How many Christmases have you celebrated? My answer is the same as my age, approximately 44 if you round things down correctly. Or 52. Whatever. For some, it’s not the same as your age, especially if this Christian holiday wasn’t part of your family of origin’s tradition. Maybe you grew up Jewish or Buddhist or Muslim or something else. Maybe there was a time in your life – maybe it’s now – that you really struggled to celebrate this holiday for one or more of a variety of reasons. Perhaps you can’t believe the whole virgin birth story. Or Christianity in general given its checkered history of doing some wonderful things in the world while sometimes – even at the same time – doing or promoting or silently endorsing some truly horrific things. Maybe you don’t have room for religion at all – it seems so out of step given the advances of science, and may feel irrelevant in our area where we have so much – why do we even need God? Or maybe you’ve distanced yourself because of the commercialization of Christmas. I understand that next year Wal-Mart will start selling Christmas trees mid-January with a Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend Sale! That may not be accurate, but I bet someone is thinking about it... Jim Gaffigan highlighted some of the surprising things that have come to be associated with Christmas during his comedy segment on CBS Sunday Morning – anything resonate with you? I hope this Christmas you can let yourself take a deep breath and hit pause on all those concerns, if just for 36 hours. Because there are some great, hopeful messages that the Christmas story offers.
Jesus’ birth narrative and his subsequent ministry represented the breaking of a new dawn for humanity. Paradigms about the character, nature, and location of God were shattered. Ideas about who God would honor with a visit were obliterated as an old couple of little societal importance was invited into the story, as was a very young woman and her fiancé, plus lowly shepherds watching sheep deep in the night, and even foreign, non-Jewish scholars who noticed a new star that was not meaningful to Jews but surely was to non-Jews. All these characters were invited to wonder anew about God and how they made sense of the world. More, this God invited them into the development of the storyline – this wasn’t something that was simply happening to them – they got to choose to engage or not. This meant that they had inherent power and agency even to say no to God. It is hard for us to appreciate how significant all of this was back then because we take so much of it for granted now.
The whopper game-changing stuff happened in and through Jesus, however. While there is still debate about the veracity of the birth narratives, there is little debate about the impact of the man whose birth we celebrate. Most people basically like the person of Jesus even if they can’t stand his Christian devotees! Why? Because he was best known for showing love, kindness, and support for those in his world who rarely received such things. Jesus was a voice of equality, equity, and inclusion long before civil rights movements were moving. His accessibility, teaching, healing, choice of venues, language and style – all of it communicated the message that God loves everyone equally, fully, and irreducibly. More, Jesus claimed that the Spirit of God was what was behind all the wonderous things about him, that the Spirit was in him. Pretty hard to argue with given all for which Jesus was known. He went further. He told his disciples (and by extension everyone else) that the indwelling Spirit was available to everyone – and in fact was already in residence, ready to be awakened and activated. To actualize this relationship with the divine within had such transformative power that for those who did so it was as if they had been born again. Such an inherent, innate gift from God further strengthened the power of everyone’s equality – if God chose to inhabit everyone, what does that say about how God feels about everyone? The idea that God was not in heaven “up there” but everywhere – even in creation itself – was not particularly new. But the idea that everyone is anointed with the Spirit of God was very new. This is hard for us in our time to appreciate when we sort of assume it. It wasn’t always that way.
Following the guide of the Spirit paved the Way for everyone to follow that leads to an abundant life for all. Life lived guided by the Spirit leads to the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control – all the sorts of things that are the foundation of all the desires we have for life. What dawned with Jesus’ birth and subsequent life was possibility, capacity, knowing that our foundation is love and so is our unshakable destination. This is still big news, still blowing minds, still shattering paradigms.
How might we choose to enter the story this year and allow our minds to be stretched, our hearts warmed with the news that God is as close as the manger, for all people. How might that soften our gaze toward each other and ourselves? How might that truly bring more joy to the world when together we choose to welcome the Christ child – not just two thousand years ago but tonight, in our own lives, to be born in us. With such openness in mind, hear the story again as if for the first time:
At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.
And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.
That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in highest heaven and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. (Luke 2:1-20 NLT)