Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Christmas Eve Night, 2015.
And God said to Godself: “What are you waiting for?”
You know, we should do this more often.
Seriously, it shouldn’t just be once a year that we come together in the middle of the night, when the rest of the world is asleep.
I tell my teenage boys that “nothing good happens after midnight” – because I’d rather they be home safe in bed so I’m not up worrying. I really have to stop saying that to them.
Because the truth is wonderful things happen in the middle of the night.
The deepest conversations.
The most profound revelations.
The most passionate love.
The middle of the night is when prose turns to poetry and statistics turn to song.
The middle of the night is when we are haunted by ghosts of the past, and enticed by hopes of the future.
The best questions come in the middle of the night.
The best questions come in the middle of the night.
And this night is no exception.
For us fully to appreciate what happens this holy night, we need to know the backstory. We need to know that the child born this night in Bethlehem has been a long, long time in coming.
We need to know that this birth comes after millennia upon millennia of God loving us from afar, dancing when we returned that love and agonizing when we rejected it.
We need to know that this birth comes after millennia upon millennia of God watching us turn against God, betray God’s trust, and turn against one another.
We need to know that this birth comes after millennia upon millennia of God staying distant and safe, letting prophets and sages deliver God’s messages of love. Until one night, deep in one night, as the world sleeps below, God has the deepest conversation, the most profound revelation of the most passionate love.
And God asks the divine self a single question:
“What are you waiting for?”
I have to believe that is the question God asks the Divine self before the incarnation, before the angel comes to Mary, before this holy night is pierced by the baby Jesus’ first cry.
“What are you waiting for?”
It’s a question all of us come to at some point in our lives – and often more than once.
What are we waiting for?
What are we afraid of?
Why are we holding back?
We always have reasons. There are always reasons to wait. Reasons not to do the bold thing. Not to do the courageous thing. Not to make the grand act of love.
It will hurt.
It could cost too much.
Think of what I have to lose?
I wonder if God wasn’t thinking the same thing. Being born, becoming human is such a risk. Loving so deeply to give yourself body and soul to someone is such a risk. What if they reject me? What if it hurts?
What if? What if? What if?
And the truth is, when God becomes human in Jesus, all these things do happen and yet still – and indeed because of all these things -- it is the deepest truth, the most profound event, the most passionate love in human history.
God asks Godself “What are you waiting for?” And God is not the only one. The question is ever on our hearts as well.
“What are you waiting for?”
It comes to us in the middle of the night. And when it does, our powers of rationalization are literally paralyzing.
We convince ourselves that playing it safe is the best practice. That long-term sustainability is more important than truth-telling and that discretion truly is the better part of valor.
We sell our souls not in grand gestures for glorious prizes, not at the Crossroads for the soul to play the blues. No, we sell our souls a little bit at a time…
Each time we say it is smarter to hedge our bets and keep our distance.
Each time we hide in the safety of the crowd.
Each time we shrink away from having the conversation that lays our heart bare.
We sell our souls a little bit each time we hold ourselves back for some better opportunity down the road, and in so doing miss the opportunities for true greatness the present moment has in her hands.
Well, Christmas is God having enough of that.
Christmas is God refusing to stay safe, keep her distance, and miss that opportunity.
Christmas is God going all in and standing in solidarity with our fragile humanity.
Christmas is God not fixing all the brokenness in the world, not magically solving every problem but saying “I’m going to be with you deep in the midst of it, this night, every night, forever. “
Christmas is God saying “What am I waiting for? Now is the time for love. Now is the time for truth. Now is the time to go all in. This love can’t wait any longer. This love can’t be lived from far away any longer. I’ve got to get down there. I’ve got to be with them. I don’t care about the danger. I don’t care about the risk. I love them too much to be away from them one second longer.
“Now is the time.”
I think about how many times I have thought playing it safe was the smart thing to do. And then I look at the Gospel, and I realize that playing it safe was not in Jesus’ playbook. Playing it safe is not in God's playbook.
If playing it safe was God's operating system, we would not be here this night. There would be no Christmas -- and there would certainly be no church. Christmas happened because God turned to the divine self and said, “What am I waiting for? What am I afraid of? Why have I waited so long to go all in? ”
And Christmas begs the same question of us. For all that conventional wisdom tells us to play it safe and hold back and make sure we live to fight another day, Christmas tells us that tonight is that night. That now is the time.
Christmas asks us “What are we waiting for?”
It’s not like there is any shortage of brokenness in this world for us to throw ourselves at in love and healing and it’s not like we are not up to the task. My God, we are the body of Christ! We are made in God’s image and loved beyond measure. Through Christ, we are capable of infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. And yet, we convince ourselves that we’re not. We convince ourselves that we cannot make a difference. We forget that we are people of this holy night, the night that Christ was born.
This holy night reminds us that the way we love is not from a safe distance but dwelling intimately with one another, no matter the danger, no matter the risk. In the heart of the danger. In the heart of the risk.
This holy night tells us that the way we love is not fixing all the brokenness in the world, not magically solving every problem but saying “We’re going to be together deep in the midst of it, this night, every night, forever.”
This holy night invites us to look at all the places we are holding back, all the places we are afraid, all the places we are waiting until we know how to do it exactly right, until there will be no cost or ramifications, until the odds will be in our favor -- to look at all those places and to remember that the proudest histories of those who dared to follow Jesus are histories of those who looked at themselves and said, just as God does this night, “What am I waiting for?”
Christmas is not about giving a small gift.
Christmas is not about a simple act of generosity.
Christmas is not about playing nice for a day and then going back to business as usual.
Christmas is about us looking at ourselves in the mirror, and like God in the incarnation saying “What are we waiting for?”
There is a world out there, a world of oppression and division, of hopelessness and hunger. And there is a world in here, too – a world inside each one of us – a world of dread and fear, a world where we hide our true selves from one another for fear of judgment and suffer in silence rather than risk rejection. And this night we are given the gift of life and the gift of opportunity to love all of it – the world out there, and the world inside each one of us -- into a different place, a better place, a place of freedom and forgiveness and joy.
Why are we holding back?
What are we waiting for?
Wonderful things happen in the middle of the night.
The deepest conversations.
The most profound revelations.
The most passionate love.
The best questions come in the middle of the night.
And this night is no exception.
We have the gift of the greatest love the world has ever known. This night is born a Bethlehem a child who is Christ the Lord. His song is on our lips and his love is on our hearts and there is a world out there and many worlds in here waiting for us to meet him and bring him near.
Wonderful things can happen in the middle of the night.
What are we waiting for?
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Wow, Mike. Just wow!
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