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Luke 2:1-20
During Advent, we have heard
messages of hope and promises of salvation through the words of the prophets
Isaiah and Micah, and through the angel who visited Mary and told her of the
amazing miracle that God was going to work through her. In Christmas and Epiphany, we are invited to
celebrate the fulfillment of those promises in the gift of Jesus Christ. Our opening verse and closing hymn, “Joy to
the World,” reminds us that the news is too good to keep to ourselves:
Joy
to the world, the Lord is come! Let
earth receive her king;
Let
every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing…
These are the days of singing
for all of creation. God’s word is
fulfilled. The Lord has come, and
through him, we will all be saved.
Tonight we celebrate the birth of a child, but not just any child. Tonight we celebrate the birth of God’s own
son, the very coming of God in the flesh.
The theological term is
“incarnation,” which means, “God made flesh.”
The whole Christmas story, as we piece it together, tells of people who
were truly in awe of what was happening around them. The newborn child in the manger, his parents,
the angel-struck shepherds smelling of sheep and sweat, the wise men and their
costly, aromatic gifts, all were waiting for God’s blessing. And that blessing came in the person of Jesus
Christ, growing from infancy to childhood, and beginning a ministry among God’s
people.
Tonight we celebrate this
incarnation, the fleshing out of the story of God’s love for all of God’s
people: it is a story of the extraordinary
filling the ordinary; it is God’s glory
manifested in earthly, everyday things.
In reality, it was probably a
messy, messy Christmas, that first Christmas Eve night. Mary and Joseph had traveled ten days journey
from Nazareth to Bethlehem, only to find the family home already overrun with
others who had traveled for the same reason. Who could have known that Mary’s
time would come so soon? Who would have
thought this to be the perfect place for the birth of a king?
Many of us hope that
Christmas will calm and quiet, a time for reconnecting with family and friends,
and maybe a time of rest. But the first
Christmas was probably nothing like that.
It was frightening, as Mary and Joseph had traveled a long distance to be
present for the government ordered census after being told about this amazing
and curious pregnancy. Their
accommodations were less than desirable, even though the stable was probably
the most private and quiet place in their family home. And soon strangers would come to validate
what they had been told, first shepherds straight from the fields, and later,
foreigners with gifts that would foretell of this baby’s life journey. And later still, the family would flee to Egypt
to escape King Herod, who would do just about anything to eliminate any
possible competition from this so-called infant king.
The celebration of Christmas
didn’t start the year after Jesus was born – or the year after he died. It started over two hundred years later, when
the early church realized that the birth stories were a new way to bring people into the story… new listeners – new believers – new worshipers of this
fully human – fully divine, “oh so different” king.
Like no other part of Jesus’
story, the nativity story makes real the fact that God was one of us...
nurtured in the water of the womb through nine months of forming fingers and
toes and ears and eyes. Then there was
the birth… like millions before it. God
came into the world as others babies do.
With tears mixed with laughter, fear, pain, exhilaration, joy,
exhaustion. Anguish for Mary. Trauma for God. Finally, after all of that, God drew his
first human breath and smelled what? The
warm stench of a barn. You can’t get
more humble than that. (Betsy Wright, The Virginian-Pilot, 12/16/95)
This is what makes us embrace
this baby Jesus so warmly. You see, in
Jesus, God become totally accessible. In
Jesus, God isn’t the one we hide from, as Moses did behind a rock, waiting for
the Lord to appear. No, in Jesus, we
have a God we want to hold in our arms and cuddle, a God over whom we can exclaim,
“what a miracle”, just as we do to the babies in our own lives.
There’s a wonderful
children’s story – The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara
Robinson. Boy, did she ever get it right
when she told about a Christmas play that did not go the way everyone expected. It all started when the director broke her
leg a few weeks before Christmas… and the six worst kids in the town
volunteered to play all the major roles… during every rehearsal there was
hitting and cussing and general malcontent.
Through the practices, it is revealed that the Herdmann kids had never
even heard the story of Jesus’ birth… they just came to church for the
donuts. And when their fearless leader, oldest
sister Imogene, found out about all of the indignities surrounding the nativity
story, she just wanted to go beat somebody up.
But on the night of the play,
everyone listened with new ears as these novice players acted out the familiar
story right before their eyes. And they
knew that the children had gotten it right as the Mary and Joseph entered the
sanctuary. The story’s 10-year old
narrator described them like this – “They looked like people you see on the six
o’clock news – refugees, sent to some strange ugly place, with all their boxes
and sacks around them.” And when the
Three Kings came to worship the baby, instead of a jar of sweet smelling bath
salts, they brought the family ham, the one they got in their Christmas food basket from the church, complete
with a ribbon that said, “Merry Christmas.”
Everyone said it was the best
pageant ever, but no one could quite put their finger on why it was so much
better. Our narrator said it best,as children often do, “As
far as I’m concerned, Mary is always going to look like Imogene Herdmann, sort
of nervous and bewildered – and ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her
baby. And the Wise Men would always be
Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham.”
The Christmas story is
complicated and messy and took more than one day to unfold. Its message has the power to shape not just a
day’s celebration, but how we live each and every day… even for our whole
lives. The love that is Christmas, the
peace and joy that are Christmas, they are the goal of God’s people every day
of the year.
May this poem from 20th
century theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman be our prayer for
Christmas and all of our lives…When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To
find the lost, to heal the broken,
to
feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
to
rebuild the nations, to bring peace among brothers and sisters,
to
make music in the heart.
May you each be blessed with
a merry, messy Christmas!
Peace, Deb
Peace, Deb
(Thanks to The Journey
by Adam Hamilton, Christmas is Not Your Birthday by Mike Slaughter for
influencing this year's Advent experience and this sermon. Thurman’s poem originally
appeared in his book, The Mood of Christmas and Other Seasons - 1973 - And thanks again to the Herdmann's for keeping it all real.)
Click to view video of scripture and sermon
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