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And the word was made flesh
and dwell made his dwelling among us.
You know, being an Irish man, I love a good story.
We love good stories in Ireland,
whether it is in a novel or
in a screenplay or on the TV screen.
There are certain powerful elements that have to be there.
First of all, you have to have the main characters,
and they have to be quality characters.
And by the way, they can be villainous characters too.
You have to love to hate them, that is part of this good story!
And then there is the plot.
The plot has to have elements that draw you in.
It could be humorous and comedic.
It could be sad or joyous.
But it needs to have these elements.
And one important element,
that stories always have to have for a good story is a twist.
There has to be a twist or conflict
and then a resolution of the the twist in it.
Today and last night, we stop and we share
what we believe is the greatest story ever told.
The story of Jesus Christ being born among us.
And right from the very beginning, there is a twist.
And the twist is that God, the Author of life,
the author of the Book of Life, enters into the story himself.
He becomes one of the twists.
Number one is that he becomes flesh.
Literally, the word is made flesh.
He dwells right among us.
And that is the powerful.
But here is the next twist.
He does not come as a king.
He does not come as some lord in a palace and with all sort of pomp.
He did not come in a jet, or a spaceship.
He comes as a tiny little baby human being, an infant baby.
And that is so powerful.
He comes among the poor, the shepherds in a little cave
in a small little town in the middle of nowhere.
I know, I have been there.
Bethlehem is in the middle of nowhere!
But why did he choose that?
Because the plot thickens,
he became one of us to be the lowliest of us.
To be humble, to be kind,
and to get our attention that he came for all.
Not just the high, but for everyone from the lowest to the highest.
The plot continues to thicken, if you would,
over and over many times, as you have heard this story.
But today, we retell the story once again from the beginning.
And we will conclude this story at Easter
when we tell the last and the final twist in the story.
Because the final twist is that yes, he dies,
but that is not the last word.
The final word is the resurrection.
The final word is he lives on.
And here is the final twist, he lives on, in you and I,
that is the final twist.
And that is why we begin our celebration today.
Because in him and the story of God’s love,
he chose to become one of us,
to communicate to us that he loves us so much
that he became one of us.
But that was not enough for us.
He became one of us so that
we could be his love to one another.
And that is what we celebrate
every single time we come to the Eucharist.
That we have the audacity to say that we become what we receive.
We become the body of Christ broken for others,
we become the blood of Christ poured out for others.
That is the story that keeps on being told.
That is the story that gets written on your and my heart.
But the challenge for us is to leave room in our heart for that story.
And we need to learn to tell the story
because when we tell the story, it becomes alive.
That is why we gather to tell the story today,
because it is important for us to tell that story.
There is a great Irish storyteller and an artist named Brian McLaren.
He is from Northern Ireland and he has a Northern Ireland accent,
so I am gonna do his accent for a second.
He goes like this, he says,
“You know, you have to be careful that the story you tell yourself
because the story you tell yourself is the story you will live.”
So whatever story you are telling yourself,
you better realize that you are living it
because that is the way it works.
So what story are you telling yourself?
And do you have that story in your heart?
My friends, the true story of the gospel
is that the story that keeps getting told in you and I.
Therefore, yes, we have to tell the story.
Yes, we have to own the story and we have to live the story.
But first we may make room for that story in our heart.
There is a beautiful song I want to close with, from Casting Crowns.
It speaks about how we are called to leave room in our heart
for the story of Christ. Let’s finish with this:
A family hiding from the storm
Found no place at the keeper's door
It was for this a Child was born
To save a world so cold and hollow
The sleeping town, they did not know
That lying in a manger low
A Savior King who had no home
Has come to heal our sorrows
Is there room in your heart?
Is there room in your heart?
Is there room in your heart
For God to write His story?
Shepherds counting sheep at night
Do not fear the glory light
You are precious in His sight
God has come to raise the lowly
Is there room in your heart?
Is there room in your heart?
Is there room in your heart
For God to write His story?
You can come as you are
But it may set you apart
When you make room in your heart
And trade your dreams for His glory
Make room in your heart
Make room in your heart
Mother holds the promise tight
Every wrong will be made right
The road is straight, the burden's light
For in His hands, He holds tomorrow
Is there room in your heart?
Is there room in your heart?
Is there room in your heart
For God to write His story?
You can come as you are
But it may set you apart
When you make room in your heart
And trade your dreams for His glory
Make room in your heart
Make room in your heart
Make room in your heart
Make room in your heart
And the word was made flesh
and dwell made his dwelling among us.
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