Don't be afraid.

A sermon preached Christmas Eve, 2005 at Faith Episcopal Church.

As Christmas of 1980 approached, our nation held its collective breath, praying for the release of the 52 Americans still held hostage in Tehran after more than a year. They were the remainder of the Embassy staff captured when supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini had stormed the US compound. A few of their co-workers had escaped, sheltered by the Canadians. Fourteen others had been released for various reasons but by Christmas 1980, 50 men and 2 women remained. It would be another month before they were released. That Christmas Eve, I was a 29 year old, mother of two small children, living in the heartland of Indiana and singing in the choir at St. Albans’ Episcopal Church. As we arrived to rehearse before the service, we all fell silent at the sight of the Christmas decorations. On the credence shelf behind the altar, among the greens, were 52 red roses. The sight of those flowers and their significance propelled me into a more profound experience of Christmas than I had ever known. The self-focused boundaries of my faith, unchanged since my youth, were redefined. What we said in church, particularly on Christmas Eve, suddenly related to – well, just about everything. Unsuspectingly, in my safe little life in Indianapolis, I was one with those people so far away. I hoped that somehow the words “Do not be afraid” could mean something to them, too.

As I worked on this sermon this week, pondering the importance of that night in my life I came across an eerie coincidence – at least it would be a coincidence if I believed in them. The US Embassy in Tehran had been targeted as an attempt to force the US to extradite the exiled Shah who was in the US receiving medical treatment. Student revolutionaries stormed the Embassy on November 4^th. Twenty-two years later, to the day, November 4^th 2001, at the American Cathedral in Paris, I officiated at the very grand funeral of Her Imperial Highness, the Princess Soraya, the former wife of the Shah of Iran. I’m still working on the significance of this little discovery but I think it has to do with the way that Christmas infiltrates our lives. The way that God becomes incarnate in us. What I didn’t realize then was that this deeper experience of “God with us” had begun working on me quietly all those years before until it was ready to be noticed. Until it was captured in the spotlight of the memory of those roses. In the curious manner of how our faith works – what appeared to be an “Aha, I’m a grown up Christian moment” in 1980 was really beginning of something that would take a long time to ripen – one that would manifest itself in an unknown way as I preached the homily at Princess Soraya’s funeral looking down into the face of the brother of the late Shah who could have been his twin. I knew that it was a strange moment, I just didn’t know how strange. What I hear in this is God’s whisper saying, “I’ve been here all along; I’ve been working in you for longer than you realize.”

In her fabulous book, Amazing Grace; A Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris has this to say by way of defining the term incarnation. She says: “For me, the Incarnation is the place, if you will, where hope contends with fear. Not an antique doctrine at all, but reality – as ordinary as my everyday struggles with fears great and small, as exalted as the hope that allows me some measure of peace when I soldier on in the daily round….it is not robed in majesty. It does not assert itself with the raw power of empire (not even the little empire of the self in which I all too often reside), but it waits in puzzlement, it hesitates. Coming from Galilee, as it were, from a place of little hope, it reveals the ordinary circumstances of my life to be full of mystery and gospel…”

The Incarnation – that mysterious desire of God to be truly with us which began with Jesus’ birth, begins again each year. It begins again in every moment in which God breaks through to us. But it comes to us in a way that can be best described in the birth of a child that was barely noticed. Outside of a few astrologers who were interpreting the celestial signs, the shepherds and probably the innkeeper’s wife (because I cannot imagine Joseph handling things on his own!) who on earth knew what had happened? The world did not notice when Jesus was born anymore than I knew that an event half a world away in the Embassy in Tehran would eventually lead to profound spiritual growth.

The Incarnation does not come like a parade or like an invasion on the beaches of Normandy. There is little fanfare, no press coverage, no feedback or spin. It lies seemingly dormant, sleeping like a baby and grows slowly until one day, the unseen work is accomplished and you notice it. You look around with recognition and see that nameless hurricane victims are dearer to you than you can explain. Events that earlier had seemed unrelated to you are endowed with poignancy because as with the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, love has made them real. This gentle nature of Christmas is why the angels keep saying “don’t be afraid.” The presence of God is often experienced as an awful thing – that is a thing of awe and holy fear. It’s generally a good thing to be wise enough to be afraid of God’s messing in your life. It can lead to radical change and directional shifts so sharp as to give you whiplash, but not Christmas. Christmas is proof of God’s wisdom – we might learn how to run from a more direct divine approach but not one that works on us so gently, so quietly. We are told not to be afraid, because we need not be.

There has been considerable nonsense in the weeks leading up to tonight about a “war on Christmas.” As if anyone could truly interfere with the work of the incarnation. As I looked at those red roses twenty-five years ago tonight all of the commercial trappings of the Christmas retail season were absolutely superfluous. They were not Christmas then and they are not Christmas now. My encounter with the incarnate God could not be lessened if no one ever said “Merry Christmas” again. If Christmas has not happened in your heart, I doubt that its use in advertising language will move you a deeper experience of Bethlehem. Don’t be afraid, Christmas will never depend on a corporate policy that dictates what someone says to you as they hand you a receipt. Don’t be afraid, even if all you ever hear is “Happy Holidays” because you will find Christmas in places that the world cannot touch.

The best of Christmas is not what happened so long ago but what is happening now in your heart. You are Bethlehem and God has come down to be made known, to be made real, to be born in you. Don’t be afraid – it is good news and great joy.