“The shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.’”

There’s something about this day like no other day. I’ve told you this before but I’ll say it again. Christmas Day is one of my most favorite days in the church year. It is simple, low key, and quiet. It’s just us and the Child. 

It’s a day when I sigh deeply but it’s not a sigh of relief or exhaustion. It’s a sigh of deep contentment. I feel like I’ve returned to and I’m more myself. I’ve reclaimed and reconnected to my original blessing. (For more on original blessing see last Sunday’s sermon and my Christmas Eve sermon.)

I wonder if that’s what’s happening in today’s gospel (Luke 2:8-20) when “the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” Their glorifying and praising bear witness that there is something about this day for them. I wonder if they’ve just seen and been touched by their original blessing.

Most years I linger when the liturgy is over. I stay a bit longer than necessary before going home. I don’t really do anything special or extra. I’m just here, present to the Presence, to the Something that is revealed this day. It is a holy moment. I feel connected to something greater than myself and know myself to be a part of that greatness. I’ll bet you too know what that’s like.  

I can’t explain it. I just know that there’s something about this day. But I also know this. What I just described is not unique or exclusive to Christmas Day. I have had other days and experiences when I’ve said, “There’s something about this day like no other day.” Haven’t you?

When has that happened for you? When have you felt yourself connected to something greater than yourself? When have you said, “There’s something about this day like no other day.” When have you been touched by the holy, the Something you couldn’t explain but that you knew was real?

Maybe Christmas Day is one of those days for you too. Maybe that’s why you showed up today. You couldn’t not show up and let your presence and prayers glorify and praise God. 

Or, maybe it was a time when you realized that something in you needed to change or wanted to change. You weren’t who you wanted to be. You weren’t living your truest life. You heard the call of your original blessing. That is a holy moment of glorifying and praising God. 

When have you laughed until you cried and your belly ached? When have you sighed with deep contentment and thought to yourself, I never want this moment to end? When have you experienced beauty not as something you saw but as a presence that enveloped you? That’s also glorifying and praising. 

Tears. Oh, the tears. Have you ever thought of your tears as glorifying and praising God? They might be tears of joy or gratitude, tears of grief and loss, tears of compassion for another’s pain, or tears of anger at injustice. Your tears are responding to the holy.

Have you ever reached out in compassion to another; fed the hungry, visited the sick, welcomed the stranger? Is that not glorifying and praising the God who was born this day and would say, “Just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me”? (Matthew 25:40)

Every time we turn the other cheek, put away our sword, or forgive, we are glorifying and praising the Prince of Peace. Every time we bring good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, or let the oppressed go free, we glorify and praise God. Maybe our relationships with others reveal whether we are glorifying and praising God, or not.

And then there’s love. Love God, love yourself, love your neighbor, love your enemy. When we love we commit and give ourselves. We put our heart on the line. We’re vulnerable like a newborn child. Our heart might be filled and enlarged or it might be broken. That’s the risk of loving. Either way, how can love not glorify and praise God?  

Even death can be a holy moment of glorifying and praising God. That’s why we pray for a holy death. The fragility of life is always with us and our mortality is ever before us revealing the sacredness of life. And when the moment comes we commend our spirit into the hands of our Creator, our final act of glorifying and praising God on this earth. 

There’s just something about those days and a thousand other days like them. We meet the holy in ourselves, in another, in creation. The one born to us “this day in the city of David” knows something about those days. They’re not just our days. They are his days too. They are his days before they are ever ours. And that makes all the difference.

If today means anything, if this Child’s birth promises us anything, if Christmas has any relevance in our lives, it is this:

The presence of the Holy One of blessing fills all creation. It fills you and me. It fills all that we have heard and seen. 

No wonder the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God. What else can you do when the holy touches you?

What about you and me? What is it about this day that matters and makes a difference to you? What will you do with this day and what will you let it do with you? 

Merry Christmas.

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Image Credit: By Bartolo di Fredi, CC0, Wikimedia Commons.