Setting: the sanctuary Christmas eve night, the children have just moved the wise men closer to the altar and placed the shepherds and baby Jesus in the manger with the others placed there through the season of Advent.
War and violence fill the evening news and we no
longer notice it. Adults run themselves
ragged to ensure that their families don’t fall into poverty and despair while
children are so over scheduled they have forgotten how to play.
The joy of shopping for loved ones has been
taken away as senseless acts of violence unfold over televisions, tennis shoes,
and toasters.
We live in dark and fearful times. We come into this
place to hear a reassuring and timeless story of angels and shepherds and
virgins...and we find a Savior lying in a horse trough.
Our Savior is a wee little babe lying next to cows,
sheep, and goats among all those things one finds in a stable.
What an extraordinary claim! What an unlikely and
incredible cause for a celebration! How can darkness and doubt be penetrated by
a tiny baby born in a stable with the yuck that is real life to a frightened
and displaced couple far, far from home?
We come tonight to celebrate the birth of the Christ
child. Some of us come with heavy
hearts, broken spirits, and tired bodies.
Others come not remembering this child.
Still others cannot imagine this child making a difference in our lives,
in our worlds. Some of us come because
we don’t know what else to do.
The story we celebrate this night is far from safe.
From the very beginning there were few who could accept it. Every Gospel speaks
to this. John says he came to his own but his own people did not accept him.
Luke says that even as he was being born, no room could be found for him and
the doors were shut to him. Matthew says the very mention of him threw the king
into a murderous fit, and the child and his family had to flee. And strangely
enough, right here in the stories of his birth, we are already hearing echoes
of his death. Even as a newborn we could not find room for him. Even at the
first glimmer of the light of the world, the world was saying "There is no
room for you here.”
In the stories of his birth and death we see a king
who is far more powerful and far more glorious than any splendid earthly ruler.
A God willing to lay aside power and
glory in a way we never could. We see
one who is more pure and righteous than even the most virtuous person walking
this earth. One who does not treat
anyone as beneath him, none are excluded from his love. Not even the lowest of the low. We see one who is the rightful judge of all
the earth, yet who never judges us harshly for our attempt to run from him and
shield ourselves from his light.
We see one who, though we shut our doors and left him
to be born in a filthy stable, and though we found it easier to turn our backs
on his death than endure his teaching, he continues to approach us with the
unbearable light of extravagant love, perfect grace and truth made flesh. Perfect love made incarnate in a form we can
recognize only if we choose to look past the simplicity of it.
We see in this amazing, upside down love story that it
is possible for love to banish fear, for grace to banish vengefulness, and for humility
to banish arrogance.
If we let go of our petty excuses to run from this
love we can come to know this saviour that chose to come as a fragile and vulnerable
and powerless newborn baby. Then and
only then may we stand in the light of Christ.
This little baby lying in a trough promises the
salvation of the world. This story is so
far from what was expected then, expected now, that we have difficulty wrapping
our arms, let alone our minds around it.
Yet, if we like those long ago shepherds follow the light into that
dirty stable, we will find ourselves born anew, born of God, born as children
of God, full of grace and truth.
And if we allow ourselves to come closer to that
trough, to kneel with the shepherds and angels in the smelly mess that is
Immanuel, God with us, we begin to see the edges of the darkness pushed away a
little bit at a time.
In that wee babe we experience a love like no
other. A love that turns everything
upside down. A love beyond our
imagining, our understanding, our experience.
A love that pushes the darkness further and further away.
This is the love that cannot be quenched even when the
world will not make room for it. A love
that will come to us again and again until we recognize it, embrace it, make
room for it. A love that redeems all
that it touches. A love that makes even those of us that are frightened and
displaced feel as though we belong. A love
that allows us to crawl into the trough and be made whole again.
This
love comes to us in the stuff that is life and drives out the darkness. A love that calls us to run with the
shepherds from the stable to share with others all we have been told about this
child. A love that changes everything as
the need to share it bursts from us as we leave the stable this night.
Shall we go
now and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to
us?
