Community Church Sermons
December
24, 2007
Christmas Eve – 11:00 Service
Luke 1:1-20
Rev. Martin C. Singley, III, Senior Pastor
Christmas Eve is a night of mystery. You can see it in the faces of people – women, men and children alike – as they stream into churches all over the world to once again celebrate the birth of Jesus. There is something about this night that is different than any other night – something that causes us to become still and to feel deeper feelings and think deeper thoughts. Christmas Eve overflows with mystery.
At the same time, the story of Jesus’ birth is so familiar that many of us can almost recite it from memory; “In that region, there were shepherds in the fields, keeping watch o’er their flocks by night. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone ‘round about them, and they were sore afraid!” Yes, the story is very familiar. And yet it is replete with unfamiliar things too – virgins conceiving babies, angels filling the night skies, magi from the east following a star to Bethlehem.
Christmas Eve is so familiar, and yet so full of questions!
Why did God choose Mary to be the mother of Jesus? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the Savior of the world to be born to a woman of stature, in a stable family situation where there would be no question of moral integrity? I mean, what was God thinking? Why did God choose little, poor, non-descript, teenaged, unwed Mary?
Why did God choose Bethlehem to be the birthplace of Jesus? The scriptures marvel at the mere thought of Bethlehem being anything other than a tiny, obscure village where there wasn’t even an inn large enough to house those coming home for the census, let alone a pregnant girl and her new, very confused husband. Why Bethlehem? Why not Jerusalem, the center of political power?
Why shepherds? You might think God would let the Pope know first that the Savior was born - or Billy Graham - or Tim - or Rhonda – or SOMEBODY even remotely religious! Shepherds were famous for their lack of devotion to religious conventions. Why shepherds?
And why angels to make the announcement? Couldn’t God have just arranged to add the arrival of Jesus to the “Recent Births” column of the local newspaper? That way, EVERYONE would know and the whole countryside could come out to welcome the Savior of the world. But God sent angels to sing to a small group of shepherds instead, and no one else knew. I wonder why God decided to handle it that way?
And why magi from “the east?” You know, those words - “the east” - were pejorative words, referring to the direction in which Israel’s enemies lived, and from which their armies frequently marched to mount attacks on Jerusalem. Why mess around with “the east”? And magi? Astrologers? Magicians? The word “magoi” referred to those who practiced the magical religions of “the east.” Why did God bring THEM into the Christmas story?
When you add it all up, it just seems that Christmas might have been handled better than it was, and we could just be people who re-tell and celebrate the story and not have to struggle with all the mystery – all the uncertainty – all the questions. Then we could go home from church tonight and open our presents and eat some turkey tomorrow and put away the decorations and get on with life until we get back to Christmas next year.
But for some reason, God chose this other more mysterious, less certain, full of questions way of bringing Jesus into the world.
So perhaps tonight, it would be
good for us to simply ask God the Christmas question: “Why?”
“Why did you do it the way you did it?”
Why did you choose a poor little girl, a confused man, an obscure village, a band of angels, a group of shepherds, and magi from “the east” to receive your Son?
Why Christmas?
I think the answer is really found in the question itself. When the time was right for the Savior to come, God sent Jesus to the least likely people, in the least likely places, and among the least likely circumstances.
God came in Christ to the poor, to the rejected, to the disenfranchised, to the religiously different, to the lonely and the lost, to the powerless, to the weakest, to the nameless nobodies of this world.
Why?
Well, because this is the world God is saving. These are the people God has come to rescue. These are the ones God loved so much that he gave his only begotten son.
And God has inserted all this mystery into Christmas so that we could never turn Jesus’ birth into a settled holiday simply to be enjoyed. The mystery of Christmas will grab us every year. The question of Christmas will always leave us wondering.
And perhaps we will learn what we must do to truly celebrate Christmas when the holiday is all over.
We must go to Bethlehem and find the one who is the Savior of the world. We must go to the Mary’s, and the Joseph’s, and the shepherds, and the magi – we must go to the obscure places of the world where poverty is the way of life, and powerlessness is prevalent – we must go to people and circumstances where only the angels of God dare to go, singing their song of “Peace on earth, good will toward all!”
And there, among the least of these our brothers and sisters, we will find him! And there – among those people and within those circumstances, we can offer our gifts, and lay them before the Christ child.
And in so doing, we will become part of the Christmas story ourselves.
May the question of Christmas trouble you. May the question of Christmas cause you to wonder. And may the question of Christmas lead you to Jesus.
Amen.