This message combines the Gospel lessons from the last Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve. I was speaking at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village on Sunday, December 22 (Advent 4) and Atria Southpoint Walk on Tuesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve). Since this was the only Advent 4/Christmas Eve service that the residents would have, I combined the two Gospel lessons into one message. The theme riffs off of the message in the Old Testament reading that the Messiah would come from the stump of Jesse - not a new tree, but the roots and remains of an older one. You can listen to the message here.
The two Gospel lessons were:
Matthew 1:18-25
Luke 2:1-20
These are the two Gospels that record the story of Jesus being born.
Father who created us, baby Jesus who we celebrate in this season, Holy Spirit who lives and moves among us constantly, take these words and transform them by your love that we may know you more. Amen.
At the tail end – ALMOST TIME!
Waiting and waiting
For restoration of creation
Short days and long nights
Seeking relief from brokennss
But this story that we heard today – does it still matter today?
I mean, there were lots of babies born and we don’t think about them. They lived and died and that was that.
But this one… was it special, aside from the poverty?
I think that if the story is to make a difference it really does need to have some application for the lives of people today.
Let’s start with Joseph:
* Wanted to do THE RIGHT THING
* Right according to social order
* Right by Mary
* Right according to God (in the dream)
* And he chose God
He doesn’t speak much and we really don’t hear much about Jesus, but…
* Did he build a crib for that baby?
* Took some punches – when Jesus was 12 (FATHER’S house? Ouch to step dad)
* And then we don’t hear from him again
Joseph’s legacy lives today in people who show up and go unheralded.
* The people who work in the cafeteria and make sure you have nutritious food, even on holidays.
* The people who keep the electricity going to we can all be warm.
* The nurses and medical professionals
o The people who show up at churches and missions and ministries
And then there is the story of Jesus being born. Who was part of that story?
* Not the perfect nuclear family, but a teenaged unwed mom and the man who would take care of a child that was not his
* Shepherds – scoundrels who got sent out with the sheep because they weren’t nice enough or rich enough
* The innkeeper who took in that (soon to be) family that they did not know
Angels came and sang and the glory of God broke through the very heavens. But there were no tickets, it was just for who was there.
It was a foreshadowing of what Jesus cared about: being present for the people that are not all about what the social order said was most important. In particular:
* The wicked tax collectors who oppressed the people and stole from them because they could – supported by the government that absolutely knew what they were doing. There is no mention of an “honest” tax collector.
* Mentally ill people who were relegated to tombs – people that got chained up because nobody knew what else to do with, for, or about them.
* Children, who had no standing.
* Crowds of strangers who came for the spectacle, out of curiosity
That is a life that the story of Jesus being born in a stable points to. It’s like he was born in poverty and never really saw a need to go anywhere else.
He was also setting an example for the people who would follow him. A call to
* Spend time with the scoundrels – the people who do not end up at the center of power and social importance
* Provide housing for people who are poor and in need – even if they look like a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend
* Mentally or physically ill people who are doing the best they can and who need love more than anything else
* Children, who require so much work and have so little to give back – except for love. Most of the time.
* Strangers that seem odd for whatever reason
The birth of Jesus pointed to the life of Jesus, and to the degree that we can care for all the people, not just the ones who have something to give back to us, we are following Jesus. And I see it every day in the faces and hearts of people who have need and the people who make sacrifices to meet those needs in the ways that we can here and now.
And then there is Mary. Right in the middle of all this. After she had
* learned she was going to have a baby – despite being a virgin
* learned that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant even though she was old
* taken the trip to Bethlehem
* found a place to stay after all
* visited by those scoundrel shepherds who had an astonishing story of…
* ANGELS
She kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
I have always wondered… WHAT DID THAT MEAN???
Until I embarked on this life of ministry. And I saw:
* There were exactly enough boxes of food for the people who came.
* There were an abundance of gifts from strangers, given to people they would never meet.
* Ministries that are touching lives despite negativity from people who think that ministry can look only one way
Daddy used to say you don’t have to believe me, just remember.
* Not disbelief; lack of understanding
* Tools before we know we need them
This pondering is our call to faith
Notice the things that make no sense
See how it shows up in our lives
Because that humble birth foreshadowed the REAL reason that Christmas is still important to us today.
* Jesus walked humbly
* Jesus lived so far outside of the world that valued human things, like wealth and power and privilege that
* Jesus was killed
Of course, people are killed all the time for living outside of our society’s standards.
But this is the difference with Jesus:
Jesus was resurrected. His life that started in a stable and was characterized from the beginning and all the way through by humility and caring for “the least of these” was apparently so powerful that it defeated EVEN DEATH.
And who would not want to follow that kind of life?
If we want to defeat death, then we have only one example: the Jesus who was born among strangers, announced to scoundrels watching animals out in the pasture, and cared for by his teenager mother and a man who was not his father.
The Jesus who fed everybody, gravitated to the outcasts, and turned a bunch of fishermen into people who spread a faith that we profess today.
And so yes, this story DOES still matter to us today.
Not because a guy named Joseph did what needed to be done but because we are called to be gracious to each other and do what needs to be done.
Not because God’s heavenly messangers, the angels, sang to shepherds in the field but because we are called as earthly messengers of God‘s will to go to the scoundrels and to give the gifts that we have been given so richly.
Not even because a teenager named Mary was faced with confusing things and pondered them in her heart, but because we are faced with confusing things and ponder them in our hearts.
As a result the story of that a pregnant teenager, a good guy, angels, shepherds, and a baby in a manger matters for us today. More than ever.
So today I wish you a Merry Christmas and rejoice with you that we too will one day be resurrected. And in the meantime, we will be loved.
Amen
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