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Luke 2:1-20
I remember once, when I was 14, my family decided to take a trip down to Arizona to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Smith. They’d just moved down there the year before, to a retirement community called Green Valley, because of Grandma’s asthma and Grandpa’s heart issues. I remember thinking when we first decided to go that, apart from getting to see Grandma and Grandpa, this was going to be the most boring vacation ever- who wants to go visit a retirement community?
It ended up being a pretty big trip for us though; turns out there‘s a lot to do in Arizona. It was my first time on an airplane, so that was a new experience. We made my first and only sojourn into Mexico, which is really like another world when you’re 14. We walked a trail up a mountain, which was pretty exciting.
We took a day trip to Tombstone, saw the OK Corral. This was only a year or so after the movie “Tombstone” came out, so that was pretty cool. We even ate dinner at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, where, in my 14 year old youthful pride and ignorance, I thought for sure I could finish a whole rack of ribs on my own- oh how the mighty did fall.
In fact, we ate at a lot of great places while we were in Arizona. I think I ate more beef in that one-week trip than I had in all the 14 years leading up to it. And the community itself wasn’t all that boring either. At least there was a swimming pool. And I found out that my Grandparents lived on El Diablo Street, and so of course there was a joke or two Grandma and Grandpa living down the road from Satan, it sure was hot enough.
And there was the canal, which was at the time dry as a bone, which ran behind their house. Grandma told us was thriving with rattlesnakes and to stay far away from. So clearly I had to check that out when Mom and Dad weren’t looking. And given that it was a man-made, concrete canal, and dry as I mentioned, I was heartbroken over having not brought my skateboard.
In addition to all these great experiences, there’s one very insignificant experience which for some reason has lodged itself in my memory. We were in the car, on our way home from dinner at a steak house (incidentally, this particular steak-house’s calling card was that if you wore a tie there they’d cut it off and tack it to the rafters). On our way home we were driving along a stretch of highway which ran beside another endless stretch of desert (there’s an awful lot of desert out there), and the sun was setting over sand and mountains.
And as we stared out the windows, my middle-younger brother Kenny, who was about 10 at the time, said “that’s beautiful.” I looked over him with all the loving, brotherly wisdom I could pack into a condescending look, and told him “don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what?” He asked.
“What you just said, the b-word.”
“I didn’t say the b-word.”
“Yes you did.”
“What b-word?”
“The one you just said.”
“What, beautiful?”
“Don’t say it again; yes, that one.”
“Why?”
And here is where the wisdom stepped in. In my maturity, schooled in the ways of the world, I looked back at him and said “men don’t say that word.”
You see, at 14 I had reached the age when boys start to think of themselves more as men, when they stop mockingly imitating their fathers and move to trying to actually be like their fathers, or, the complete opposite of their fathers depending on their feelings at the moment.
And at 14, I thought that being like my Dad meant cutting some words out of my vocabulary. Dad was the type who didn’t always say what he was feeling.
Mom was. Mom’s the type of person who makes sure to tell you “I love you” at the end of nearly every conversation. I remember asking her once why Dad didn’t do the same thing. She said that he grew up in a family that didn’t do that and that he expects you to know he loves you by what he does and feels like he shouldn’t have to say it for you to know.
I’m not being critical of Dad, I think there’s a lot be said for his approach to love. Not too long ago I picked up a phrase from reading Craig Ferguson’s autobiography “American on Purpose,” that I think describes Dad’s outlook, and that’s “work equals love.” You see, Dad believed back then that the best way you could show someone you love them was to work your butt off for them. Whether it was your actual job, or coaching a basketball team, or refinishing their bedroom, you put everything you have into doing whatever your doing well for their benefit.
To Dad, it wasn’t so much what you said, as what you did, that was important. It’s kind of like what we’re told in James 2:15-16 “15(A) If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16(B) and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good[a] is that?”
That is true when we communicate with one another, and it is equally true when God means to communicate with us. The Scriptures are filled with examples of God trying to express Himself through His actions beyond what He says.
When we look at our passage for today, some of us as Christians are so accustomed to hearing this it that we’re likely to hear it as just another sentimental story. We look at Mary and Joseph in the stable and we think “aww, how sad.” Or, we may look at the Angels’ appearance to the shepherds and think “what a precious moment.”
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being sentimental about this story. In fact, if there’s any story in the world that we should be sentimental about, it’s this one. But we often, in our sentimental state, miss some of the deeper, more heart-shaking truths which God is trying to tell us with His actions here.
For instance, look at this whole issue of the census. As far as we know, Roman provincial censuses took place every 14 years, but an empire-wide census only happened three times under this particular emperor. I give you this boring information so that you can think about this: imagine if we were to conduct a similar census today. Under the rules of this census everyone had to be accounted for, not where they actually lived, but where they were born.
Imagine, in our case, that everyone ever born in Terre Haute had to return to Terre Haute, even if they didn’t have any connection to Terre Haute anymore. The hotels would be packed, there’d probably be people sleeping in their cars on the street. If you wanted to get a room, you’d probably have to pay really good money to get it.
I want you to picture that sort of overcrowding, because without our modern conveniences, that’s maybe a fourth of how bad it would be. Imagine, then, a woman in the last stages of pregnancy, riding over 80 miles with her husband, just so that their names could be written down on a piece of paper and sent to the Roman version of the IRS, only to find that they can’t get a room either, and they have to sleep in the stables- a much dirtier and smellier version of a parking lot.
I tell you this, not because I want the emotional effect it usually produces in people who think about this story, but because I want you to realize that this is the moment when God decided “it is time.” This is the moment he chose to be born into the world.
Now why is that? Presumably God could’ve chosen to come at any time to be born. He could’ve even waited until the census was over, created some reason for Mary and Joseph to stay behind in Bethlehem. Why here, why now?
I think, in this very unusual way, God is trying to tell us something here by his actions.
I think, for one, He is trying to tell us that He knew, even then, before the worst was to come, that there would never be enough room for Him in the world. As John tells us in his Gospel: “10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”
When it comes to the world in general, I’ve said it before, but we talk a great talk about God. The world loves to talk about the beauty of religion and charity and kindness; we love to speak well of God. But when God actually shows up, we tell Him there’s no room for Him here.
We often do that in our hearts too. So many of us as individuals talk a great talk about religion and God and the way the world ought to be; but when God actually shows up, when He comes to us as one of us, we don’t have any room for Him.
And yet, in spite of that, God comes to us anyway; if the only room for Him is in the stable, than He will be there in the stable, in order that He might be with us. He loves us so much, so abundantly, that He chooses to be with us despite our world’s disregard of and hostility towards Him and the things that are of Him.
He wants to offer something to the world, He brings His own Christmas gift, even if the world seems like it will never fully receive it.
When the angels appear to the shepherds, they appeared to some of the lowliest men of the world at that time. Being a shepherd was a tough, 24 hours, 7 days a week type job. It involved inconveniences like being constantly exposed to the weather, and dangers like defending your flock from predators.
But from the first-century Jew’s perspective, what was perhaps worse, was that these guys had to deal on a fairly regular basis with dead carcasses and didn’t have the time or opportunity to maintain the ritual purity laws. What this meant is that they were excluded from worship in the temple beyond what was allowed for all the outside world to see. They couldn’t go into the “inner courts” away from the gentiles. They were excluded, cast out, from the court of the Hebrews.
And yet, what is the angel’s message to them? “I bring you glad tidings of great joy that will be to ALL people.”
Regardless of their standing in society, rather than judge them by cleanliness and ceremony, all people are invited into the presence of God, made possible in the birth of Christ. These men, who weren’t even allowed to worship in the “court of the Hebrews” with their own people were, when the angelic choir appeared, placed in the inner courts of Heaven itself, there to worship God with the Angels.
God, through the mouth of His angel, promises peace and His, HIS, goodwill towards humanity, peace between Him and those who come to the feet of His Son; and then he demonstrates it in His actions by revealing the Heavenly Chorus.
In all these things, God could’ve chosen to forgo this whole “being born” business. If He just wanted us to know that He loved us, He could’ve simply come down and said it. Gabriel could’ve popped in, said “hey, God loves you,” and then disappeared and that been it.
But God decided that just saying “I love you” wasn’t good enough, that wasn’t going to cut it. He wants to show us, and He shows us by becoming one of us, by turning a dirty, smelly stable, down amongst the hay and the feces, into the site of the most wonderful birth ever, attended by a choir of angels, the birth which would change the world, a birth that can change us.
Words fail to quite capture the greatness of what God has done, He chose to act rather than just speak; but one word which makes a start at capturing some of it, despite it’s unmanliness, is that it is quite simply, “beautiful.”
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