Isaiah 9.2-7                                                                                                                            Carol A. Solovitz

Psalm 96                                                                                                                                 Christmas Eve A

Titus 2.11-14                                                                                                                         10pm -December 24, 2007

Luke 2.1-20

 

What We Got for Christmas

 

In December of 1951, the great preacher Halford Luccock wrote a sermon about the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which recently was named in a newspaper poll as one of the 3 most irritating Christmas songs.   Dr. Luccock called the song a list of riotously inappropriate and ludicrous Christmas gifts, and he advised his listeners to give impractical gifts to our loved ones – “Give Grandma perfume, or dancing slippers, not woolen mittens… The best gifts of love are those that show a lovely lack of common sense.”

He was so right!!  The original Christmas gifts are among the most impractical ever – a baby born in a cow stall, who himself was given gold, frankincense and myrrh – not exactly practical gifts for a baby!  It is doubtful that Mary and Joseph even wanted such gifts for their newborn, even if they did understand that the child in the manger was to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Indeed, the world did not want a king who was born in such lowly circumstances to a peasant couple – a carpenter from Nazareth and his teenaged wife.  Why, for the birth, they weren’t even in their own home, humble though it was!  They were in a town 100 miles from home – Bethlehem – where they were at the mercy of distant relatives and strangers to give them a place for her to give birth.  

For centuries, people had wanted and were expecting another great king like David who would unify the nations, drive out the Roman armies, and bring back the monarchy and glory of Israel.  The Messiah they wanted was supposed to defeat God’s enemies and show God’s great power by establishing a new world order.  The people did not want nor were they expecting a baby born in a stable because there was no proper room available.  Think of it…  it  would be like birthing a baby at a rest area on the interstate or in a deserted barn or even in a roach-infested apartment.  In our time, a proper birth should be in a hospital, right?  When Jesus was born, a proper birth was in the family’s sleeping quarters where the mother and her newborn could be attended by the women of the house.  Joseph was not a skilled midwife, nor were the cattle and sheep proper roommates.

Then there were the shepherds.  Luke talks about shepherds out in the fields, taking care of their sheep, protecting them from the wild animals and thieves that stalked the innocent animals at night.  King David had been a shepherd, too, but that was a long time ago.  He had left shepherding to move up in the world, first as King Saul’s armor-bearer and then as king himself, the anointed one of God.  Since that time, the status of shepherds had slipped considerably, and they were regarded as nothing more than uneducated, unsophisticated, dirty, smelly, carousing peasants.  Yet it was to them that the angel of the Lord appeared with a whole heavenly host of angels.  The shepherds were scared to death, yet the angel told them to relax, that they were about to receive good news of a new king who would bring peace and good will.  So it was that the shepherds were the first to hear the announcement of the birth of the Christ, the Messiah, in Bethlehem of Judea.  “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us,” they said.  We picture them running to the town and inquiring about a new baby who would be in a dwelling with animals, a feedbox for a cradle.

            They probably did start out running.  However, I imagine that as they got closer to Bethlehem and began to understand the news that had been shared with them, they got scared again.  Just whom were they visiting?  Had they really left their flocks to gawk at a baby?  What if this was a hoax, a cosmic practical joke?  Shepherding was all they knew how to do, and by leaving they ran the risk of losing their jobs and what little else they had.  But worse... what if the baby really was a king?  Would he and his parents want them visiting in their dirty robes, smelling of sheep and wet grass?  What if they were punished for showing up unexpectedly?  Certainly, they were not worthy of being in the presence of a king, even one in diapers [bands of cloth].  Perhaps they would not be welcome there.  As they got closer to Bethlehem, I picture their excited run slowing to a tentative approach for fear of what awaited them.  Yet in they came, and there they saw the great gift of the Christchild lying in the animals’ feedbox.  Could this really be the Savior announced by the angels?

John M. Buchanan has written, “God’s gift of love was not what people expected or wanted at the time – or want now, for that matter, when the air is full of rhetoric about a slash of civilization, a world conflict in the name of competing ideas about God, truth, goodness and justice.  We’d prefer a God who confirms our own ideas and who puts our opponents – who we assume are God’s opponents also—in their place.  That original gift challenges us in profound ways.  No wonder we don’t expect it or much want it.  The uniquely Christian idea is that the essence of God is not the power that we expect or want, but [it is love,] vulnerable love.  The uniquely Christian idea is that there is absolute truth in the newborn lying in a manger – truth about God, truth about the nature of power, truth about you and me, truth that could transform the world.”

Ann Weems is one of the great theological poets of our time.  Her poem called “Against our Better Judgment,” tells us the Christmas story by reminding us that we all are welcome at the manger.   I realize that many of you have just come from opening the gifts under your Christmas tree, or you are anticipating opening them later tonight or tomorrow morning.  Dear Friends, I am thrilled to give you this poem as my Christmas gift to you. 

 

                                      We told her she couldn't go;   

                                    she was too young

                              to stay up that late.

She told us that  

                                    Baby Jesus

                                    would be there       

                                    and he was younger

                                    than she.

 

We told him he couldn't go;   

                                    he was too old

                                    to brave the cold

                                    night air.

He told us he'd rather greet heaven from the Christmas Eve service   

                                    than be found slumped by the TV.

 

                        So we bundled them up against the extreme cold   

                                    against their own defenselessness   

                                    against our better judgment       

                                                and they went out with joy.

                                                                          

 

 

My prayer is that those of us who think   

                                    that we're in charge of the world

                                                and the church       

                                    will remember that the stable

                                                was filled with such as these:   

                                    those who could not be kept       

                                                from rejoicing.

           

            You may have asked for all kinds of special gifts for Christmas, and you may even receive them along with things you never expected or wanted.  I really think that I’ll be getting more than the new Bible and the electric drill I asked for.  But without even talking with you about what you got for Christmas, I know with confidence what we all got for Christmas.  We got a Savior!  We have been given God’s salvation and God’s love that can be held in our arms.  We have been given the only gift that truly keeps on giving – God’s precious only begotten Son, Jesus. 

What are we going to do with this gift?  It may seem so impractical, yet it is the most extravagant, most expensive gift we will ever receive.  “Love Came Down at Christmas,” says the beautiful Christmas carol.  Yes, love did come down at Christmas – God’s love that changes and beautifies us and that grows more precious every time we share that love.  We have received the gift that is for everyone, of the Father’s love begotten, and we cannot keep from rejoicing.  May you have a blessed and joyful Christmas, knowing that we have received the gift that we need, that is for everyone, and that we should treasure forever. 

               

Let us pray: “Let the heights of heaven adore him; angel hosts, his praises sing; powers, dominions, bow before him and extol our God and King; let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring evermore and evermore.”  Amen