As far as I can tell, the story we just heard from the Gospel of Luke has not changed since it was originally written. Sure, translations will change a word here and there, but the overall message has remained the same. Joseph was engaged to Mary. Mary became pregnant after the angel Gabriel told her that through her, God would take on human flesh. The couple was forced to travel to Bethlehem because Joseph was a descendant of David. You will remember David from Sunday School as the giant-slaying king of Israel.
While the holy family was in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to her son, named him Jesus, and laid him in a manger. There’s no mention of golden fleece diapers, but we learn about shepherds who were summoned to the manger by an angel of the Lord. When the shepherds arrived, they told Mary everything the angel had told them.
Even if we had not read the story, you could have recited it and nailed most of the details. You might have mispronounced Caesar Augustus’s or Quirinius’s names, but that would not divert the story.
The birth of Jesus Christ is the greatest story ever told.
I know that not only does everyone know the story, but on nights like this, your presence in a late evening/night worship service tells me that something in this story drew you in. There is something about the story of the birth of Jesus that causes each of us to brave the cold and cross the threshold of a church door.
It is odd to me that we have this great story that draws people into candlelit churches year after year, and yet, the church often misses or forgets the good news that we are proclaiming this night. It can feel like there’s no room for someone or a group of people different from the faithful who gather for worship week after week. “There’s no room in the inn,” they hear from those gathered on Sunday morning. They hear, “There’s no room for you.” In an instant, it can feel like we trade the joy of this night for exclusion.
The church can get a bad rap. From the outside looking in, it can appear that the church is against and that, offering the world a list of shoulds and musts. I have sat through many a worship service and walked away feeling depressed. But not today, not on this night of joy.
We had a children’s Christmas pageant in this sanctuary earlier this evening. Pageants can feel like a photo-op, but I think we still act out this story year after year is because the story brings joy into our lives. Through the retelling of Mary and Joseph’s journey and remembering the Savior of the World was laid in a manger, the churchy things that seem so out of reach are brought down to a human scale. We remember that Christmas is not a far off tale, but rather a story with sights and sounds, flesh and blood.
How amazing is it that so many of us miss the whole point of tonight? The story we tell tonight joyfully declares, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”[i] Jesus is God’s answer to the moments when it feels like the church is out of touch or the world is coming apart at the seams.
The story we recall tonight is the story of great joy – the inbreaking of God’s grace through a baby. This is a real joy. Joy is induced outside of ourselves. This Christmas season, we won’t find joy in shopping trips to Tysons or Amazon deliveries. We certainly will not find joy this Christmas season on the Post's front page. The joy of what happened in the manger is a byproduct of something that happens to us.
The prophet Isaiah spoke of joy. Israel was in bondage. Israel was living in exile. Israel was living in the dark. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light… on them, light has shined… you have increased its joy.”[ii]
The backdrop for the Christmas story is not joy. No one wants to be counted. There were multiple uprisings among the Jews when Rome called for them to be counted. The story of Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem is a story of an oppressed people on the move.
And then, in the middle of the night, a baby cries out for his mother. An angel appears to shepherds, saying, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”[iii] All people. Joy for all people.
This is the story that brought you here tonight. The story of great joy that breaks us from the routine of headlines about conflict and death. The story of great joy that invites us to come to the manger and see what God has done. We are filled with joy this night because God has intruded into the natural order of human things. This evening, we celebrate the joyful disruption of the world's ways.
When heaven and earth collide, the aftermath is joy, not despair or carnage.
Retired United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon wrote, “It's an old story, the story of the first Christmas. Here is the same old story of political oppression and political violence, of those on the bottom who must obey and those on the top who give the orders. It was in Bethlehem, but it could also be Bosnia. It was Augustus Caesar, but it could have also been your boss at the office, the geography teacher during third period, an oncologist. We are always being jerked around by external decrees.”[iv]
We want joy in our lives. When the world jerks us around, we look for ways to push back and fight back. That’s our story. But (and it’s a big but so you know it does not lie) the story that drew you in tonight is not a story of our initiative against the world's problems. We might find temporary relief in our story, but it rarely leads to the joy we feel tonight, the joy that was laid in a manger. Deep, abiding joy is the result of what God does.
Mary sang.
The shepherds danced their way back to the fields.
We are joyful. We can sing this evening because God has moved and is on the move. God is active in the world, confronting the ways of the world that are not the ways of God.
I know all is not right this Christmas. I am not naive. I know wars are raging. On CNN this morning, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in the West Bank city of Bethlehem said, “it is difficult to sing Joy to the World this year.” But is that not the case every year? The innocents are being slaughtered. There are secrets you are holding: things you have done and things others have done that you cannot forgive. Come January 6th, we will pack up the lights and face the gray skies of January. The world will return to the way before Christmas, and we will again be pulled and jerked around by external decrees.
God has revealed Godself, not through religion or theological doctrine, but in a child, in God’s own Son. God cares about us. God cares about you too much to allow the trappings of religion to be a barrier between you and God’s grace. God’s grace tells us that God loves you just as you are tonight. And the grace of God tells us that God loves you too much to leave you just as you are tonight. The joy we have tonight is in the fact that the grace of God has broken down the barriers we perceive present between us and God, along with the barriers we build for ourselves. And in breaking down these barriers, in the collision between Heaven and Earth, the aftermath is joy, not despair or carnage.
And that is where this story pulls us back in, and we join Isaiah and Luke and the carols saying, “Do not be afraid; for behold – I bring you good news of great joy for all people: to you, this day is born… a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord!”
[i] John 3:16
[ii] Isaiah 9:2b
[iii] Luke 2:10
[iv] Willimon, Will. “Joy.” Duke University Chapel. December 25, 1994.
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