I remember a day when most of us were gathered together here at Cross of Grace on a Sunday morning. The date was March 8, 2020 to be exact. It was a morning full of the usual Sunday morning buzz. The parking lot was full. People filled the sanctuary to sing, pray, listen, pass the peace, and take communion. Kids were in class down in the Sunday school wing. The narthex hosted many handshakes, hugs, and outbursts of laughter. In the fellowship hall, there was conversation over donuts and fair-trade coffee or chocolate milk. It was a usual Sunday morning at Cross of Grace.

In the midst of all that activity I was gathered with a small group in a walled-off room in the fellowship hall to continue our discussion of the book we had been reading: The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. The last chapter we discussed that morning addressed the topic of suffering and it was titled “It Can’t Be Carried Alone.”

A few days after the events of the morning I just described, we made the difficult but necessary decision to temporarily halt in-person worship due to something being referred to as the Coronavirus. We realized there was a significant chance we might not be able to gather together for Easter Sunday. We had no idea what the next months would entail. The past nine months...well, they defy description. And you’ve lived through it, so you don’t need me to remind you of what we’ve been through...or what we still have to go through.

I feel like if I had been a little more self-aware, the chapter titled “It Can’t Be Carried Alone” could have had me well-positioned to deal with and adapt to the challenges of life and ministry in a pandemic world. But the turmoil was so abrupt and thoroughly disruptive that I didn’t give the contents of that chapter another thought after that Sunday. Instead, I guess you could say I tried to carry it alone...and let me tell you it has not gone well for me. These last few months have brought me into contact with some intense emotional pain from which I am still reeling.

In preparation for this Blue Christmas worship service I returned to that chapter in The Universal Christ, vaguely recalling that there were some important ideas there that I would do well to revisit. I re-read Richard Rohr’s first-person account of feeling the weight of the world’s suffering so profoundly that he became sad not just about one thing, but sad about everything. If you were here with me I’d ask for an “Amen” in response to that idea. We’ve been sad not just about one thing but about everything. Amen?

Richard Rohr claims the only way for him to make sense of great sadness is to remember that God also experiences and carries the weight of the world’s suffering. He writes, “Once I know that all suffering is both our suffering and God’s suffering, I can better endure and trust the desolations and disappointments that come my way.” (167)

From the beginning, God chose to be one with all of creation. God’s creation has never carried its suffering alone. Christ, the Son of God, has existed throughout history, independent of time and space; independent, and yet intimately connected to the fabric of being. Rohr invites us to think about the incarnation (or enfleshment of God) in two phases. The first incarnation is the beginning of everything...because everything bears the image of God; while the second incarnation is God’s participation in human life and death in the person of Jesus. When we celebrate the birth of the Son of God, Immanuel, God with us, we are celebrating something that happened two thousand years ago, as well as something that happened at the very beginning...of everything. And, it should be noted, something that continues to happen today. Still today, Christ is with us.

This pandemic is a new experience for everyone, except for Christ, who has experienced the suffering of God’s creation from the very beginning. So it makes sense, then, why it would be important not to try to carry our suffering alone. It can’t be carried alone. It was never meant for us to carry it alone. And we’re never alone.

You are not the only one who has experienced this pandemic and suffered through it. That’s not meant as a guilt-laden dismissal of what you’ve been through or are feeling, as though your experiences don’t matter because someone else has had it worse. You are not the only one who has experienced this pandemic and suffered through it. That’s simply a reminder that you’ve never been alone and whatever suffering you are carrying cannot be carried alone.

One of the gifts of Christian theology is the promise that God is with us in our suffering. God knows what it is like to suffer, to be rejected, to love, to lose a child, to watch as best laid plans fall by the wayside, to want so desperately to be close to someone who always remains at a distance. God does not wait until we get better, or achieve something, or become successful, or do it right; God does not wait for any of those things before showering us with divine love and grace.

Recall that Immanuel, God-with-us, little baby Jesus was born as a completely helpless newborn in a feeding trough in the middle of nowhere. God cannot become any more vulnerable than that. That newborn baby, divine as he may be, could not carry anything alone. And neither can we.

So, fix your eyes and your attention on that vulnerable Christ-child. “God is in a vulnerable newborn baby in a feeding trough. We need to see the mystery of incarnation in that one ordinary concrete moment, and struggle with, fight, resist, and fall in love with it there. What is true in one particular place finally universalizes and ends up being true everywhere.”

This is not the Christmas any of us would have wanted. But maybe this is exactly the type of Christmas that we were made for. Perhaps the gift of this difficult and unique pandemic Christmas is that we will realize anew that God carries all our pain and disappointment with us and, in so doing, shows us what it means to be the hands and feet of God for the sake of the world, helping one another shoulder the load, because we can’t carry it alone.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of David forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

“Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you.”

When was the last time anyone talked to you that way? Let alone an angel of the Lord?

Mary was as perplexed about it as most of us would be, it sounds like. She wasn’t the type anyone would have thought to be “favored,” after all. Let alone an angel of the most high God, for crying out loud.

She was poor. And a girl. In a man’s world, and in a no man’s land somewhere in the middle of Galilee, from some place called Nazareth.

When we read that she “pondered what sort of greeting this might be…” in my head, that means she “wondered what in the heck this was all about?,” and “who does this guy think he is?,” and, even more, “who does he think I am?”

And after a little explaining … something about the Holy Spirit coming upon her … something about being over-shadowed by the power of the Most High God … something about conceiving a child, naming him Jesus … and something about how he would reign as the Son of God, forever from the same throne as David, the greatest king of all time…

After all of that – and a little something about her Aunt Elizabeth, too – somehow, Mary buys it. … or consents to it. … or resigns herself, perhaps, to whatever this is. “Here I am. The servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

But it all started with those words, “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

First of all, it’s a reminder about just exactly who God favors: the least among us, remember. The poor, the outsider, the outcast. The last, the lost, the lonely. The sick, the imprisoned, the hungry and thirsty. The sinner, in need of forgiveness, mercy, hope and the love of God.

“Greetings, favored ones. The Lord is with you.” But, again, who talks like that? Who believes stuff like that – about themselves, enough of the time? And about the world and the people around them, too?

I came across an old devotional this week that my Dad wrote several years ago about a time he noticed a lonely stranger in the New Palestine McDonald’s. It seemed clear this guy was counting the change in his pockets to see if he had enough to afford, even a Senior Coffee, which isn’t something that happens often in our small town. So my dad bought him a meal, too, and sat down to eat breakfast with him, and listened to his story – things about a divorce, some estranged children, a lost job. It was all a gift and a blessing for this stranger, I’m sure. Not the coffee and the pancakes, but the conversation and someone who cared enough to engage it. The man thanked my dad and told he had sat there some days actually praying for someone to talk with. “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

It made me think of a story Oprah Winfrey tells about being a poor little Black girl, in nowhere Mississippi, back in the deep – and deeply racist – South, of the 1960’s. I think it was the wife of the Governor at the time, who came to Oprah’s school or church for some assembly or event. (It’s been awhile since I’ve heard the story.) But the point is, that from among a sea of other little Black boys and little Black girls, this wealthy, powerful, well-dressed white lady bent down, looked little Oprah in the eye and told her what a beautiful girl she was.

For a poor little Black girl who thought that her nose was too wide, that her lips were too big, that her skin was too dark, and who knows what else … it mattered that someone like that thought someone like her was beautiful – and went out of her way to say so. “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

I remember visiting Trinity Lutheran Seminary, across the street from Capital University, when I was just an undergrad – a long-haired, mullet-sporting, probably hungover or on-my-way-to-the-next-party kind of undergrad – when the Seminary President, Dennis Anderson, asked me – without a hint of irony, or sarcasm, or good-humor – when I thought I was going to come across the street and start studying there. I was perplexed. I laughed it off. But he suspected that the Seminary and I might be good for each other. Who knew? “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

Some of you have heard me talk about Angels around here before – especially during the seasons of Advent and Christmas. And I like to remind myself – and whoever will listen – that angels don’t always have wings or wear halos or sing on key or glow like the sun. “Angel” just means “messenger,” remember, nothing more and nothing less. Someone with good news to share, like that someone who showed up for Mary, way back when.

And, I guess what I’m getting at is, I hope you can think of an angel or two in your own life who has called you “favored,” and encouraged you in a meaningful way… and empowered you to do something greater than you thought you could… or loved you in ways that were surprising and made you feel worthy and worthwhile, even if you didn’t believe that yourself or know you needed it at the time.

And if you haven’t heard or felt or believed that before, hear it now: “Greetings favored one. The Lord is with you.”

You are beautiful. And loved. And called by God to be beautiful and to love the world in return for what has already been poured out for you in the gift of Jesus Christ that is on the way.

Later this afternoon, I will baptize Holden Michael Hagerty – the son of Brandi and Brady Hagerty, Grandson to Tony and Kelley Holden. We’re doing it in a small, safe, socially distanced, invitation-only kind of way because of the virus, of course. But, I want you to know about it, because baptism is our way of saying – to the world around us, as a community of believers – “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you!” It is something that has been declared on behalf of everyone who has been baptized. And it is said, too, for those who have yet to make it to the water.

“Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you.” It is the message and gift and blessing and the promise of Christmas for the sake of the world.

The Lord has always been, the Lord is, and the Lord will always be on the way to find you and forgive you and encourage you and walk with you and welcome you into the good graces of the Most High God, by whom you are favored – each and every one of you, in spite of yourself, in spite of your sins, in spite of what the world has to say about it. And you are destined … each of us is destined … if we will let God’s will have God’s way with us … for eternal things on this side of heaven and beyond … because nothing is impossible with God.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.