Christmas Eve

Year A

December 24, 2007

All Saints’, Bentonville

Gospel: Luke 2: 1-20

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

                            "Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

We like to paint a pretty picture of the birth of Jesus.  We’ve heard the Christmas story enough that in our mind’s eye we see the quaint, colorful depictions of the nativity scene: stars in the east, three wise men, all is calm all is bright… without us even hearing the story as Luke really tells it.

This place where Jesus was born, something of a lean-to, made to keep rain off the heads of donkeys and cows, wasn’t the first century equivalent of a birthing center.  A manger is a feeding trough, not a bassinet.  And Mary and Joseph didn’t choose to have their baby born among farm animals.  If they had not been so dirt poor, they could have found room at an inn.  They weren’t being cared for by efficient and well trained doctors and nurses.  Their first visitors were a couple of filthy sheep herders – who smelled like the flock they slept beside each night.

A baby’s birth, even under the best of conditions, isn’t all that neat and tidy.  And this birth in a barnyard, the culmination of an unplanned pregnancy, to a couple traveling far from home, without the benefit of a midwife or money, was a far cry from the way we like to imagine the serenity of manger scene.

I was present for the birth of my first born child.  We had taken Lamaze classes and read childbirth books, but, Dana, my first wife wasn’t completely convinced that I was prepared for the experience.  Her reluctance to accept my readiness to fully participate in the birthing process, stemmed from an experience she had shared with me a few years earlier.  She was new nursing student at a large public hospital in Galveston.  Enthralled with what she was learning, she took me with her one evening to the maternity ward, where a constant stream of births took place.  We stood together in the hall, in a position where we had a clear view of the birthing process.  Dana, as a student, was completely absorbed by the clinical aspects of the procedure.  All I remember was that a strange woman, in considerable pain, was moaning very loudly, and I was seeing a female body do things that, as a young man, I could not imagine were possible.

Dana was so absorbed in the event, in fact, that she failed to notice that my face had turned pale and I was beginning to sway.  I could feel the heat rising and beads of sweat forming on my forehead.  My stomach wasn’t at ease.  And then things started getting kind of dark and dizzy.  It was only when I distracted her by saying, “Dana, I don’t so feel so good,”  that she caught me and eased me to the floor.  

So, armed with the knowledge that her husband was a wimp, Dana enlisted the aid of a good friend to assist us with the birth of our son.  My clearest memory of that blessed event was standing side by side with our friend, Kathleen, each of us with one of Dana’s feet planted firmly on our chests, while she pushed our baby boy into the world – a swirl of pain and of relief, of tears and laughter, of messiness and beauty.  All of the stuff of which life is made – right there in those few moments of new birth. 

It’s all here in the birthing story of All Saints’ as well. Along with Christmas we can rightly celebrate our origins.  Origins that took place in pubs, and public parks, and a junior high auditorium that smelled of pubescent boys. We’ve opened our doors to all God’s children and all God’s children bring with them the messiness of their lives, into this holy place – where we can daily witness the miracle of new birth. 

Toward the end of our Spanish service yesterday, a shabbily dressed man walked into the nave and found a place in an empty pew.  He didn’t wasn’t aware that he had entered a Spanish service and he confided in me later that he didn’t really know what was going on - he thought we might be speaking in tongues.  I won’t share with you all the details of the complicated day, just the one where I found myself, outside of the Salvation Army in Fayetteville, kind of irritated that I wasn’t spending my Sunday afternoon the way I like, napping or reading the NY Times.  We had already spent over an hour, driving around town, first picking up his friend, then retrieving a garbage bag of clothes from her former apartment.

I watched as she dragged an old suitcase, overly stuffed, containing the last of her possessions, down the sidewalk.  The suitcase burst it seams and its contents formed a tattered trail from the door of the Sally to my truck.   As I knelt to help her gather the wind scattered collection of t-shirts and toiletries blowing about the parking lot, I looked up at her weary and troubled face, and remembered that this young woman, in all her brokenness, was the Christ child.  

In a flash, in one of those moments when Christ is reborn within us, I remembered that the commemoration of the birth of our Lord, isn’t just an orgy of hyper-consumerism. It’s a re-imagining of the experience of God made incarnate. God taking the form of the Christ child – a human born in the lowest of circumstances, so that we can more easily understand that God lives within even the most destitute.  The birth of Jesus, compels us to see the face of God, in the faces of those the world loves the least.

Like the shepherds we are witnesses to the Christs being born among us.  As a new and growing church we are privileged to see these new Christs walk through our doors every Sunday.  And in an interesting twist to the Christmas story, these guests are the ones who come bearing gifts.  It is those that we imagine are the most needy, the most vulnerable, that bring to us the gift of enlightenment – the ability to see God in others and to know the God that lives within us.