If you read the story carefully, the first Christmas was a pretty sad event, even pathetic! If there hadn’t been a census that year, Jesus would have been born at home, in Nazareth, in a warm bed, surrounded by family and friends. If there hadn’t been a census that year, Jesus would have been laid in a new baby-bed, hand crafted by Joseph himself, right there in his own carpenter shop. If there hadn’t been a census that year, one of his aunts would probably have come to stay with Mary a month or two to help her before, during and after her delivery. If there hadn’t been a census that year, neighbors, friends and local Nazareth musicians would have gathered outside the house as the birth drew near, a traditional Jewish practice at that time. If there hadn’t been a census that year, those musicians would have struck up the band and the whole neighborhood would have erupted in singing and dancing when it was announced: “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!”
For reasons known only to God, it didn’t happen that way! As usual, God had a different idea. Instead, Mary came due at the very same time that Joseph was required by law to register in a rotating, fourteen-year Roman census. Because of that census requirement, a very pregnant Mary and a very worried Joseph were required to pack their bags and travel 80 miles, across country, on donkey-back, to Joseph’s ancestral town of Bethlehem. All this happened so that the foreign government occupying their country could have a better headcount to collect their taxes. Away from home, with labor pains coming on and unable to find a place to stay, this scared and exhausted young couple took refuge in a barn. Mary delivered her baby, right there in the barn, using an animal’s feedbox for his bed. How pitiful can you get!
Luke, the writer of this narrative, knew that if this birth had taken place at home, things would have been very different, but here he is telling us that the Savior of the world was born in the most desperate of situations. Looking at all this through the eyes of faith, Luke paints a pathetic picture and then heaven wrapping it up in wings of love. Shepherds take the place of celebrating neighbors and family members back home in Nazareth. Singing angels fill in for local musicians. Luke turns this pathetic situation into a heavenly event. In his story, he shows us God kissing the whole earth and every human being on it.
We know all the details of the Christmas story quite well, but do we know the point of this story? Do we understand what it means? Luke is not merely reporting historical facts here: he is making a religious point. He is telling us that by sending his Son, Jesus, into the world in this strange way, God is saying to us that he wants to be intimately involved in our lives, even in the most pathetic and unlikely situations, even when things seem hopeless and even when God seems absent. By sending his Son, Jesus, into the world in this way, God is saying that he loves us, all of us, including the weakest and most vulnerable of us, even those of us the world considers worthless.
The story, of course, does not end here. The Christmas story is just one part of a much longer love story. This God-child grew up and preached the ongoing reconciliation of heaven and earth. This Jesus revealed the soft-spot in God’s heart for the marginalized of society – the poor, the sick, the old and the suffering – and gave them a sense of their own dignity, no matter how desperate their situations.
What does this incredibly loving God want from us for all this? What kind of response does God want to his incredible incarnation? In a nutshell, God wants to be involved in our lives in an intimate way. God wants nothing less than a love relationship. He wants to shower us with love and he wants us to love him back by trusting him, especially in time of doubt and sorrow. No matter how much we have been through, he wants us to know that he has “been there and done that” with us and that someday we will understand how it all fits together!
My friends, on this Christmas we gather again to celebrate the embrace of an incredibly loving God! So let us realize again today that, no matter who we are, what we’ve done or failed to do, what we’ve been through or what we cannot seem to get over, we are being held right now in the embrace of God’s unconditional love. His name is Emmanuel, which means “God with us!”
My friends, some of you are reeling from
incredible losses, some of you are hurting and some of you are scared of what’s
next. I cannot take that away or make it all better this Christmas, but I do
hope you know that the first Christmas was not all that merry either! For Mary
and Joseph, it was a time filled with fear, homesickness and disorientation.
Just as the angels wrapped their wings around their pathetic situation, may the
angels of God wrap their wings around you and your situation! I don’t know why
some people suffer, but I do know that God loves them! In spite of the hard
time, you may be experiencing, I hope you know down deep that in giving us his
Son, God has given us his heart!
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