What Pastor Jon Preached on December 24th, 2009

The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7 • Titus 2:11-14 • Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 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.In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!' When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.' So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them."

^{23456791011121314151617181920} If you have ever been in Paris, perhaps you have been at the hotel where there is the sign that is posted, saying “Please leave your values at the front desk.

Or this sign from a hotel in Vienna: “In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter."

Here’s one from Athens: “Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9-11am daily.”

And this one from Bucharest: “The [elevator] is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.”

When we think of hospitality as being “welcomed”, or of finally finding respite in our day…one of the places we tend to most often think of is a hotel. And even as much as hotels can be slick, can appear to be all neat and tidy, as much as they try to be places of coziness, of warmth, of safety and respite…than can often fall short and not get it quite right.

Yes, these foreign hotel signs were attempts to welcome. But they convey the brokenness of “hotel hospitality.” Truly Christian hospitality has in some ways been robbed by this polished and sanitized experience of the corporate hospitality “industry” as it is now even called. We have lost the meaning of truly radical welcome, when we push hospitality to the borders of something that is transacted between a paying customer and service-providing company—where guest and host have become roles taken only for those who can afford to pay to receive such services. (pause)

“And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7) Tonight we do not need to go anywhere, or translate any signs, or prepare anything to receive Christian hospitality: tonight God becomes the host, and we the guest, in God’s grandest act of welcome…in the birth of Christ as one of us.

But where is the hospitality in this story? The long and arduous search to find an inn where Mary and Joseph could stay comes to mind—but it is actually more folklore than actually from the Lucan narrative. The Greek word Luke actually uses for “inn” would be more closely translated as “guest room”, such as one attached to a house—rather than a hotel as we would understand it today. It’s not that Mary and Joseph could not find a hotel, they could not find anyone with an empty guest room because they were all filled with someone of a higher social status than them. They finally did find a place to stay, a guest room, where animals were staying too, because someone had heard of Joseph’s family since that was where his family originally came from. Jesus gets born in a guest room because there is no lower place for Mary and Joseph to go—this was the last possible place they could be for people of their poor social rank and peasant economic class.

It is no coincidence that God’s Son is born at the bottom. God becomes flesh at the bottom to bring dignity to the bottom; to welcome us who are all at the bottom, so that we may be given dignity, and glory. God tonight welcomes us as guests in becoming one of us, through Christ. In the least of all places, Christ lives this night as a guest on Earth who dwells to make us strangers to God no longer. In Christ God has broken the barrier of all barriers, the wall that will never again be raised—God throws lavish and intimate hospitality upon the whole world—because God has become human.

As one of us, God welcomes everyone into God’s gracious reign that brings up the lowly…that casts down the mighty.. and where every human being, every creature, becomes a sister and brother of the one made flesh. We are no longer strangers to God and we are no longer strangers to one another. The radical welcome of God becomes complete this night—in Christ, born at the bottom. Of all people, God turns a baby, the Christ-child—into the gracious host to all. Even the shepherds, who come to see in the flesh this amazing incarnation—it is not they who host Christ but the small infant boy who when they come to see him—he becomes their host.

And so we this night, we who long for the “perfect” Christmas, who may long for the pristine welcome we could find if we only could find the inn, the right hotel, we have been invited into this room, which God tonight makes into God’s own guest room. God turns this place and all places into dwellings where hospitality can happen—where no one is an outsider, where we do not need to be professionals, where it does not have to be pristine to share the welcome of God. There is no payment necessary to share the news with everyone we welcome the goodness of God’s opening up to us a welcome all can receive.

And God’s welcome goes even further—it goes beyond Jesus turning all places into dwelling places of hospitality. God’s turns us all into family—the Jesus family. This is a family where much more than blood unites us—it is the gracious host, God with us, Jesus who from the bottom brings us together and allows everyone to experience the first-class welcome of God’s choice of a dwelling place as among mortals.

Welcome to the Jesus-family. No hotel required. No payment required. There’s always a meal for you, and the waters are always refreshing. Come, let us take the guest room that can be moved anywhere, and join in the work of blessing the places God’s welcome is visible and of extending God’s hospitality to every dwelling place and to every human heart, so that all may sing of God’s glory from the very bottom, all the way up to the highest heaven. Amen.