Transforming Wounds into Worship (Christmas Eve)

“Transforming Wounds into Worship” – December 24th, 2024 (Christmas Eve)

I tend to get reflective around the end of each year and think back to how this past year has gone. It’s been a bit of a mixed bag. 2024 has been incredibly wonderful and memorable in some ways. I’m grateful for the people and places and experiences that have enriched my life with joy and blessing! There’s also been some overwhelming challenges.

How about you? 2024 may have been a year of adventure, exhilaration, and joy. But I suspect that 2024 may also have brought you some really hard stuff, like burnout, betrayal, fatigue, fear, anxiety, anger, cracked relationships, crushing losses, diagnoses, disappointments, negative consequences either from our own poor choices or from the words or actions of others. Life can be grand, and life can also knock the wind out of us sometimes. Some days we might wonder how we’re going to go on or even take the next breath.

God understands. It’s not just because God knows everything. God loves us so much that God came as one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was born in socially inappropriate circumstances and grew up on the margins of life as a refugee. Jesus learned and grew by worshiping God, studying scripture, and asking hard questions. Jesus did the hard slog of a manual labor job in his family business while training to become a Rabbi.

When he was 30 years old, Jesus began his public ministry and started saying and doing things that made people around him realize he was no ordinary teacher. Jesus kept talking about something he called “the kingdom of God.” Jesus announced what he called good news: God’s new world had started! The restoration of all people and the whole world has begun! God is setting all things right, to the way things were meant to be. No one had ever heard anything like that before.

But Jesus did more than just talk about these things. Jesus did stuff and really turned things upside down: people on the margins were seen and valued and honored; bodies and minds were healed; provision was multiplied; miracles were manifested; rigid rules were ignored; fears and anxieties were stilled; people were set free and delivered and healed; religion was challenged; the status quo was rocked to its core; and everyone who asked, sought, or knocked received just what they needed.

Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, in The Message translation: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Jesus went around doing good. But because Jesus stirred things up, he really rubbed those who cared too much about power the wrong way. That’s a huge understatement. Religious and political leaders were so angry that they did everything they could to get rid of Jesus. Jesus was condemned by religious leaders and suffered the incredibly cruel punishment reserved for the worst criminals: condemnation, humiliation, degradation, torture, and crucifixion on a Roman cross. Jesus willingly gave his life for the sins of the world. When Jesus breathed his last and was buried in a tomb, the religious and political leaders thought they’d washed their hands of Jesus.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus died on the Friday, and on the Sunday, Jesus did something no one has ever done in the history of humanity. Jesus rose again in a body that others recognized on what we now remember as Easter Sunday, Resurrection Day. It wasn’t until after all these things that people began to slowly wonder who Jesus really was. If it hadn’t been for his resurrection, his coming back to life again in a body, he might have been remembered as a good teacher. If it hadn’t been for his resurrection, he might have been remembered as a miracle worker. But Jesus didn’t make those claims. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, God in the flesh, God with us, Emmanuel.

Jesus shows us who God is and what God is really like. Jesus also shows us what love looks like. And Jesus shows us who we humans really are. We are not automatons in a deterministic machine. We are not slaves to biological instinct. We are not free-floating ghosts in a formless universe. We are here, as living, breathing bodies and souls, who have been endowed by our Creator with identity, meaning, and purpose.

When we look back at 2024, or when we take even the briefest glimpse of the news, our community, our family, even our own hearts, to realize that something’s wrong. There is a huge gap between who God created and intended us to be and what’s actually going on in our lives. To put it simply, none of us is very good at consistently receiving God’s love, loving God, or reflecting God’s love in the world. The reality is that we are all broken, we are all wounded.

I’m not much of a gardener, but I do greatly enjoy visiting botanical gardens, parks, nature preserves, anywhere in nature, really. I couldn’t tell you the names of many plants, but I find it fascinating to learn more about them and just enjoy their beauty. Have you ever looked closely at a tree that has survived some kind of damage or wound? The area surrounding the wound becomes covered with resin, a substance secreted in response to injury that holds the wounded place together and protects that vulnerable place from damage by insects or pathogens.

But resin is much more than a pile of cement or a protective coating. Recent evidence-based studies have shown what locals have practiced for centuries: resin from the Norway spruce is an effective healing treatment for bacterial and fungal infections, ulcers, abscesses, and burns. Resin is an agent of healing and transformation.

There’s an even older use of resin mentioned in the Bible, actually in the Christmas story! Matthew 2:1 and 11 says that “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came … On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” One of the gifts these Asian visitors brought was frankincense, which is an aromatic resin from trees native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia that are at least 8-10 years old. Frankincense has been used for over 5000 years in incense and perfumes. Burning incense releases a fragrance so sweet that frankincense has been a highly sought after treasure since antiquity. Resin, when burned in the fire, releases a fragrance that is good, pure, beautiful, and desirable.

Trees that are wounded produce a substance from which sweet fragrance is released, but only through fire. There is a deep lesson from nature here.

We have all been wounded, and we try to hold things together in the places in our lives in which we’ve received wounds. In God’s great love for you and for me, God invites us to let go of holding onto our wounds. We can come to God in simple, childlike trust with open hands and open hearts. Let us pray:

God, we come to you as your children today and hold our lives before you. We are tired of holding onto our wounds. We ask you, in your great love and mercy, to heal us. We surrender our whole selves to you, Jesus – the parts we are okay with, the parts we are ashamed of, the parts where things are going well, the parts that are a crisis away from disaster. We ask you, Christ Jesus, to transform our wounds into worship through the fire of your love. Come, Holy Spirit! Amen.

In our own broken places, God is present with us to comfort and strengthen and heal us from the inside out. And as our own wounds are transformed into worship, we are then also able to become agents of healing and transformation to those around us.

Before we sing our closing song, we are going to commune with Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us, at the table of communion. Everyone is welcome at Christ’s table. As we eat the bread and drink the cup, let us remember Jesus. May we each lean into the unforced rhythms of grace. May we each receive the grace that we need to live more freely and lightly. And may we continue to let go of holding onto our wounds, surrender ourselves completely to God, and let Jesus transform our wounds into worship through the fire of God’s love.

Lord Jesus, right here, right now, we offer and present our whole selves to you as a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice. Let us eat together.

We humbly pray that we may each worthily receive the most precious body and blood of Jesus Christ. Please fill us with your grace and heavenly benediction, and make us one body with Christ, that Christ may dwell in us, and we in Christ. Let us drink together.

Amen.