Rev’d Peter Balabanski
Christmas Eve 2025 – Isa 9 2-7, Ps 96, Titus 2 11-14, Lk 2 1-14
Christmas is astounding. It celebrates the wildest, most astonishing event. One day, the Maker of the universe was born as a tiny, helpless baby; a real one; vulnerable to all the hazards of a dangerous world. Why so vulnerable? Why did God need to come as a tiny, helpless baby? Scripture says God would send someone to save the people. That’s a big promise, and it raises the ‘big question’: If there is a loving Maker of the universe, why is suffering allowed to happen? That’s the ‘big question’. People have always asked it, ever since we were told that God loves us. If there is a loving Maker of the universe, why is suffering allowed to happen?
We’ve been witnesses to human suffering on a shocking scale over recent years and days. Violent people are waging terrible war on innocent, vulnerable people. And we’ve seen just days ago that nowhere is immune from people who feel entitled to do violence to others. What sort of a God lets that happen?
We aren’t the first to ask the big question. Everyone who’s endured slavery, war, famine, colonization or exile has asked it. Our Gospel began with an account of an emperor bullying simple people. They asked the big question too why does God let this happen? Their question had always been answered with a promise. God would raise up someone extraordinary who’d sort things out. We just heard Isaiah say this special leader would be born to the Hebrew people; born a descendant of King David. He’d have the authority and the power, finally, to bring lasting peace; peace which he would uphold with justice and righteousness.
Jesus was far greater than the prophets ever expected. But he didn’t come in great power as some invincible warrior. He came in the most scandalously defenceless way imaginable. One day, the Maker of the universe was born as a tiny, helpless baby. Just before he was born, his unmarried parents had to find emergency lodgings 100 km from home. Jesus’s first bed was an animal’s feed trough. The first visitors invited to come and visit him were scruffy strangers, shepherds. Apparently they turned up in the middle of the night; just what every new parent needs! And soon after, this family would be on the road again as refugees.
One day, the Maker of the universe was born as a tiny, helpless baby; vulnerable to all the hazards of a dangerous world. Why in the world must any family endure such humiliation? Why claim that this baby is God’s answer to the ‘big question’. If there is a loving Maker of the universe, why is suffering allowed to happen? This question has a built in assumption. It is that we expect that a loving God should free us from tragedies. Really? How would a loving God do this?
If a loving God stopped wars and turned weapons into farming tools, would that fix relations between nations? No. If a loving God fused the world’s tectonic plates together, stopped all storms and got rid of mosquitoes, would that make Earth a suffering-free zone? No. If a loving God abolished disease, injury, put a force-field round all vulnerable people, made bullies behave, would that stop us suffering? No. It wouldn’t address the human heart. So God did something beyond expectation. God came to be with us; Jesus – Emmanuel – God, one of us, in all that mess.
One day, the Maker of the universe was born a tiny, helpless baby; vulnerable to all the hazards of this dangerous world. Jesus was born among animals and insects in a stable – so non-human life has God with them too. Shepherds were the ancient world’s equivalent of street people. So they have God with them. Early on, Jesus became a refugee who had to depend on the kindness of others just to survive. So asylum-seekers have God with them. Jesus loved and cared for people who were sick in body or mind, or they were hungry or lonely. So they all have God with them. He treated women as equals and protected children. So women and children have God with them. Jesus was arrested, tried and executed by the state. So prisoners and those on death row have God with them. Everyone can be told that Jesus is their Emmanuel – God with them. All of us. God was born, a living, mortal organism on planet Earth. So every creature, the air we breathe and the land we walk on has God with us. Jesus is God. He was then – and always is – God with us.
But what about that question of suffering? It’s not been forgotten. As the height of his ministry, Jesus would take it all to the Cross. He willingly had all wrong and all evil crucified in his own body, and took it to the grave where it belongs. And on the third day after his death, when he rose, alive again from the grave, all that suffering – even death itself – lay defeated at his feet.
We still experience suffering. We’re still not in the last days. But the Good News is that while suffering has an end, we do not. Just as Jesus came to be with us in our suffering, he promises that when we die, he will come and take us to be with him in his risen life. Jn 14 We’re promised that after the last days, God will make a home with us in a renewed heaven and earth, and wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Rev 21
Christmas celebrates the wildest, most astonishing event. One day, the Maker of the universe was born a tiny, helpless baby; vulnerable to all hazards of a dangerous world. He came to share in our life, and to share his life with us, all out of sheer love for us. He came so we might have God with us in every moment, in every place. And we always will. Thanks be to God for such gracious love to us! Amen