Sermon for Christmas Eve, 2018. The audio can be found here for several weeks.
The two Christmas Stories can be found here:
At the Presbyterian Women’s Christmas party, all of the tables in Fellowship Hall had a Crèche with Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds, wise men, angels, and the animals: the sheep, donkey, and cow. This cast of characters comes from the two stories of the birth of Jesus by Matthew and Luke. The stories are different in many respects. There was never a single moment in either story in which all of these characters were together at the same time, as they are in the crèche.
I was thinking about how those characters, and the others of the birth stories, like Herod and Pilate, are all important for understanding the Jesus story. In any story, the characters matter. So, on this Christmas Eve, let us consider the characters and what they mean.
People from the Margins
Matthew and Luke both tell us about Joseph and Mary. Luke adds the shepherds. What kind of people are they? They are poor people. They are people from the margins. They can be pushed around by policies that make their lives even harder. They lack resources. They have no power.
Jesus grew up on the margins, and spent his whole short life ministering to people on the margins, and people who were marginalized. God has always been moved by the cries of the poor, the oppressed, the exploited and the discriminated against. That is why we too participate in ministries of compassion and mercy to the marginalized. And that is why we open our hearts and our doors in radical hospitality, without exception. So, to tell the story of Jesus, we start at the margins.
King Herod
Along with Mary and Joseph, Matthew’s story includes the account of King Herod. King Herod the Great represents the monarchy of Israel, political leadership consumed by lust for power and wealth. He is a brute. He is willing to lie, manipulate, and even order the killing of all the male children in and around Bethlehem to maintain his position like Pharaoh before him.
From the very start, Herod’s kingdom is in opposition to the kingdom Jesus proclaimed. Jesus proclaimed a gospel opposed to violence and to privilege. That is why we try to follow Jesus by practicing non-violence. And, we follow Jesus by identifying the way privilege puts some people in positions of advantage over others. We work towards a world in which people are equal and free. To tell the Jesus story, we include episodes of opposition.
Wise Men
The Wise men in Matthew’s story represent Gentiles; the international community. They are people of wisdom, but they are mysteriously drawn to Jesus. Just like the star that the survivors of the mythical Trojan war followed to Italy, where they founded Rome and the Julius Caesar’s family line, so Matthew tells of the wise men following a star. Matthew’s gospel begins with the foreign gentile wise men ends with the great commission in which Jesus says, “go into all the world and proclaim the good news.” There are no ethnic borders. Jesus’ story is for all the world.
Angel Choirs
Luke includes a whole Angel choir as characters in his story. Why? Because we have to understand the birth of Jesus as a God-thing. We have to imagine what a radical and fundamental change in our religious orientation that Jesus made. We used to think God was angry and judgmental, but Jesus taught us that God is love, like the love of a perfect Heavenly Father. We used to think God demanded blood sacrifices, but Jesus taught us that what he wants from us is compassion, mercy and justice, and a personal connection through heartfelt prayer and meditation. We used to think that God had favorites, but Jesus showed us that God’s love was for everyone, without exception. So, to tell the Jesus story, we need the heavens to be filled with angel choirs announcing his birth.
Baby Jesus
Finally, we come to the baby Jesus, “wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.” He is completely vulnerable, human, needy, hungry, and sleepy, as all babies are. He is real. He does not hover in the sky like an angel. He does not just appear fully grown like Athena, showing up to help fight at Troy, before withdrawing back to Mount Olympus. Jesus begins his life in a stable as a dislocated traveler. Before he is a year old, in Matthew’s telling, he will become an immigrant, fleeing violence in his home country, crossing borders, seeking asylum. When it is safe, he will return to grow, slowly, day by day, increasing in wisdom and knowledge and in awe of the God of Love.
So, when we look at a crèche on the mantle or on a table, let us be thankful for all the characters gathered there, and for how they help us tell the story of Jesus, truly God’s gift to us, and to the world.
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