There is this expectation of quiet beauty that accompanies Christmas. Perhaps it is more of a hope than anything else, but none can deny there is something mystical about Christmas that turns the ordinary Ebenezer Scrooge into the most benevolent of philanthropists. Even our Christmas carols help reinforce this sense of Christmas magic.
“Silent night! Holy night! All is calm. All is bright.”
“What child is this who lays to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?”
“The cattle are lowing the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes!”
It is all so quiet. It is all so still. It is all so holy. It is all so perfect. This morning’s Gospel lesson, however, snaps us out of our winter wonderland and forces us to smell the salts of reality. And O how the holy and silent night so quickly changes. Our Gospel lesson is from the Gospel according to St. Matthew 2.13-23. Hear the Word of the Lord.
Now that we are all awake, lets take a quick look at this Christmas story, to see what our rose colored glasses have helped us to miss, starting with the setting for the story. The Christmas story is set in a stable in Bethlehem. Somehow, the stable has become quite romantic. A dark night, a bright star, angels above, sheep and cattle and shepherd, a feeding trough made into a cradle. We see this in our mind and it evokes such pleasant sentiments. But I am here to tell you there is nothing at all romantic about a barn!
I’ve spent a lot of time around cows in barns. They were not pleasant places to be. Most barns where animals live are muddy and musty. The dirt floors become mud with spilled water and other liquids that are deposited on the ground. The smell can become quite overwhelming. The animals are noisy and always milling about. Usually there are mice scampering in the feeding troughs trying to find any last morsels. There is certainly nothing nice about a stable.
What a way to start your life. I guess the silver lining is that the stable was in Bethlehem. Everyone knew the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. Maybe that slow start in the stable is back on track. Maybe Bethlehem is the key. Then again, Bethlehem doesn’t last long does it? Joseph is warned in a dream that he must leave, and so, in the still of the night, the young family packs up and leaves. Where do they go? We would expect that the messiah would go to Jerusalem. Just the opposite really happens. The family journeys first to Egypt, then to Galilee, and finally they settle in Nazareth. These travels do not represent a rise to power, but rather a downward spiral toward irrelevance. Consider the stops on the journey.
“Egypt is a land with ambiguous connotations. It is, of course, the place of bondage from which God had to deliver the people in the exodus. But it is also sometimes a place of refuge. Another Joseph, who was also guided by God through dreams, once brought his family here. And, as it turns out, Jesus' sojourn here is a brief one. Soon, the family is directed back to Israel, where they belong. But, alas! Another problem arises, and they wind up settling in Galilee.
“Galilee was commonly known as ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ (Matt. 4:15). Though once a part of the northern kingdom of Israel, the land had never really been recovered since its fall to the Assyrians, and it was now widely populated with ‘foreigners.’ The Jews in Judea considered Galilean Jews only a step above Samaritans. Settling here was definitely not a wise career move for anyone who wanted credentials as a Messiah.
“Nazareth is even worse. This little agricultural village, with a population of about 500, was so insignificant that, at one time, some historians and archaeologists denied that such a place had ever existed. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" may have been a proverb of the day. Certainly, these words of Nathaniel recorded in John’s gospel would have represented a popular sentiment” (from Mark Allen Powell).
This Christmas story, this story of the Messiah, is not really looking so rosy is it? When we consider the situations that go along with the setting, the Christmas story becomes even less snow-globish. Why were they in a barn in the first place? Tradition tells us that it is because there was “no room for them in the inn.” Coming to Bethlehem for the census means Bethlehem is home and they must have had family there. Why come home and not stay with the folks? I’ll tell you why. It was quite shameful to be with child and without husband. Many of you grew up in an era where young teenage mothers were sent to homes to spare the honor and dignity of parents. Usually a nice story was made up about how little Mary went away to visit grandparents, or to go to boarding school, or because there is no room for her in the inn. Make up whatever story you want, but the bottom line is Mary brought shame on the family, and the family wants nothing to do with her. Mary is sent away, to the home for unwed mothers, to the stable, or to wherever because the family disowns her.
And what of Jesus escape to Egypt? Well, you remember that line from Away in a Manger: the one about the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes? I highly doubt Jesus did not cry. But even if he didn’t, Matthew tells us that soon the whole city of Bethlehem was filled with crying. Herod was on the loose. He was plotting. He to had heard rumors, seen signs, and read scripture. He knew what might be unfolding. The angels brought the shepherds great tidings of good news. But to Herod, this news was not good. The rise of the Messiah would mean the downfall of his reign. So he decided to kill all the baby boys. That way this Christ-child would be killed for sure and his reign would be secure. Babies cried as they were massacred. Parents watched as their newborn treasures were stolen from them. How quickly the holy and silent night changes into evil and mournful nights.
How’s that for a Christmas story?
As soon as we snap out of our own snow-globe Christmas scenes, we find that Christmas comes for us, like it did for Christ, in the midst of a pretty painful and even evil world. Our world is not all that different. Anyone know a dysfunctional family? Anyone know a pregnant, unwed mother. Anyone heard in the news recently any stories about governments making war and killing innocent people to advance their own causes or protect their own power? Anyone heard in the news recently any stories of world leaders killing opponents to assure their own power? Myanmar anyone? Bhutto anyone? Anyone?
That is the setting for Christmas. Not some White Christmas, Norman Rockwell, Winter Wonderland. Real life, real pain, real suffering, real oppression, real evil. When we remove Christmas from its real life setting, we get a beautiful story. When we leave Christmas in its context, we get Gospel. We get Good News. Where, you ask, is the good news in all that? Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. Jesus was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim of an oppressive government. Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies.
That’s what it meant to be a Nazarene you know: an outcast, a refugee, a nobody. (Which is why, by the way we are named The Church of the Nazarene: we were to be a place where an outcast could be welcomed in, a refugee made to be at home, and a nobody could be somebody). That's how the church is described in scripture time and time again - not as the best and the brightest - but those who in their weakness become a sign for the world of the wisdom and power of God. That is the truth of Christmas and we must be careful not to lose this connection to the truth of the story because it is that story that shapes our identity as the people of God.
It is very interesting how Matthew tells the story of Christmas. As stories go, one stands head and shoulders above all others in the Jewish faith. The story of the Exodus is remembered and rehearsed annually at the Feast of Passover. The Jewish people arrive in Egypt when Joseph, lead by God in a dream, takes his family there. There was a great slaughter of children at the hands of Pharaoh. When God delivered them from Egypt they were forced to wander for years in the wilderness before they were able to enter the Promised Land.
Jesus, in Matthew’s story, becomes a part of that story. Joseph takes him to Egypt lead by God in a dream. The holy family escapes the massacre of young children. God delivers them from Egypt, but they are prevented from going straight home. Jesus must live in the wilderness of Galilee and the desert of Nazareth for years before being able to arrive in Jerusalem. Jesus walks with the Jews through their history, embracing his identity and their identity as people of YHWH.
But Matthew does more than that. Matthew recasts the central story of the Jewish faith to become the central story of the Christian faith. Christmas is a story of deliverance. The exodus was but a foreshadowing of deliverance God would provide to the world. God’s deliverance came to the Jew’s in the exodus, to Christ through this morning’s story, and to each of us in Christ. The Christmas story is our story. It is the story of incarnation. It is the coming of God as a human. But more than that, it is the coming of God as one of us. In his coming is our deliverance.
Like the Jews, we too remember and rehearse the story every year. We do it at Christmas, but the real miracle of Christmas is that incarnation happens all the time. It happens every time we bring light into darkness. It happens every time we bring peace into violence. It happens every time we bring hope to the hopeless, joy to the grieving and the depressed and loved to the lonely and unloved. The miracle of Christmas is not that it happened once, long, long ago on some utopian silent and holy night, but that it happens now, as it did then, when the love of God is born into the muck and the mire of every day life. To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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