The Re-Birth of a Savior
a sermon by Rev. Rebecca Segers
Luke 2:1-14
Matthew 2:1-12
“Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”
Liturgically, we’ve spent four weeks leading up to this day – even longer, if you’re on the commercial calendar that the retail stores set out for us. Four weeks of Advent in which we think about and prepare for the coming of Jesus the Christ. Four weeks in which we buy and wrap presents and decorate the house and maybe our office cubicle. Four weeks in which we go to parties and perhaps hold our own. Four weeks in which prepare for or attend Christmas choral concerts and band concerts and Christmas pageants. Four weeks in which we read scripture after scripture leading up to the blessed birth of our Savior, including the long 1st chapter of Luke that we’ve studied foretelling the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth and the angel’s coming to Mary. Four weeks that end up at one very special point. The point of the birth of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the One who came to earth to save us all. Yet when it actually comes down to it, the Bible spends only one verse on Jesus’ actual birth.
A lot of what we accept as Christmas is simply made up – we don’t have anything in the Bible to support it. For example, December 25th as Jesus’ birthday: the Bible gives us no hint of what time of year it is when Jesus is born. Our Christian forebears very savvily incorporated pagan revelries around the Winter Solstice and other traditions into its own with the selection of the 25th of December, thereby making it easier for the new converts to Christianity in the early centuries to come to Christ while not giving up their established celebrations. We also are not told where exactly Mary and Joseph are in Bethlehem. We know that they go there for the census, but we don’t know where they stayed in what would have been a bustling metropolis with all the visitors on Caesar’s behalf. The innkeeper isn’t mentioned in the scripture lesson, nor is the traditional cave that we sometimes see in Nativity scenes. In short, we really don’t know a whole heck of a lot about what the first Christmas was actually like.
All that being said, what does the Bible tell us in the single verse that we do have in the gospel of Luke? “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” So basically we are told four things: 1) Jesus was Mary’s “firstborn”; 2) she wrapped him in bands of cloth; 3) she laid him in a manger and 4) there was no place for them at the inn.
Jesus was Mary’s firstborn. Not her only son, or only child, but the first one born to her. Biblically, we know that Jesus had many brothers and sisters, one of whom was named James. There are many stories in our Bible referring to Jesus’ family and to his brothers and sisters. And Paul in his letter to the Galatians talks about Jesus’ brother James. This is important because it means that Jesus grew up in a normal, traditional Jewish family of his time. It meant he experienced all the warmth and love of a large extended family, with the sharing and the noise and the laughter and the squabbling that implies. It means that Jesus understood what it was to be part of a large group and maybe part of why he ended up with so many disciples traveling with him – he was in on group dynamics and consensus building long before we ever had words for them.
What else? Mary wrapped him in bands of cloth. This was a similar tradition to the one of Native Americans wrapping a child in a papoose or certain Eskimo tribes that wrap the baby in order to carry him or her on the mother’s back. Wrapping a child in bands of cloth demonstrated maternal care and was believed to be helpful in straightening limbs so that the child might grow up strong and straight and true. These words would signify this to early listeners: that Jesus was a man of great character and integrity.
Third, Mary laid the child in a manger. The manger was probably a feeding trough, although it might have been a stall. This detail emphasizes Jesus’ humble origins. He was not born to a king or a priest or a person of great import, but to an ordinary family of his day. A family just like yours or mine. Or perhaps a family that had even less than ours. Our families could probably be likened to those of the well-to-do citizens of Rome in Jesus’ time. Jesus’ family was more like that of a child in Guatemala or Cuba or the Sudan or the Ukraine.
Jesus’ birth in a manger has also been interpreted to show humanity’s failure to receive or recognize him, connected with the scripture lesson in Isaiah 1:3: “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” This could be pertinent to us today in twenty-first century America, too. We have a tendency to be drawn to the slick-finish, high-tech, beautifully-edited world of our commercial media and miss out on the reality of God’s creation, with all its rough edges and smell and dirt.
Jesus was not born in the highly sanitized environment of a sterile American hospital, but amongst the dust and the grime and stink of animals in a rude shelter to parents who lived pre-washing machine, pre-daily bathing, pre-deodorant. If we were given the opportunity to go back in time to be present at the birth of Jesus, we would undoubtedly take it in a nanosecond and then be horrified by the sight and the smells.
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, set in Africa and about the experiences of a Baptist missionary family, one of the characters marries a native African. When they go to the United States the one thing that her husband cannot get used to is the lack of smell in the grocery stores. He cannot believe that he can be surrounded by so much food and yet the environment is nearly odorless. This would not have been the case for the baby Jesus. Probably the first thing he would have been aware of would have been the strong, pungent aroma of his surroundings.
Finally, the Bible tells us that the baby was born in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn. We don’t know exactly what this means. The “inn” may refer to a place where travelers could spend the night much like a small guesthouse or Bed & Breakfast today or it could have been simply the guest bedroom in a house or even more simply, just a part of the sleeping area in a single-room Palestinian peasant home. Whatever it means exactly, we know that the space was limited in Bethlehem at this time and even what rude accommodations were the norm for most folk were unavailable to this small family of Joseph and Mary and her soon-to-be-born son.
I lift all of this up to you because we forget. We forget that Jesus may have had such a connection to the poor and marginalized of his day because he started out among them. You see, we already know the story. We come celebrating the beautiful Christmas card image of a clean and smiling pink and white baby with a halo over his head, forgetting the long, dusty journey that his mother, Mary and Joseph had undergone to get to the little town of Bethlehem. We forget that she was virtually alone in her time of child-bearing, something totally out of the normal experience of her day. We forget that Joseph, who likely attended her at the birth of Jesus, would have probably not had much of a clue about how to help her in this first labor and delivery. We forget that the picture we imagine is only a snapshot image; it doesn’t take in the reality of two people who may or may not even know each other well undergoing a completely scary and unfamiliar process of birthing a baby in a town with no near relatives or friends. Imagine how entirely overwhelmed and frightened both of them must have been under the circumstances. Oh, they both knew that the baby coming was a special one; they had both been told by the angel Gabriel. But they had no idea what exactly that would mean.
The other thing that we forget is why we’re celebrating. Even when we remember it’s not about Santa Claus or the Christmas tree or the presents or the relatives, we have a tendency to think that it is about the birth of a baby. You know: a baby. A cute little person without the ability to speak and communicate beyond whimpers and cries and burps and so on. And it is true that Christmas is about the birth of a baby, the baby Jesus, but it is so much more than that!
Christmas is about the birth of a baby, the baby Jesus, who grew up to be our Lord and Savior, the Anointed One, the Christ. Christmas doesn’t stay in the manger with the cows and the sheep and the shepherds and the wise men and the angels. Christmas is the beginning of the greatest news on earth. The news that although we are human creatures prone to sin, full of imperfections and constantly making mistakes, we are forgiven by the Loving God of the Universe in the Name of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, a man who was born like we all are, and who grew up like we all do, who lived and breathed and learned and taught and loved and fought for what he believed in and suffered and died that we might know the grace of God. This is the message of Christmas. Not simply the miracle of the birth of a baby, but a baby who became the Light of the World.
You see, God loved us so much that God was not content to continue to be separated from our experience. God sent Jesus to be “Emmanuel” – God with us – so that He might feel what it is to be human. Might know the pleasures and the pain of human experience. Might know the warmth and the love of family and community, and the hurt and the pain of betrayal and death. Christmas doesn’t just celebrate Jesus as a little baby, but essence of who Jesus is and was and is to be in Christ’s entirety.
We sing that phrase “was and is and is to be”, but we often forget the present tense piece of that equation. We celebrate Jesus’ birth as something that has already happened in history – and that is indeed true. And we remember that Jesus is coming again and speak and preach about that aspect during other times of the year, including the Advent build-up season to tonight. But Jesus is also born today, today, December 24, 2005 – Jesus is born today in us.
Jesus is born in us when we take on the message that he gave us and extend it to all those whose paths we cross. Do you remember how I just spoke of that message of love and forgiveness? Well, we each have the capacity, the ability, no, the call to carry that message in all we do. For many of this, this is a huge attitude adjustment. It means that when we look at others, we are to see them with the eyes of Christ. We are to look with love and compassion upon all those we meet – even those who cut us off in the passing lane on the LIE or who cut in line at the theater or who slow us down at the grocery store. It means that when we are in a hurry and the car in front of us is driving 25 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone when we want to go 50, that we take a deep breath and bless them, knowing that in God’s time, the two minutes we’d save if they were out of the way is truly nothing. It means that when our child or grandchild is driving us nuts whining and moaning and complaining that we take a deep breath of Christ’s love and bless them, knowing that they have only been granted to us for a short time and that we are to guide them in growing up to know and share God’s love too. It means that when we’ve spent all day preparing Christmas dinner and our guests are late causing the turkey to get dry and the vegetables to get mushy, we take a deep breath of Christ’s love and forgiveness and bless them, trusting that they are doing their best even if we don’t think it’s good enough so that when they arrive we are able to enjoy the afternoon and evening as a celebration rather than a trial. It means that whatever it is that stops us from being Christ’s light in the world, whenever it occurs that we fall off the path to graciousness and grace, we take a deep breath of Christ’s love and forgiveness and bless ourselves and others for the opportunity to be here on this planet together sharing and caring for one another in His Name.
This is what we believe the Holy Spirit is. God’s breath. The breath of God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Our advocate and guide. Our mentor and our friend. Wonderful Counselor. The One who enables us to be the people that God intends us to be.
On this day that we celebrate the birth of Jesus, let us not make it simply the day it always is, as wonderful as that might be. Let us make it a holy celebration of the One who brought Light into the world again. Let us celebrate not only the birth of Jesus, but the re-birth of Jesus in each of us. Let Jesus be born within – and therefore, with-out us – through our actions and our words, in the way we handle everyday situations and not so ordinary times. Let us breathe in the love of God and allow it to light us inside and out that we might show the world Christ’s love in each and every thing we do.
Now as we ponder the meaning of this Christmas for each of us individually, we will light our candles literally as we sing “Silent Night” and metaphorically let us light the candles of hope and peace and joy and love inside ourselves as we sing. I will light my candle from the Christ candle in the center of our Advent wreath and then will pass it to each of you at the center edges of the aisles. Will you please then turn to your neighbor and light his or her candle from your own.
We will be singing during this process and I ask you to use this time to prayerfully invite Christ to enter you and live with and through you now at this holy time and throughout the rest of your life. Ask that the light of Christ’s love might not only shine in the candle in your hand, but that it might shine forth from your eyes. Ask that the birth of Jesus that we celebrate tonight might ultimately become the re-birth of Jesus our Savior, Jesus the Christ, in you to be evident to all you meet this season and beyond. May it be so. Amen.