Christmas Eve Message 2022

 

On a cold, dark, dreary night, not unlike tonight, a very tired, very pregnant woman and her worried and scared husband arrived at Bethlehem. They were exhausted. Once they arrived, and were ready to just lay down their bodies and take a nap, they found the town to be so full of people there was nowhere to rest. I suspect the inn-keeper saw their faces were etched with weariness. Therefore, the inn-keeper invited the couple to rest in their stable, to rest with the animals who were bedded down for the night. Perhaps the inn-keeper could sense that Mary was about to burst – sometimes we just know these things. So, after the inn-keeper assessed the couple, they invited them to rest in their stable for the night.

            Soon, the baby was born. Mary delivered him without the comforting presence of her mother or her cousin Elizabeth or her best friend or her cousins. Joseph helped Mary as best as he could. And, once Mary delivered the baby, she wrapped him cloths and laid the baby down in a manger on a bed of hay. Mary and Joseph were resourceful and they made-do with what they had…cloths and hay, maybe some straw for bedding.

            Mary was both exhausted and filled with adrenaline. Joseph was probably felt the same way – tired and energetic. They probably felt very, very alone without the presence of their family members. Imagine their surprise when a band of smelly shepherds arrived at the stable.

            The first visitors to meet the baby Jesus, to meet the savior of our world, were hard working, weather-beaten, men. Men who were blessed by the appearance of an angel choir, men who were blessed by their brush with the Holy when they met Jesus. I am sure their lives were forever changed when they met Jesus.

            God made many choices that day. And, although we cannot understand the mind of God, we can observe those choices. God chose poor, uneducated, young, rural people to be Jesus parents. They weren’t a king and a queen. They weren’t a priest and a first lady. They were just modest, humble, faithful people.

Jesus wasn’t born in a palace like King Herod’s sons or the sons of Augustus Caesar, the rulers of Israel in that period. The babies of the kings or the emperors would have been born under the watchful eyes of physicians and ladies in waiting and dignitaries of the royal court and careful servants.  Jesus was born under the watchful eyes of a cow and a donkey and goats and sheep.

Royal babies would have been visited by ambassadors from foreign lands, by prestigious and powerful allies of the king or emperor. Jesus’ first visitors were shepherds. The inn-keepers family may have dropped in. The handyman from the inn may have met Jesus when he came to water the animals and feed them in the morning. Nobody important showed up for months and months and months. Eventually, some astrologers came to see the baby, but that was long after the night of this birth.

As Jesus got older, God didn’t chose for Jesus to be trained by tutors like a prince. God didn’t chose for Jesus to be waited on by a flock of attentive servants. God didn’t chose for Jesus to be notorious throughout the land when he was a child. He was born to a young couple just starting out life together. He was first a visitor to Bethlehem, then was a refugee in Egypt, and eventually grew up in the backwaters of Nazareth. Jesus wasn’t raised like a typical king. He wasn’t raised by a priestly family and prepared to work on God’s behalf in a temple or synagogue. Jesus was instead reared by a family of carpenters. He was taught to work with his hands. Jesus had callouses and probably had blackened his fingernails with a hammer a time or two. Jesus learned how to do hard, manual labor.

Jesus was one of us. He lived a regular life, among regular people, even though he had a calling that eventually led him to be the savior of the world. And, on that night of his birth, even though Mary and Joseph had been told about Jesus’ messianic future, I suspect they were just relieved that he was born. Like every parent, Mary probably kept counting his fingers and his toes. Joseph probably kept leaning in to sniff Jesus’ head – we are hardwired to love the smell of baby. On that special night, Mary and Joseph would have been too tired and too wired to worry about everything that was about to unfold. They were just happy they had a place to rest, a place to hold their precious baby close, and were able to take it all in.

Let’s work to take it all in tonight, in the middle of our own exhaustion and exhilaration. Let us work to remember the birth of the special baby who was born to save us. And, let us appreciate the God who paid attention to all of the details, who reminds us in Jesus that no matter how modest our lives, how regular we are, we are each called to do great things – to love each other, to work for peace, to share the story of Jesus the Christ with all the world.

Let us to do with love in our hearts and the light of Christ radiating out from us. Amen.