Christmas Morning Quiet

A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

Merry Christmas friends!

Do you hear that?

It’s quiet. 

I love this about Christmas morning services. The quiet. The crowds and the loudness and big celebration of Christmas Eve are so good.

And to me they get at the enormity, and beautiful loudness of the heavenly host; throngs of angels singing to the shepherds, announcing the birth of Jesus. The arrival of God. With us. A world-shifting change.

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" they sing.

But then the angels leave the shepherds. And it is here I think we shift to the quieter time of Christmas morning.

It is here where we are left with ordinary, earthly sounds. Trudging hooves. Soft breeze. Occasional bahhs.   

I imagine the shepherds felt that ringing in the ear you get after being exposed to loud noise. I kind of feel that way on Christmas day, don’t you? If not in the morning after the rush of young hands tearing gifts open, and after the guests have left. I find I need a few moments to reorient myself. To the ordinary. To the calm. To the quiet, predictable sound.

I imagine it may have felt the same way for the shepherds after the angels returned to the heavens.

The shepherds move quickly to reach this destination the heavenly host told them about – to the sight of the greatest thing that has ever happened. I wonder what they thought they would find there?

Because they did not find a place of enormous angel-sounds. They found a place of ordinary, earthly sounds. Hushed words, tip-toing feet.  A mother. A father. A tiny infant, lying in a manger.

Luke tells us that “all who heard it were amazed” at what the shepherds told them. But that “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” “Pondered them in her heart.”

You can imagine the excitement in the voices of the shepherds as they reported their news. But of course – Mary already knew.  And so she simply treasured the words. She met the enormity of this defining moment in cosmic history with quiet.

Christmas morning quiet.

God has been born to us in a season of long, cold night. God has been born to us in all of our pain and anguish and grief. And in all of our love and celebration. God has been born to us. Here. In a place of ordinary sounds.

And that is where God continues to be. In all of our suffering in all of our joy. God is here with us.

We are not alone. We are not alone.

God is here. In the ordinary. In regular earthly sound.

In the Christmas morning quiet.