Prayer:
We have waited for a long time for your hope, your joy, your love to shine in the darkness of this world, Almighty God.
Even now, in our gathering here, we await you. In our hearts, we still hope that your light will blaze forth, banishing the shadows of this world and guiding all the people back to you.
Yet you did not come into this world in a show of power and glory. You did not shine forth for all of creation to behold.
A tiny spark – a newborn baby, visible to parents and curious animals.
A host of angels – away from the populated areas, singing to migrant workers.
A sparkling star – guiding foreigners to see what neighbors could not.
Open our hearts, merciful God, to the sparks of your presence still in this world.
Open our eyes, that we might behold your presence in the least likely of places, and among the least likely of people.
God with us, kindle your spark within us,
that together we may shine forth your light, we might banish the shadows of this world, we might be the continuation of the Christmas miracle:
Emmanuel is in this world, God is with us, now and evermore. Amen.
Sermon: Mary and Little Messiah.
To me Mary has always been the second most important person of the Gospel. More important than Emperor Augustus in all his power, more important than the governor of Syria with the difficult name, more important than Joseph a hardworking carpenter and reluctant father, more important than the shepherds on the field, the Wise men on the road, or even the Angels of the sky.
Jesus, the little child in the manger, is the center of all the attention and the reason for this season, but Mary speaks to my heart.
Mary is truly a carrier of the Gospel Story and literary a carrier of the Good News, her son, the Messiah.
I guess Mary has always been close to my heart. Many many years ago in a small kingdom far from here, I was once a little girl.
When I was in 4th grade we were enrolled to study for and perform the annual Christmas Pageant in the local Church. All my best friends and I competed for the best role: we all wanted to play Mary. We wanted to be beautiful young Mary with a pillow under our dress to show how her pregnancy and a fine hallow showing our purity, as she was on the strenuous journey from Nazareth to Betlehem. Maybe we all wanted to secure the role as Mary not just out of devout hearts, but maybe out of hearts of desire who were secretly in love with the one chosen to be Jospeh: Flemming with the blue eyes and the fancy moped boots.
There were roles we truly didn’t desire to be chosen for: the stubborn donkey, the crying little baby, the bahing sheep, or the angry inn keeper. So, maybe it wasn’t that bad that I did not get the role of Mary, but got the role of the Angel, Gabriel. The Glorious Shining Angel bringing good news to the world.
We had rehearsal, and I solemnly embraced the role as the good news proclaiming angel Gabriel, how was to climb the pulpit and spread out the arms to spread light and message about the little child being born to the world.
If I couldn’t be Mary, walking along side Flemming with his blue eyes and his fancy moped boots, then this was the second best I thought.
A dark December evening the old church of Allested was filled with parents, grandparents, siblings, school friends, teachers and neighbors, and the Christmas Pageant began.
I was dressed in all white linen, and as I was climbing up the stairs to the pulpit, my teacher placed the Angel Wings on my shoulders, which hadn’t been a part of the rehearsal. Beautiful feathery white wings, that were anything but featherily light. In fact, they were so heavy and burdensome, that I only managed to step up on the pulpit only to be pulled back down.
It was a very short visit by the angel that night. In fact, it was a very embarrassing visit – that I think traumatized me and I finally put behind me when I actually did climb the pulpit as a pastor without being pulled back and down by heavy wings.
Well, one of the reasons why I love Mary so much, it because she is human and female.
She is a young girl, a young mother, she is a prophet and a preacher. And she does not have wings, but instead a real beating mother heart.
Like one of theological collegues once said, when debating the question about Female Pastors: Anna Madsen
“Seems to me that if a woman bears God in her belly for 9 month, and bears God from the womb into a stable, she can also bear the word of God from her mouth in a pulpit.”
But mostly I love Mary because she is a mother.
I will never forget the day our first son was born. Kristian was planned, projected and protected as only a first born with all the anxiety of becoming a mom and being blessed with a little child to love and care for.
I will never forget the day our second son was born, Mads was planned, projected and protected too and welcomed with more calm as I thought I somehow knew what it meant to become a mom and blessed with yet another child to love and care for.
I will never forget the day our first son was born. Our kind neighbor and friend drove us to the hospital, and I was sitting in the back, feeling every bump and turn of the road to Grindsted. Like I can only imagine poor Mary have felt on the donkey back. The labor was to be a long and exhausting adventure of 20 hours – until Kristian finally came into being and into our lives.
I will never forget the day our second son was born. We drove ourselves to the hospital convinced we had plenty of time, but within 2 hours Mads was born into being and into our lives.
Births and Babies might be different, but the sense of motherhood and love is the same.
For me, for my mom, for my sisters, for each every one of you dear mothers in the pews. And for Mary, the young girl who became the mother of Jesus that first Christmas Night.
Becoming a mother, becoming a father, becoming a parent, is becoming a family; and it is the beginning of our journey as such: the most rewarding and demanding experience of our lives. Immediately our children become the center of our world, as though a huge part of our own hearts were living and breathing outside of ourselves.
The love I feel for our sons, - the love that you feel for your children, is the closest we can come to understand the unconditional love God.
I knew instantly and instinctively from the moment I first held ours sons in my arms that I would do everything possible to ensure that these tiny, fragile, lovely, lovable, crying, depended small persons, would be safe in our care, would be loved, protected and promised a good life.
I often think about this blessing and these beginnings. These births and babies. Things could have been so much harder for us and our boys, if circumstances over which we have almost no control were different.
What if we were bringing our sons into the world while experiencing poverty and homelessness?
What if we had to make the difficult choice to flee violence or persecution to give our sons a better chance in life ?
What if we had to provide for our babies amid a dangerous journey that took them far away from their native land and families, without knowing if we could ever ever return?
What if our sons’ earliest years were marred by malnutrition or traumas, which could ruin a childs future and development?
What if…..
These what if… often fill my thoughts when I read, re read, listen and re listen to the Christmas Gospel.
It is profoundly significant that Jesus was born not in a secure, Danish two income household with Volvo, Vovse and Villa and 1.5 children – but was born to an unwed teenage mother.
It matters that God entered the world not in a pristine hospital room, but in an unclean stable.
It matters that God was born amid a colonized people living under brutal oppression and exploitation of the Roman Empire.
It matters that Jesus, as a baby, had to flee the violent threats of his nation due to a decree to murder every child under the age of 2.
Jesus came into the world with a special concern for the poor, the vulnerable, marginalized from the very beginning. Jesus suffered from the evil and injustice of the world, - that we still recognize in our time and age, and especially and heartbreakingly so with the tragedy in Israel and Palestine.
It matters that Jesus was born by Mary: a mother like all mothers across time and age. A mother who possibly didn’t know what it would mean to be a mother, a parent, and even less knew life, the light, the blessing that her little child would be. That we still in the year 2023 celebrate his birth that night in Bethlehem.
The Old Prophet Isaiah said: “ The people who walked n darkness have seen a great light, those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined.”
How poetic and prophetic. We still long for that light to shine in the darkness of despair, destruction and inhumanity.
The prophet continues: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us: authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
As we reflect upon the meaning of Christmas for us this year, from all the different places we come, in all the different families we live, from all the different beliefs, doubts and reservations we might have, - we are reminded through this story of Mary and Jesus, that the God of exiles, refugees and migrants still shines light amid todays present darkness.
Peace of earth is what the Christ Child came to bring, and God’s favor extends beyond human bounds and measures.
Peace on Earth, can it be
Years from now, perhaps we'll see
See the day of glory
See the day, when men of good will
Live in peace, live in peace again
Peace on Earth, can it be
Every child must be made aware
Every child must be made to care
Care enough for his fellow man
To give all the love that he can.
Peace on earth can it be….. it can only be when we as humans act with compassion, with care, with motherly love to our neighbor, yes even our enemies, the ones we don’t like, the ones we seem to hate, the ones that seem to hate us. We need to begin with light. We need to light the first candle of hope and change. We need to carry hope to the world instead of despair.
That is what Christmas is: hope and light in a fearful, dark and hopeless world
Like the ever-wise Desmond Tuto said: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
God places us in the world as his fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God's world.”
Mary was the mother, but also the prophet and the preacher in a violent world urging us to be compassionate and loving, to listen to the beating human heart instead of all the noisy inhumane banter that truly breaks every heart.
God, we are waiting for love.
The kind of love wrapped in rags, resting in a bucket of animal feed.
Love enough to save us all.
Blessed are we who look for love,
Deeper, fuller, truer, than we have ever know,
That we could have ever hoped for.
Blessed are we who seek you,
The light that dawned so long ago
In that dark stable.
Love given.
Love received.
Mary and Messiah. Love has come for you and me and the world. Amen.