In the eighty-first psalm, the voice of the people of God, in slavery in Egypt, says, “I hear a voice I had not known” (Ps 81:5). That unrecognized voice is God’s voice. How could God’s people not know God’s voice? Why don’t they recognize Him?

If we believe it, the Bible tells us that all people exist because of God. God has created us, called each of us into existence. It’s also pretty clear, from experience and knowledge, that millions do not know God because of whom we exist. Cherished Christmas carols tell us that, too, if we listen: in “Joy to the World” we sing, “He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.” Curse? What curse? Perhaps the curse of not knowing God’s voice. In “O Little Town of Bethlehem” we sing, “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.” Why may no ear hear his coming? Perhaps because, until the heart hears, the ear won’t listen, no matter how much is being said.

Tonight, particularly, we hear about Jesus as the Word of God. That’s the way St. John speaks of Jesus in what I read to you. For God, speaking and doing are one and the same. God says “rain,” and it rains. God says “grow,” and there is growth. God says “live,” and there is life. Jesus is the saying that is doing: the Son, the Word of God that became flesh and dwelt among us, he is this divine power that causes. With Jesus, be sure something will happen; where Jesus is involved, something must happen.

For us, to speak does not make what we say happen. We don’t have that power. We don’t even have the power to keep our promises. We say something, and we don’t follow through, we don’t fulfill it. To speak doesn’t require much effort: we speak without thinking all the time—I do, anyway. We dole out words from the surface of our hearts, but we maybe don’t often enough bring out into the light the truly precious words, the words that change things, that bring light, that bring peace and hope: Christ-words, treasured in the depths of our hearts, put there by God. Let’s listen for them.

Talk is cheap, as the old saying goes. Real doing takes effort, sometimes great effort: to get up in the morning, to go to the job, day in and day out, to stay committed to a relationship that doesn’t fill us with that crazy excitement and gleeful anticipation we felt at first—work, effort. To stay true to God, to believe in God in a more meaningful way than you believe in gravity or time, to want God the way you want happiness and fulfillment—work, serious, hard, ongoing work. The work of recognition, of knowing the voice of God.

You labor, we all labor, but what is your labor of love?

John tells us that the very one through whom all things exist came among us, and we didn’t know him. We didn’t recognize or acknowledge him. I can understand how we might not have recognized him. Just consider the way he came among us in Bethlehem that cold, starry night: a newborn wrapped warm in his totally exhausted, sweaty mother’s arms; a baby laid in some hay in a feeding trough. Hard to recognize that baby as God, though maybe we can recognize the work of God in the miracle of birth, creation, speaking the child into being. Still, angels suddenly appearing to Mary, to Joseph, and to shepherds, Wise Men from far lands seeking out the newborn king: all this might tip us off that something extraordinary is going on, if we believe it, or think we might, might just try some real belief, tonight. There’s never been a better time to begin.

Do you think you might believe that God is real and really in the world? I suppose most of us are willing to say that God is somewhere. But here, with us? Maybe, for the sake of this night, and your being here, in a church, now, let’s just say that God is here on earth, with us, or that God was, once, as this book says, this book that we Christians make so much of. What difference does God’s presence here on earth so long ago make, now?

Here we are, and this is a happy time, in its way, but after tomorrow, back to life, right? Another old carol, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” puts it melodramatically but there’s still some truth in it: “And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the weary way with painful steps and slow.” We all have cares and concerns. It’s good to escape all that for an hour, or a day, like now, but then what? Back to the load, the toil, the slow steps toward . . . what?

Church isn’t an escape. Faith isn’t an escape. Tonight isn’t an escape. Tonight is a call, a reminder, an invitation to listen. Listen. Do you hear what I hear? Come and see with me a man bent low, over his shoulder a crushing load, toiling along up a hill, with painful steps and slow. You know who he is, but you might not recognize him also lying there in that feeding trough in that stable. No wonder the world didn’t know him! He didn’t come the way God ought to have come. He didn’t leave the way God ought to leave. Why do we Christians say this is God? We not only say this is God, that God truly came to us; we also say this baby, this Messiah, is love: God’s love for you that comes still, and now.

Nobody knows what it’s like. Nobody knows what I’m going through. There is no help. There is no hope. We hear that; we’ve felt that. Maybe even today, even tonight. Listen. God is speaking. He has something to say to you. He wants you to meet someone who does know, who knows about pain and burden, heaviness and sorrow, and about hope, power, and joy, peace, blessing, love.

The world still doesn’t know, but you can know. You can know tonight. God is inviting you to know, to look into this: not to take my word for anything, but to take His Word with you. Here is the evidence that God is in the world. You can be the evidence for it.

God doesn’t promise you success or wealth or popularity or power, as the world conceives such things. God tells you He is offering you here, tonight, in this baby, success, wealth, power, wisdom, strength, and peace as God conceives these blessings, conceives them by His Holy Spirit. God is always in the world, by His Spirit, in the power of the Word of God, always at work on His labor of love, always offering close relationship, sure promise, and great hope. Jesus knows your cares, your hurts, and with him, in him, by him, he wants you to know the joy of God, the peace of God, the promise of God, the love of God, for you, personally. Because that’s the kind of God we Christians know. You can be the evidence for it.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God’s judgments and how inscrutable God’s ways! For from God and through God and to God are all things. To God be glory forever!