The Gift of Christ

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20
Fairfield Community Church and Palouse Country Assisted Living
December 24, 2021 - Christmas Eve

The Gift of Christ

 

I must confess that I love the Christmas story narrated by Luke.  I’ve loved it since I was an angel in the Christmas pageant when I was four years old.  My church was an old church like this, but the choir loft was in a balcony in the front of the sanctuary.  They had me up in the choir loft looking down over the manger scene.  That Christmas Eve, it was magical and I felt like an angel guarding over the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph.  It has stayed with me all these years and was a big part of my faith formation. 

 There’s something romantic about the story.   All the pictures we see show a dimly lit manger scene with the animals nicely gathered around the manger.   Mary looks clean and fresh – no signs of just giving birth in a barn, looking more like a woman than a teenager.  The manger scene always looks so calm; so perfect; so peaceful.

But there’s nothing romantic about it. It’s a raw, human story of amazing proportions.

Mary gives birth in the filth of a barn, probably lying on top of stiff, dirty, itchy straw.  It was a human birth which we know is messy.  Birth is painful and I wonder, with Mary being so young and all alone if she was afraid. I wonder how long she labored.  How long she pushed and struggled to birth the Christ child. Did she cry out in pain in that dark barn?  Perhaps Mary had helped at other births and knew what to expect but still, there was no other woman to help her.  Joseph would have had to clumsily help – there was no one else there to cut the cord.  To help with the afterbirth.  I was exhausted after I gave birth and Mary would have been exhausted too.  

 After somehow cleaning herself up in the barn, I imagine that Mary looked her baby over.  Checked his toes and fingers, stroked his face, gazed at the perfection of her baby, fell in love with her child.  God’s child.  I imagine she was amazed at the miracle of birth.

The Christ child is laid in a feeding trough for barn animals, not the nice cradle that we find in our nativity scenes.  God allows his Son…. the Christ Child, to be born into humble beginnings without any splendor. Jesus birth was so humble, so seemingly routine; grace took on human flesh and scarcely broke the hush of midnight. You see, this Messiah; this Savior was not unapproachable royalty.  He is “good news of great joy for ALL the people.”  Everyone, no matter their lot in life, is able – and invited  to approach the Christ. 

Of course the night was not over!  Christ’s birth was a gift, and it was one God intended to share since the beginning of time.  There was nothing under-the-radar about angels shouting the news of Christ to startled shepherds, singing at the top of their angelic lungs.  Celebration!  Adoration!  Good news for all people!

The shepherds – the first ones the angels tell of the birth of Christ – the first ones to see the infant Jesus - were  not the most upstanding part of society; certainly not the most important people.  They were outcasts in their society. Yet these rough, dirty, unrefined shepherds were chosen by God to get the first look at the Savior.  The most significant event of the universe witnessed by the nobodies of society. 

I don’t suppose the shepherds were expecting divine revelation when they gathered their flocks that night, but after seeing Jesus for themselves, they too – these unrefined, outcasts, “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.”

And tonight, we proclaim the same news.  We’ve waited; we’ve hoped;
we’ve anticipated… God is coming, we said.  And tonight… well tonight we proclaim  “He has come!”  As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed so many years ago; “A child has been born for us and He is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father; Prince of Peace.” 

Into what kind of world was God born late that night in Bethlehem?  A world that is full of hurting people who hurt each other, hurt themselves, and some-times will do terrible things to themselves just to make the hurt stop.  For them; for you, God was born.  For you – – for precisely YOU, God was born.  He gladly left a bright and shiny heaven to plunge headfirst into the mud and muck of our world that is full of darkness and unbelief and tragedy.  He didn't stand in the light and beckon you out of the darkness.  He invaded the night. He entered the darkness. He came in search of you.

 Into this mad world, oozing with pain, racked with guilt, pockmarked with graves, God gladly and willingly was born to make you his own flesh and blood.  The deeper you have fallen, the farther he will dig to find you.  The darker your despair, he will bring to seek you out.  The farther away from God you are, the better he sees you.  No life has sunk so unfathomably deep that he cannot dig down to grasp you by the hand and climb out of the pit with you in his loving arms.  That's the kind of God who was born on Christmas  That's the kind of God Jesus is.  He never gives up on us.  Never.[1] 

Why was the Savior of the world born in a dirty barn and laid in a feeding trough?   Because God wanted us to understand that He came for us – for you and for me. 

For ordinary, everyday people.  Jesus was born to save the shepherds of the world, the poor and oppressed, the sinners. 

 The Christmas story is a beautiful story.   But it’s more than just a story.  It's life changing and life-saving.  God changed the world that night so many years ago in Bethlehem.  This precious baby boy grows up and turns the world upside down.  This precious baby boy grows up and makes the ultimate sacrifice so that every one of us will be forgiven for our sinful ways.  This precious baby boy is our way to eternal life.  This baby boy is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is for us that the angels proclaim, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for ALL the people!  To you is born this day in the city of David A Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  

 This night, long ago in Bethlehem, God took on human flesh and came and lived 
among us so that we may not perish, but have eternal life.    “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”    Amen.

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[1] https://birdchadlouis.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/a-tree-decorated-with-tears-the-dark-side-of-christmas-is-why-christmas-exists/