Do Not be Afraid

We live in a fearful age.  “Precarious” describes the situation of many folk these days.   Many of us think the country is headed in the wrong direction, with a sociopathological narcisist at the helm.  Heroid incarnate.

Destitution is everywhere.  On the streets you can smell it, the oder of urine and feces wafts from the sidewalk encampments of the dispossed.  This season many families are food insecure.

Pregnant immigrant women are held in detention even though it’s against federal policy.  ICE dosen’t care.  “Screw the courts,” Stephen Miller and his crew retort, or words to that effect which are inappropriate from the pulpit.  The present day Madonna now pregnant in a holding facility, lies shackled to her bed.  Terrified, she remained tied to her bed as she miscarried.[1]  Outrageous! 

Undocumented mothers are separated from their children – the descending gloom of our national disgrace.  A palpable fear seeps in through such misery and torture.  A fear not of one but of many.  The fear of those judged only to have the wrong skin color.  How dark the night in today’s Bethelhem.

And on Christmas Day someone will win a Powerball jackpot of $1.7 billion.  In the midst of so much want, that amount of money for just one person is obscene.  Who needs $1.7 BILLION?  That’s right, folks billion with a capital B.  How dark this night!

Heroid’s raging – his campaign of retribution and vengeance ever presses against this season of expectation and hope.  Yet it is precisely into such a bleak winter that an unexpected Gloria in Excelsis breaks through.  “Be ye not afraid.”

“Unto you.  Unto you.”  That is the ever present joy that yet seeps into this night.  “Be ye not afraid.”

This is the world of those shepherds tending their flocks on that pitch dark and chilly night.  They, like ninetynine percent their fellow inhabitants, lived on the margins.  Cold, malnourished, at the whim of robbers, wolves and greedy taxmen.

As Luke tells the story of that wretched, freezing evening, how a most astounding, disrupting event burst through the skies above.  And for this, we’ve just gotta have the King James version.

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, good will toward all.”[2]

What joyous words – “Fear not.“  Do Not Be Afraid

Calm, soothing words.  The sort of comfort a parent would give a child who has been awakened by a terrifying nightmare.  “It’s okay.  It’s just a bad dream.  Don’t be afraid.  The same comfort our brused world seeks today.

Mary’s child is Good News to a fearful planet.  Do not be afraid.  In the birth of this tiny baby is the Good News of Salvation.  Hope restored, In this message we are gently held.  Yes, in a tiny, squalling baby born in ICE detention is also the promise of ages.  His mother shackled to a bed without pain relief.  Unseen, the multitude of the heavenly host attend that lowly birth.  Gloria in Excelsis Deo the chorus.

On Christmas Day our Luther James will be exactly three months old.  A sign of God’s favor.  Best present ever!  My Christmas prayer is a supplication for the other precious children of this world that they might have the same care, the same promise of our little Luther.  I know this presently is not the case. Yet each newborn is a miraculus blessing, no matter how rude and impoverished the circumstances of their birth.

For this prayer to become sacramental reality — our political action, our open wallets, our ready credit cards, our raised voices, our gumption will be the tangible expression:  In Gaza, in Sudan.  In the Congo and in Ukraine – where wealthy nations make real their concern and care.  Where we make real and visible our concern, our hope — our supplication becomes sacramental reality.  Actual care delivered on the ground.  Follow the money derect to Doctors Without Borders, to UNICEF, to Episcopal Relief and Development.  Follow the money.  Gloria in Excelsis.  Yes, we are cooperators with the Spirit of Christmas for these others.  Santa — if his visage means anything at all in our commercialized day.

As God brought forth Blessing and Salvation by way of an illiterate, impoverished pesant woman in Bethlehem, who knows that miracle lies hidden in any of the millions of children born in these war-torn lands, in impoverished America.  With God, this Christmas, all is possible, for we of the Jesus Movement, God willing — we are the hands and feet of this Christmas promise.  Gloria in Excelsis.

I close with a poem by John Core, “This Night the Music.”

“This night the music of the spheres is somehow disarranged;
with dissonant surprise one star un-tunes the sky, set heaven ajar;
the universe is changed.

…

“The shepherd’s narrow world grows vast as glorias begin;
while God’s own voice, wide as the sky, consricts itself into a cry
behind a crowded inn. Gloria. Gloria. Gloria – Goria in excelsis Deo.  And with Tiny Tim I say, “God bless us everyone.”  And a Merry Christmas to all.   Amen. 

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[1] Karla Gachet, “Pregnant immigrants held for months in detention despite rules against it,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 2025.

[2] Luke 1:8-14, KJV.

December 24, 2025

Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14; Gospel: Luke 2:1-14

“Do Not be Afraid”