"Love Knows Your Name" by Rev. Jillian Hankamer, 12/24/2024
- Northminster Church
- Aug 12
- 4 min read
A homily for Northminster Church
Luke 2:1-20
Love Knows Your Name
Different thing to hear Mary’s story after labor
-Had Eirinn in clean, spacious hospital room
-I was induced, had epidural, was constantly monitored
-was as prepared as possible
-and yet...never asked so much of my body, felt so much pain
-Julie Dotterweich Gunby,”to be in labor is to be completely beyond yourself, given over wholly to another, and the pain of its outworking…there is no way to stimulate or teach the courage required of a soul in extremis.”[1]
-Where preparation “customs and rituals fail, our bodies prepare us from the work of being split in two.”[2]
Mary
-Now when I think of Mary “great with child” (Luke 2:5) recognize, empathize with her pain and discomfort
-unique suffering at end of pregnancy
-”The hormone relaxing loosens the pelvic ligaments and strains all the joins in the body while pro-inflammatory cytokines increasingly amplify in the bloodstream until the uterus reaches a tipping point. The changes are not just physical; the whole person becomes restless, preoccupied with the desire to be delivered.”[3]
-eventually pregnancy ends with labor as the “two people inhabiting the same body in a taut reality that cannot be sustained…finally comes to a breaking point.”[4]
-think of Mary
- “walking down the road to Bethlehem and lying on the stone floor of a cave with the animals, her body [straining]...”[5]
-think of Mary
-Mother of God and yet a normal nobody of a human girl coming to end of pregnancy that will change the world
-saying, begging as laboring people have begged for millennia, “I just want to have the baby”[6] or in my case, “I changed my mind, give me a c-section.”
-think of Mary “being the first one to slide her hands up under the armpits of the warm, slippery flesh of God. No one before or after will have God in quite this way. In Mary, the Word became flesh and was born in the most mundane, most primal human act.”[7]
Luke passage
-through Mary’s labor and Christ’s birth the vastness of God becomes tangible, personal[8]
-God of creation, made seas - made you
-designed human body and variation of animals - over 500 species of primates!
-“orchestrated the cosmos, who set each star in the sky, is the same God who crafte3d the uniqueness of each of us - from the swirls of our fingerprints to the dreams nestled deep within our souls.”[9]
-theology of incarnation summed up: “God decided to be born.”[10]
-deeply, profoundly personal
-”God’s love is not a distant concept but a...reality tailed to each of us.”
-why when angels visit shepherds “message is global but also personal: To you…a savior is born.”[11]
-ties together “those who are often unseen into the…tapestry of God”[12]
-of redemption and renewal
-declaration given to “workers who had dirt under their fingernails, not gilded rings on their fingers”[13]
-this makes clear accessibility of Jesus' birth “to all people, regardless of their status or background.”[14]
-Consider shepherds
-texts says “multitude” of angels - word also means “army”
-why say to shepherds not to be afraid - imagine facing a heavenly army!
-”imagine the rush of emotions…in a moment of sheer panic.”[15]
-But shepherds were known to God which pushed them, “propelled them to go and make known what had been told to them about Jesus.”[16]
-”when we are known by God, we extend that light to others.”[17]
IV. Isaiah passage
-Describes coming Messiah with well-known words
-Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace
-titles indicate how power Jesus is, “yet we’re invited to know him as a friend and to know ourselves through his closeness to us.”
[18]-In sending Jesus, “God recognizes and responds to us with a deep, abiding affection that transcends names and titles, binding us together in the fabric of divine love.”[19]
V. Good News
-Commentator Vicki Black notes, “In historical time, Christmas happened over two thousand years ago in Bethlehem; in theological time, Christmas happens now, in the mystery of God choosing to dwell within humankind, a mystery that transcends all time.”[20]
-The relentless nowness, the undeniable pushing of the Christ child, the contractions of the world all around us are the magic, the mystery of Christmas.
-But the good news is that through Christ, “love made a way to be near us…in Jesus, love has a name…[and] as candles flicker and carols are sung, hold close the truth that love knows your name.”[21]
[1] Julie Dotterweich Gunby, “Waiting For A Love That Will Undo Us,” December 2024 edition of Sojourners, pg. 24.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid, pg. 25
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, pg. 24.
[8] Sanctified Art, “Words From the Beginning,” Sermon Planning Guide, Christmas Eve, page 21.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid, pg. 22.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
Comments