Sermon for December 24, 2022 – Christmas Eve
A few years ago, towards the beginning of May, I once again found myself standing in Manger Square in Bethlehem. As the warm springtime sun beat down on me, I was standing in line to enter the Church of the Nativity. Commissioned in 327 by Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, the church was constructed around the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born, and the church surrounding it has been in a state of construction or reconstruction ever since. This was the third time that I was in Bethlehem and as I waited in line with the other pilgrims from around the world to pray at one of, if not the holiest site for Christians, I looked around and took note of just how much things had changed.
When I first visited Bethlehem in 1999, there was a real sense of hope and promise for an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We travelled freely back and forth, in and out of the West Bank. On that first visit I will never forget the olive wood store we visited in Bethlehem, not far from the church. This store operated as a collective community-based enterprise that allowed local Palestinians a place to sell their olive-wood crafts to the regular flow of pilgrims. There was a tangible hope that a corner had been turned and that something brighter was dawning on the horizon.
The second time I visited was about fifteen years later, and a lot had changed. In that time, radicalized Palestinians engaged in coordinated terrorist attacks that resulted in an extremely strict security response from Israel; including the construction of a wall to fully surround the West Bank. On that second visit I will never forget standing in Manger Square and being able to see the wall being built. My heart sank as this wall snaked its way around the city and continued on and on, off out of sight into the Judaean wilderness.
On this most recent visit to the birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem felt like a ghost town. There were some people, locals, moving about their daily life and work, but long gone was the hope of the past; long gone was the promise that something better was coming. Now a wall almost entirely surrounds the town where, two thousand and twenty-two years ago this night, Jesus was born.
As I walked along the graffiti spackled wall, I will never forget one of the images that was painted on the side of the wall. Imagine a beautiful Christmas tree surrounded by presents; a perfect cone, with full branches, covered in ornaments, and a bright radiant star on top. And now, imagine that beautiful tree is surrounded by a twenty-five-foot concrete wall. On the separation wall surrounding Bethlehem is an image of such a tree that is surrounded by a wall and that image is forever written on my mind and my heart. Yet, despite the wall, faith perseveres in the little town of Bethlehem, and with it the promise of the Kingdom of God.
Our gospel for this evening orients our view towards this very promise, because on this night, in the very place where I knelt and prayed, God broke into our world unlike any way God had done before. Because God loved us so much, each of us so much, God entered Creation as a baby. In Luke’s account of this ahistorical miracle, Luke emphasizes just how the world will change now that God has dwelt among us in Jesus.
We should regard Luke’s opening about the Emperor and Governor less as Luke acting as a historian simply recording facts, and more as a theological interpreter who seeks to persuade us that through Jesus, God signals the beginning of a process to end the present age and replace it with the realm of God.
From Luke’s point of view, Rome epitomized much of the brokenness of the old age; especially its idolatry, exploitation, oppression, and violence. From the very beginning of his gospel, Luke is situating Jesus and all that he will proclaim about the Kingdom of God in direct opposition to the norms of the world. So, given the importance of Jesus’ birth, we might then anticipate a rather elaborate narrative about Jesus’ birth; rich in detail. Yet, the focus of Luke’s narrative is not the newborn Jesus himself, because Luke only offers a scant two verses about the birth. What is more important for Luke are not the specific details of Jesus’ birth, but rather the theological, social, and cultural significance of the Incarnation. And perhaps most of all, Luke wants to share with all who will listen the hope and joy that comes with God dwelling among us, and seeking us like his lost sheep.
So, instead of focusing on the birth itself, Luke orients our gaze towards the fields and the shepherds. The messengers of God didn’t go to church to announce Jesus’ birth. The angel’s announcement of the fulfillment of prophecy goes not to the High Priest at the Temple in Jerusalem, but to shepherds living in the fields. The word of God came to John the Baptist not in his father Zechariah’s office in the Temple but out in the wilderness.
Jesus was, and continues to be, born where people need him most.
Tonight, Luke is inviting us to spend Christmas Eve neither in the glow of this tree-lit sanctuary, but in the fields of the isolated, the disenfranchised and the forgotten, or in our own painful places of spiritual wilderness, because tonight God speaks the good news of Christ’s coming there. On this night God brings great joy to those who need it most. And God is about to do infinitely more than we could possibly imagine through this infant.
I have come to regard God sending angels to shepherds as bigger than reaching out to outsiders. Spend enough time out in the field, disappointed by God, or overwhelmed by grief, and we stop caring that we are outsiders. We give up trying to get inside religion, or we even give up on God, to get on with life. But God does not give up on us.
In Jesus, God comes in a way that is far from frightening. Jesus comes vulnerably, helplessly, as “a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” Jesus is born like any other baby, except Jesus is born on the road and laid in a feeding trough. No magi are at this manger scene. Jesus is born among the lowly and the poor. And from this starting place, Luke tells us that God will not only transform the world, but God will transform our hearts as well.
When I first saw that image of the walls surrounding the Christmas tree in Bethlehem, I thought that it was a fitting image of how the people who live there feel each day; filled with joy from walking among the same stones and trees as Mary and Joseph, while also feeling caged in by the towering stone walls. But as I thought about that image more I began to realize that even the walls that surround the city of Bethlehem cannot contain the good news of God’s in-breaking into our world through Jesus. For Luke, and indeed for us, the birth of Jesus means the walls that separate us from each other are going to be torn down. Those on the outside will be welcomed into the community. Those who are lost or alone, will have companions on the way because the journey is better together.
And if the Good News of God in Jesus can transcend those walls, then perhaps God can help me tear down the walls that I have built up around my heart to allow for God’s loving presence to transform my life. Now that image serves as a reminder that nothing can contain the power and love of God.
The mystery of Bethlehem is that God can be known in gentleness and in weakness. The mystery of Bethlehem is that God can be born in the hearts of God’s people. The mystery of Bethlehem is that wherever you are in your journey of faith, Jesus is waiting to be born in the stable of your heart and the glory of God’s light is waiting to dawn in your life.
May each of you have a blessed and Merry Christmas. Amen.
