Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What a joy it is to be here with you on this holy night. There is something special about this night. Something beckons us out of our warm homes and pajamas and calls us through the darkened streets to make our way to gather with friends and strangers to recall the birth of Jesus. Maybe it’s a deep sense of faith that brings you here, perhaps it’s nostalgia, or it could be something in your soul that tells you that you might find here tonight that thing you’ve been searching for. Whatever it is, there is no denying the power of this night which fills us with wonder and stirs us to sing praises to God.
The Christmas story certainly isn’t a rational one. There’s nothing that I can point to in the passage that we heard from Luke that fully explains the enchantment of tonight. Instead, this story is full of absurdity. It starts with the census ordered by Emperor Augustus. There are two reasons why you’d want to know how many people are living in your land – you want to know how much tax revenue to expect or you want to know how many people you might have to put down in the event of an uprising. A census in the ancient world reminded you that you were ruled over by someone. And for the Jewish people, this was particularly offensive because the land promised to them by God was being ruled by a pagan.
But notice how this act of imperial power is subverted by God. As we heard just yesterday on the Fourth Sunday of Advent from the prophet Micah: “You, O Bethlehem, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel.” Had it not been for this census which was intended to oppress and dominate, Mary and Joseph would not have been venturing to Bethlehem in the ninth month of Mary’s pregnancy. The Emperor thought he was moving pieces around the board of his monopoly, when in actuality, he was merely a pawn in the plan of God’s salvation.
This time period around Jesus’ birth was a particularly contentious one. In 4BC, Herod the Great died and there were various power plays to grab the control that he once had, including some Jewish revolts. In response to one such revolt in the village of Sepphoris, a city just a few miles from Nazareth, the Romans burned the city and enslaved the people who they didn’t kill. This was a turbulent time in the history of Israel. There had been no prophets sent by God in centuries. Rome was as brutal as ever. As Isaiah described it, the people were living “in a land of deep darkness.” This isn’t the setting for a “happily ever after” fable, it’s much more of a tragedy. This is an absurd way to begin the story of salvation.
And then when this supposed Savior is born, there’s no room in the guest house for him. There isn’t even a proper place to lay him down after he’s been born. Instead, the Holy Family improvises and finds a manger, a feed trough, and lays their child in that. This aspect of Christmas has been ruined by sentimentality. This detail in the story is not sweet or quaint, it is utterly abhorrent and disgusting. Imagine tonight a child being born to poor parents who aren’t from around here. They’re discharged from the hospital with nowhere to go. The car is out of gas, and the only thing they can find to put their newborn baby into while it naps is a cardboard box. It is absurd that any supposed King of Israel would ever be found in such a condition.
When it comes to celebrating this birth, the only people that show up are some shepherds. While shepherding is an image used for how God relates to Israel and might remind us of King David’s lowly beginnings, shepherding as an occupation was not a prestigious one. It was a dirty and not-widely respected job. But these are the ones to whom the angel announces the good news of the Messiah’s birth. No royal decrees, just the absurdity of some peasants who say they talked to an angel.
Everything about this story is absurd. The oppressed people whose ancestral land is occupied and have been longing for a savior to come are given not a warrior, but a baby. He is visited not by dignitaries, but outcasts. He doesn’t even have a proper place to lay his head, just a slobber soaked bunch of hay. The only people who sing his praises aren’t even people, they’re angels. What in this story makes us say “Glory to God in highest”? What in this story makes us say “Thank God, the Messiah has come”? What in this story gives us salvation?
The answer is nothing. It’s an absurd story and it offers us very little in the way of hope, confidence, or salvation. Where we find the glory, majesty, and grace of the Christmas story is in the question behind the story, the question “What kind of God does this?” Instead of considering the story and attempting to pull out lessons to learn, we would do much better to use the story a window that tells us something about God.
One theologian has said, “No self-respecting god would do this.” Given the absurdity of the Christmas story, that’s true, no self-respecting God would do this. When we typically think of majesty, of power, of royalty, we think of palaces, crowns, and wealth. There is nothing in this story that says “Pay attention to this one, he looks like a Messiah.” But that’s actually the grandeur of what this Christmas story has to say about God.
Christmas isn’t about God’s self-respect. God did not come to in us Jesus to receive honor, or glory, or praise. Rather, Christmas is about God’s respect towards us. Christmas tells us about a God who loves us so deeply and desires to be among us in such a tangible way that God is willing to lay aside divine dignity to take on human flesh. Another theologian has said that the Incarnation is “God’s refusal to stay in his place.” God isn’t concerned about how this looks because God is more interested in showing you how deeply you are loved.
Christmas shows us that the sort of God who would do this is faithful to promises. In Leviticus, God said, “I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.” Christmas is the fulfillment of this promise as we encounter Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” The thing about love is that when you love someone, when you really and truly and deeply love someone, and they need you, you’ll do whatever it takes to be with them, even if it means making sacrifices. Christmas shows us that God is the sort who so loves the world and is willing to give up glory to be laid in a manger, so long as it means that God’s love is manifest among us.
Too often when the Christian faith is summarized this Christmas story is described as a part of the solution to a problem. The story goes something like: God created the world, but we ruined it, so God had to send his Son to die in order to make things right. If you’ve ever been taught that, I’m sorry. That is not the Christmas story. The Incarnation of Jesus was not God’s backup plan. The birth of Jesus is a story about love and the promise to always be with us, it’s not a story of revenge. God came to us because that’s what you do when you love someone. Through and through, this is a story of God’s abundant, unwavering, reckless, and gracious love.
And as God comes to us in such an absurd and undignified way, it shifts our imaginations of what is possible and probable. If God’s love can dwell fully in a crying baby that’s laying a trough in a one-camel town like Bethlehem, then God’s love can show up anywhere. If God’s love is born in the lowest of places, then maybe our culture’s race to be the best is actually going in the wrong direction. If God’s love comes into a time of deep darkness, then it means that God is quite comfortable with the darkness that you might be facing and is going to be right there with you.
This is what the Pauline letter to Titus is getting at. “When the loving kindness of God appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy.” If you hear nothing else tonight, hear this: God came in love for you. God, of course, comes in love for us all. But specifically and uniquely, God loves you. For you, the Almighty took on flesh. For you, the Savior was born. For you, the Messiah was pleased to lie in a manger instead of a throne. As we heard in Titus, “we have been justified by his grace, so that we might become heirs of eternal life.”
Just as God came to us in such an absurd way, God’s love for you isn’t going to stop at death. God isn’t going to stop loving you because you’ve made a mistake, or because when the offering plate goes by you tonight you put in the $5 bill instead of the $20. Why? Because you’re an heir of God’s promises. The inheritance is yours and no one is going to take that from you. As we heard, it is God’s grace that has given us this love, not any of our works or righteousness. Maybe you pray often, maybe you don’t. Maybe you come to this church often, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re generous with your time and money, and maybe you’re not. Either way, out of God’s deep and abiding love, God came and continues to come for you.
This is the Good News – that more than anything else, the truest thing that can ever be said is that you are always loved by the One who created all thing and sustains all things. And I will tell you from personal experience that this love changes everything. God’s love liberates us from all the time and energy we waste trying to self-justify, trying to become the best versions of ourselves. God’s love is the antidote to our sense of loneliness and meaninglessness. God’s love gives us our purpose, our meaning, our direction. And this is all grace, so there’s nothing that you have to do with this love. You don’t have to accept it. You don’t have to spread it. You don’t have to earn it.
But if you choose to, you can enter into it. It was the love of God that created the universe. It was the love of God that was born in Jesus. It is the love of God that will restore and redeem all things. This divine love is the grain of the universe, and if we go with that grain, we will encounter a peace which passes all understanding. We will find moments of joy, even in the dark places of life. We will know that we are fiercely loved for who we are.
If you want to know more about this love, if you want to encounter it more deeply, you are invited to join us at the altar for the Holy Eucharist. Yes, it’s absolutely absurd that we believe that a wafer of bread and a sip of wine is somehow the Body and Blood of that baby whose birth we celebrate tonight. But that’s just the sort of thing that the sort of God who would lie in a manger would do. No matter where you are on your journey of faith and life, know that you can come to this altar anytime you want to enter more deeply into God’s love for you. Know that you’ll find a community gathered with you, who are also looking to be fed and will walk this journey with you. Know that when you stretch out your arms to receive the bread and wine that God’s arms are stretching out in love towards you.
What kind of God would do something absurd as this, to be born in such lowly state and be present in bread and wine? Only a God who deeply loves us and who is more concerned about making sure that we receive that love and are transformed by it than maintaining appearances. Only a God of deep and abiding love would do this. It is exactly this sort of loving God that was born for you. And so we join our voices in thanksgiving for the gift of God’s love in Jesus: Glory to God in the highest!
