Lectionary reading for Christmas Eve: Luke 2:1-20
The Christmas story doesn't begin with God. It begins with Caesar and his servants. It doesn't begin with hope. It begins with the sad truth of oppression. It begins with Joseph, a Galilean labourer. Poorer than a peasant who worked on the land. Forced to make a long and costly journey south, so all Caesar's world could be taxed. And, by the way, his fiancée Mary went with him. By the way, she was pregnant. And, because of Caesar's demand, there was no room in town for two such as them. So the baby arrived in a stable.
A stable. A slum tenement. A garbage dump. The back seat of a taxi. The back room of a tavern. The dark corner of a tin-roofed African clinic full of people with AIDS. We get the picture. Or do we?
We don't know where he was born. The byre behind an inn? A cave outside the town? The dugout manger in the floor of a house that family and livestock share at night? Before we can place the manger, we're in a field. With shepherds! Scum of Palestine's rocky earth. They get the first words of hope. The first word of God. Do we get the picture?
John Calvin did. About Luke 2 he wrote: “Christ is revealed only to a few witnesses, and that at dead of night. Further, while God had at hand many of rank and high ability as witnesses, He puts them aside and simply chooses shepherds, of little account with men, of no reckoning … If we desire to come to Christ, we must not be ashamed to follow those whom God chose, from the sheep dung, to bring down the pride of the world.”
To bring down the pride of the world! No one was as proud as Caesar! Two of his chosen titles were “Christ” and “Lord.” Proclaimed as Saviour, he had the power of grace and favour. By his goodwill the empire prospered. Caesar guaranteed the peace of the world. Anyone who said otherwise was punished. Anyone who claimed power like his was as good as dead. And an angel army (yes, that's what “host” means!) brought news to people with manure on their feet. Do we get it now?
Born marked for death, if what the angels shouted was true. (Yes, shouted! No Handel chorus! A bold proclamation!) A Saviour. Who is Christ, the Lord. Whose advent brings grace and favour to all, in God's good will. My Lord, what a morning! Are the stars about to fall? Can we see it?
Helmut Thielicke (Being a Christian When the Chips are Down) told about a picture he kept in view of his desk around Christmas. A photograph of a group of young men in white robes. Some stand, visibly nervous, holding candles. Others kneel, in fear feigned or real, looking up. Shepherds and angels from a Christmas play. When church members came to his study, they always commented on the picture. Thielicke would ask them to guess the setting. A church with a drama program? A Bible college? No one got it right. Thielicke enjoyed correcting his parishioners' assumptions. The men weren't Bible college students. The scene was the chapel of a prison where Thielicke made pastoral visits. Some of the men were convicted murderers. One spoke the same line every Christmas, as he knelt at the manger, “I lay in fetters groaning. You came to set me free.” Thielicke said the picture recorded a miracle. Do we see it?
The miracle isn't the virgin birth. Or even a safe birth in a rough place, in a time of high infant mortality. It may be a miracle but only those who know they need one can see it.
At Christmas the world we know is a pretty good place. The worlds we create inside our homes and churches are warm and safe. Warmer, safer than Jesus' first nursery. Or the shepherds' field. Or a prison cell. Or a clinic in Africa. Anywhere in the world Jesus knew. Do we see that?
Maybe we need our own miracle at the manger. Eyes opened to see the wonder of God's plan to bring down the prideful powers of the world. Hearts opened to admit our poverty, our need. Then courage to rise and live the world-changing gospel.
