“THE NEW NORMAL”
Luke 2:1-20
(12-24-07) Christmas Eve

What a wonderful evening it is to be here with all of you,
on this Christmas Eve, worshipping the living God.
Its always amazing to look around at this service,
to see the rows of families gathered together,
sometimes for just this one time a year.
It’s joyful to see old friends and new additions.
There really is no time of the year like this time.
As the song says, Its the most wonderful time of the year.
And yet we know that this isn’t normal, don’t we?
Tonight is special, unique,
something that we don’t repeat at any other time of the year.
It’s Christmas Eve.
And all of this will pass, over the next few days, if not even quicker.

One minister tells the story that on Christmas morning couple of years ago,
he was walking down Eleventh Street in New York’s Greenwich Village,
to prepare for the eleven-o’clock service at his former church.
There, at the curb, was someone’s Christmas tree, laid out for the garbage truck.
Now, can you imagine this?
It was 9:30 a.m. on Christmas Day,
and one of his neighbours had already taken down the decorations,
the lights, the glass balls; removed the screws that attached the trunk to the stand;
and carried their symbol of the Christmas celebration to the curb
for the Department of Sanitation to remove along with yesterday’s junk mail.
Nine-thirty in the morning on Christmas Day.
How quickly all of this passes!

After all, the cards have been mailed,
the presents bought and exchanged, the people visited.
We’ve sung the carols, enjoyed the get-togethers,
now let’s get this stuff cleaned up and put away again.
How many of us can’t wait to get the house back to normal?
And how many of us can’t wait to get life back to normal?
But if that’s all this is,
just a momentary departure from the normal,
then we’ve missed the whole point, haven’t we?

Christmas isn’t about a taking a break from reality,
it is the declaration of a new reality, a new normal.
I Googled the phrase, “the new normal,”
and discovered that there are competing claims as to who first coined the phrase.
Some attribute it back to the recovery process
for victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995
and others credit Dick Cheney in the aftermath of 9-11 as the instigator of the phrase. There are others as well.
But what it means is that reality has changed,
usually because of some negative event.
Things that once were are no longer the case.
Its like knowing that in many airports,
taking your shoes off at the security check point is now as normal
as having your carry on baggage x-rayed.

But let me suggest that for us tonight the new normal is rooted in a very positive event,
in fact, the most positive event in human history.
The very first Christmas started off as ordinary and as normal as any day might have been in Roman occupied Palestine 2000 years or so ago.
Two people, engaged and expecting a child,
were in the midst of traveling to the man’s ancestral home, to be registered.
This registration was a decree from the Emperor Augustus,
who likely wanted to know how many people were in his empire
so that he could tax them accordingly.
Death and taxes, the only two certainties in life, we like to say.
Joseph and Mary were involved in the most ordinary situation,
being registered so that taxes could be collected,
when the most extraordinary event took place.
For on that night, in a manger because there was no place for them at the inn,
a baby was born, a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
In Bethlehem that night so many years ago,
God came to be made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth,
God in Christ came to be God with us, Emmanuel.
It was the beginning of the new normal.
The world changed that night
and the reverberations of that change continue right down to this night.

What we feel tonight, the hope, the longing for peace, the joy and the love,
are summed up in the gift of Jesus who is the Christ.
And because Jesus is God with us, God became human like us,
and because God in Jesus Christ lived among us, died for us,
is present with us in the gift of the Holy Spirit and promises to come to us again,
what we feel tonight is not a unique and momentary diversion from reality,
it is the new normal.
The invitation of Christmas to us is that we would embrace this new normal,
that we would make room for God in our lives,
that we would take the hope, the peace, the joy and the love
which is so heightened for us tonight,
which we so vividly feel tonight
and live it out each and every day of the year.
If Christ is born and God is with us every day, in every place,
what keeps us from worshipping the living God on every other day of the year?
The new normal means that we don’t have to wait for Sunday or for Christmas
to experience the gracious presence of God.
God’s love isn’t confined to the high and holy days,
only in places of worship, only for pious people.
God’s love is for everyone,
everyone who is smiling or sad, confident or confused, marvelling or mourning, glorifying or grieving, anticipating or anxious,
it is for those who are content and comfortable
as well as those who are hungry and homeless,
for those who struggle between war and peace,
generosity and greed, happiness and heartbreak.
Whatever our lives are like,
no matter how ordinary they may seem,
God’s love is for us, God is for us.
God is with us in Jesus Christ, this is the new normal.
So tomorrow and the day after, next week and next year,
whatever the future may hold for each of us,
let us go in hope and in peace, in joy and in love,
knowing that because of Christmas,
nothing, no day, no place, no situation, no person
is outside the care and compassion of the God who is with us.
Do not be afraid, for we have heard good news of great joy for all the people,
for to us is born a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
It’s the new normal.
Thanks be to God for that!