On Christmas Eve — the final piece in our Advent series

It’s looking a lot like this around here today. Christmas Eve and I can’t even find my desk. There are still gifts to be wrapped and children whining about not having anything to do (are you kidding me?). There are shirts that need ironing and church services to prepare for and food for tomorrow that needs cooking and…. my hands are shaking just typing all of this. It is Christmas Eve for goodness sake!

The little one is bursting with excitement and can hardly be still for a minute. The big ones are shaking presents and asking a million questions. And I am wondering about those lyrics, ” Silent night … all is calm, all is bright.” Whoever wrote that song obviously did not spend Christmas Eve with three boys! Someone cranks up the Christmas carols on the radio and I rub my head… isn’t it a little early in the morning for so much noise? Feeling a bit like the Grinch, I sit to try and make sense of the mess.

And that’s when I see the Bible verse for this day. It is a familiar scripture, one that even cartoon characters know. And it’s buried right there in the piles on my desk reading its way into my destroyed office, over the gifts I haven’t wrapped and the Christmas cards that haven’t all been sent, above the trimmings and the trappings that seem so important.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:11-12).

The needs of the day press hard against me. I have yelled at four people already and how are there presents that I still haven’t wrapped? But that verse. It lands right in my space and it won’t move. “For unto you this day in the City of David, a Savior”. The City of David. That’s the tiny town of Bethlehem, with its messy stable and crowded space. That’s where God chose to put his feet? It slows my frantic pace just a bit.

I remember these words of the prophet Ezekiel, who lived hundreds of years before the baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Ezekiel recorded these words of the Lord in his book of the Bible, “Son of Man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet… and I will dwell among them forever.” (Ezekiel 43:7-9). Now, God was talking about the temple when he spoke to Ezekiel. He was talking about the holiest place where he dwelled in the temple among the Israelites. But that’s not where God chose to put his actual feet when he came to walk among us.

When he came to us, he came humbly, quietly and into a city that was a bit of a mess. I look around my office, papers, wrappings, cards, work all scattered about. Here? He wants to come here? Into this place?

“For unto you this day in the City of David is born a Savior…”

And I hear it like this:

Unto you, you, right where you are, in your frantic pace to make it all perfect. You, in your job that never ends, in your family that never seems to get along, in your sadness that won’t lift, in your self-sufficient striving to be good, unto you, a Savior. In the city of David, in your place, your messy, haphazard, loud, piles of stuff everywhere place, unto you, a Savior. Your Savior. My Savior. Right here. The soles of the feet of a mighty God step here and come walking right towards us. He is here. Our Savior, Christ the Lord.

So. Just. Stop. I drop all the work and I breath it deep. He comes. He always comes. “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). I hear him whisper, on this night, it is unto you in your City of David that I come. You need only receive it.

I light the candles right on top of the piles and the stuff. Because I am starting to get it; I desperately need him to be here in it with me. Maybe you too? This Christ candle, the white one, is finally lit on this Christmas Eve and I feel the weight lifting.

Unto us, a Savior. Christ, the Lord ,the newborn king. Can you hear the angles singing? He is here among us in our places, our “Cities of David” whatever they may look like. He comes there. And he whispers, Peace be still!

Merry Christmas, dear friends. May this night bring you deep breaths and solid joy that reaches all the way down to your toes. And may your souls rest in the knowledge that Jesus, our Savior, is here with us. The prophets had it right, “he [the Lord] will dwell among his people forever” (Ezekiel 43:9).

Now,  I know you need to hustle out there and get it all ready. So go on. But go slow, friends, and breathe deep. And don’t miss this. That baby in the manger? He can take the mess. Yours, mine, all of it. In fact, that’s exactly why he came. Immanuel, God with us.  Alleluia, Amen!

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).