Sermon; Christmas II; 11:00 pm
Merry Christmas!
We are gathered here, first and foremost, to worship God. We are also gathered here to celebrate the birth of Jesus. This is the mystery of the Word made flesh. This is the incarnational event when the Second Person of the Godhead, the Son, became a human being. In and through this event God became man, taking on human flesh without losing his divine nature. Tonight is all about the birth of that fully human and fully God baby to lowly Mary. Tonight is when we remember that baby being laid in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
As we think about this Christmas story and all that goes with it, there's something we may have overlooked. Just to recap the story: The Emperor calls for a census, which is what takes Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. It's also what brings many other people to Bethlehem, causing a shortage of rooms. The baby is born. An angel appears to shepherds announcing the news of the birth. An angelic host appears singing, “Glory to God in the highest.” The shepherds go to town, find the family, and make known what they had heard. The shepherds then depart, praising and glorifying God for all they had heard and seen.
What we may have missed is how little is said about the actual birth of Jesus. For as much as Luke writes about the annunciations of John and Jesus, Mary's visit to Elizabeth and the Magnificat, the birth of John and the Benedictus, for as vitally important as the birth of Jesus is, Luke only gives us two verses, almost as if in passing. There is more said about the reason Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem and the encounter with the shepherds than about the birth. For all of our celebrations, for all of our liturgical splendor, the event we celebrate is almost written as an afterthought.
That said, note where those two verses about the birth of Jesus fall: almost in the exact middle of the story. The birth of Jesus takes place in the middle of a royal decree that brought Mary & Joseph to Bethlehem and an angelic announcement that brought shepherds into town. The birth of Jesus, placed where it is, and despite the seemingly lack of focus, becomes the focal point of the story.
In the first part of the story, Mary & Joseph are drawn to Bethlehem by outside forces. It is the royal decree of a census that gets them into town. That decree gets them into the City of David, thereby cementing Jesus' connection to ancient Israel. That decree gets them to Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread” in Hebrew, thereby deepening the ties to when Jesus will say, “I am the bread of life.”
In the second part of the story, angels appear to shepherds announcing the birth and singing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven.” The shepherds are drawn into Bethlehem to see that of which the angels proclaimed, and then they make known to others what they had been told. This “making known to others what they had been told,” makes them the first evangelists.
On this night we are drawn to this place as surely as Mary & Joseph and the shepherds were drawn to Bethlehem. And just as in the gospel story with people on either side of the birth, there are people tonight who are also on either side of this event.
Some of you may be compelled to come to this place due to outside forces. Some of you are here because of family traditions, or a friend brought you, or grandma/grandpa said you were coming. That's okay. Like Mary didn't want to travel at nine months pregnant but was finally glad to be in a safe, stable place, you also may not have wanted to make this trip; but we are glad you are here. We are glad you are able to share this holy night with us.
Some of you may be drawn to this place because you can hear the angels singing, “Gloria in excelis Deo,” or you want to follow their instructions to worship by singing, “Venite adoremus Dominum.” Or maybe you are drawn to this place by the promise of a Silent Night.
To you also, we are glad you are here to welcome and worship the newborn king.
Regardless of why you are here, whether compelled or drawn, the birth of Christ is the focal point of the night. As the story is divided in two parts, so is our service. We hear the lessons and sing the songs proclaiming Christ's birth as a baby boy. We also participate in that holy meal with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven while we sing praise to the Lamb on the throne. As the birth is the mid-point in the story, we are gathered at the mid-point of what was and what will be. As the birth is the focal point of the story, our worship is the focal point of where we are right now – at that point between the already and the not yet.
At the first service this afternoon we had our No Rehearsal Christmas Pageant. I love this version because of its simplicity. A narrator reads the gospel story that we just heard while calling people up at certain times to play the parts of the various characters. No muss, no fuss, and always entertaining.
Even though we don't have a pageant at this late service, like the characters in the gospel and the people in the pageant, we all have a part to play in the story simply by virtue of our being here. Like the characters in the gospel, we too have been drawn to this moment in time. The question for us is, “Which character will we be?”
Will we take on the role of the Emperor and expect people around us to obey our every whim? Will we play the role of the residents of Bethlehem who were so full of other obligations that they relegated Mary & Joseph to a back room, out of sight and out of mind? Or will we be like the shepherds?
My prayer for all of us tonight is that we take on the role of the shepherds. I pray that we hear and heed the angelic announcement to seek out the one born of a woman and who will save the world. I pray that we will make known what we have seen and heard tonight – God is with us. And I pray that we will leave this place glorifying and praising God for what we have heard and seen, becoming evangelists in our own right.
At the end of the day the focal point of our story isn't what was or what will be, but it is God with us right now, in the middle of our story where we live every day.
May we never overlook that fact in the middle of our story God is with us, and may we, like the shepherds, not keep silent about what we have seen and heard.
Amen and Merry Christmas