Christmas Day

Dec. 25, 2007

Text: Luke 2 : 1-20

What If There Were No Christmas

“It happened.” That is how the Christmas Gospel begins. “It happened.” “It came to pass” has rather an aura around it. “It happened” is such a matter-of-fact and ordinary way of reporting an occurrence that most modern translations leave it out, regarding it as redundant. If you report what took place, you don’t also have to say that it happened. True, but when the event has suffered such a lack of focus that it has been turned into a pretty myth to make shallow pretenses of a piece with reindeer in the sky and “all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” then it is not redundant to hear the evangelist report matter-of-factly, “It happened.”

What happened is told with bold simplicity and with pure beauty, but it is told really quite matter-of-factly. The government wanted more taxes. So what is new? That sounds familiar. This is the world in which we live—“as sure as death and taxes.” In a census, people and property had to be listed, then on this basis the amount of tax was assessed. This listing is what is spoken of in our text. The latter part wasn’t completed until AD 6, according to Josephus. In Gaul there was such opposition that the whole process took forty years. Just think if they had to do it in Scotland! In Palestine there was opposition, especially in Galilee, the hotbed of the Zealots, who would make short shrift of such collaborators with the hated Romans.

Caesar has nothing to fear from Joseph and Mary, a woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy. Or so it would appear! What difference could this couple make to mighty Caesar Augustus, ruler of the world? He was concerned about Herod the Great. Caesar had punished Herod for not toeing the line and had deprived him of his title “friend of Caesar.” But a carpenter, a woman, and a fetus—even if he had known of them, what would Caesar care? His job was statistics and taxes, law and order. At all of these he was very good. But today we remember Caesar Augustus for something he neither knew about nor intended. He was instrumental in bringing Mary and Joseph and the unborn Child to Bethlehem. The most powerful man in the world and an insignificant carpenter, without their choice, bring it about that Jesus’ birth is in Bethlehem. (They do not really bring it about; they are instrumental, but the fact is made explicit only in the second part of today’s Gospel.)

Bethlehem was hometown for “the house and lineage of David,” technical terms with taxable significance. A decree of Caesar Augustus was executed by Quirinius so an unheard of man by the name of Joseph and the woman he was to marry, and she already in her late pregnancy, would travel to Bethlehem. While they were there, Mary “brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Lk 2:7). They must have been poor, and she must have had an anxious time of it. Is there anything more to say? All over the world poor women are having anxious times every day. So a baby was born. It was a boy. Poor little guy in a manger. Who cares? His mother and Joseph. Nobody else. That is all there is to see.

But that is not all that happened. What happened you could not know by looking. You could only know if you were told, and you could only be told by someone who had seen it happen. The people asleep in Bethlehem did not know of this birth. But near Bethlehem there were some who were told, and they were told by those who knew, those who bring messages from God. He is moving things to the fulfillment of his promise.

Now if God had a message, it is only natural to expect that it would be given to those who understand that sort of thing: the theologians or the priests who have charge of his affairs. No, the message is given to shepherds. Nothing very likely about them, rough dudes, and notorious for their bad church attendance. They were scared stiff. Who wouldn’t be? The pure brilliance of light signaled the presence of God: “The glory of the Lord shone round about them” (Lk 2:9). They couldn’t run away, and they couldn’t stand it. How could they protect themselves from God? What could they expect from him? They could not imagine that he had come to give out prizes to reward what splendid chaps they were. They knew what sort of men they were, and they knew that from God they would have to take whatever he gave out. Everything depended on him, and they were defenseless. They feared God above all else. All else could not hinder him. They were exposed to God. Whatever came from him, that is how it would be for them.

From God then comes his word through his messenger: “Fear not.” Good news. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:10–11). So that is it. That is why Caesar Augustus and Quirinius and Joseph were where they were and did what they did: So these shepherds, as the first to be told, would know what had happened. The Good News is what happened. The angel does not discuss the attributes of God, the changes of his mercy outweighing his justice, that his justice is not all that hard and will bend in their favor if they make a sincere effort, that they are basically decent people who just haven’t got it all together yet, or that all the things they have been yearning for are now on their way. No, the angel’s message is simply what happened—a birth—and the identification of the one born—“a Savior which is Christ the Lord.” Impossible? No, it has happened. God does not have to wait for clearance from us whether it is possible or not. It happened. A Savior born, Christ the Lord.

That is what the angel said in the unmistakable and fearful glory. Could it be so? The shepherds find it so when they follow the message of the angel. They go to Bethlehem and find the message to be true. With the message, they are given a sign. They might have stumbled on some other baby born in Bethlehem that night. They would not know by looking at the baby; all babies look pretty much alike, and Mary’s Son was a baby like all the others. The one of whom the angels spoke was “wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12). Only one baby like that could be found in Bethlehem, only by that sign could the shepherds know which one. They found that one. That is all we are told. That is what matters, and the shepherds carried that message. They did not have much to say about what they had seen of the baby. What can you say about a baby? Not much. A baby is a baby. They’re all cute. What they told others was what had been “told them concerning this child” (Lk 2:17). The shepherds were next in proclaiming what had happened. The birth was the birth of the Savior who is Christ the Lord.

Impossible? No, with God nothing is impossible. But it is not with the possibility that anything is proven for our salvation. Almighty God can do what he likes. But can he love us so much—can holy God love us so much—as to put himself into our messed-up world, into what happens to us for our sake, to be our Savior? The heart of unbelief is to refuse to be loved so much. God can love others perhaps, but not me. Or we may think we deserve God’s love, which is also refusal of his love. We would have God deal with us another way, not with undeserved love but in a way in which we would have ourselves to thank, at least for some of it.

Not so the shepherds. They feared God above all and from him came the Good News, his Good News. The shepherds followed and found and carried on the telling of the message they had received. They took it from God. What he said had happened, they believed, most incredible of all, that this birth was for them, the birth of a Savior who is Christ the Lord. For them and for you, yes, for you. That is how much God loves you. It happened, and you have been told.

The shepherds went on proclaiming, but they also went back to their sheep—same old sheep but no longer the same old shepherds. While minding their sheep, they heard God’s word, and now they went on minding their sheep, believing God’s word that told them what was for them from God: “a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” Joseph went back to his carpentry and Mary to caring for her Child and her home. We are told she pondered these things in her heart. God knows her heart. We know she pondered the birth, the Child, and the words that had been spoken of him. The word pondering means “putting together.” She pondered how this baby of hers could be the one of whom such things were spoken.

The words concerning Mary’s baby are spoken to you also. To you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord. That is who is for you from God. Such is God for you. Fear him above all else and from him hear the message. Nothing comes ahead of that; nothing is surer than that. Everything else comes after that, fits in with that, is illumined by that fact. You have it on the highest authority that Christ has been born. It is an authority not of power but of love. God is pleased with us; he loves us. If we fully believed that, then surely our hearts would burst, says Martin Luther. “Born in us today.” Yes, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Help me out of refusing to be loved so much. Let your body and blood have their way with me so I know how incredibly you join me and love me to death and by your death win forgiveness for me, who is accepted, embraced, joined with you.

Then we go back to what it is that we have in the way of sheep to tend, carpentry to do, child and home to care for. The same tasks, but different. That is where we carry and heed the message, and in living out our calling, God will do things through us that are beyond our knowing and planning, as he did through the shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and even Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. We are there for God as he may be pleased to use us. We are the “handmaid of the Lord”; therefore, no “what’s in it for me”. That is only an impediment to our Lord. “I will do a Quirinius” or “I will do a Mary.” No, God wants to do with you a Mike and a Susan. We let him be the Lord. Would we wish to change him or submit him to doing things according to our way? Mary had to learn later that God had his own way of doing what was his to do—a cross and a sword through her heart. But she held to the words, good news, words of the Savior who is Christ the Lord in the stable and on the cross.

When I first was thinking about this Christmas Day sermon, I really wanted to preach about “what if there were no Christmas? But I just couldn’t…because there is, and there is just no other way to talk about or to tell the good News. Christmas did happen.

You came to hear that good words again, bringing along the parts of you that still say no, the parts from a world of death and taxes and all the things that threaten to wear away your life or trivialize it. The good words help us through to the rock bottom of what happened, and on that we can build, fitting in with that all the pieces and layers of our lives, the hard things and certainly the happy things too. We can let them be the happy things they are—family, home, friends together, gifts, food, drink, and all the fun and kindliness of Christmas—for they are liberated from having to cover a wretchedness or emptiness of heart. For our heart is now fixed where true joy is found, and that is better—right now---than anything else. “A Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” It happened, and the words have carried it to you, and the bread and wine. Then return, proclaiming it, back to your sheep. While tending them, our Lord will have things to do with you that you have not planned. Amen.