What Pastor Jon Preached on Saturday, December 24, 2011

Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7 • Psalm 96 • 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.

What picture of Christmas do you hold most dear? What vision of what this night means do you longingly come to seek refuge in, this holy night? Is it something like the crech manger scene in your living room, or on that one neighbor’s front lawn? Or perhaps it’s that Renaissance stylized portrait that shows the whole scene in its perfection: a barn with a window at just the right angle to light the manger by the moonlight; a young family with rosy colored cheeks staring lovingly at a happy, cooing babe; the eyes of the sheep, donkey, cattle and the magi’s camels all focused intently on the baby Jesus, as if ready to have a conversation with him.

These visions all come from the story we hear again tonight--the very familiar story of Jesus’ birth, a story in Luke that captures our imaginations...with its elegance, beauty and grandeur. For many of us this story’s familiarity fills us with the comforting picture of Christmas that we long for--of an infant surrounded by loving parents, guests and animals...an infant who is even favored by the voices emanating with songs from the skies.

But how accurate is that picture we hold on to so dearly? Have we edited the story to give us comfort? Today, we now have the technological power to doctor, edit, crop, paste, touch up and cover up any image to make it look how we would like. It’s called it “photoshoping” after the computer program of the same name. Although it is a more recent phenomena, in films this was a popularly done in the 1960‘s with movie stars like Doris Day or Grace Kelly, who would have close-ups softened so their facial curves were smooth, and blemishes were erased. Now with the convenience of digital cameras and personal computers, almost anyone can take a picture and cover up a pimple, remove a double chin, or shed a few pounds with just a few clicks. Image, as the TV ad used to say, after all, is everything.

But have we “photoshopped” the real Jesus out of his birth story? Is the beloved image of the nativity--and even of the beloved rituals that are a part of our home and family life which we look forward to so much each year--are they a little too perfect to be true? Have we rushed so quickly to escape from our everyday struggles and challenges that we have domesticated the incarnation of God to a neat and tidy corner of our lives?

The trouble is that a “photoshoped” Jesus is not the picture that these events in Luke’s Gospel paint of Jesus’ birth. If anyone has worked on a farm, they would know of the stench that surrounded this new family. If anyone has been near a baby’s delivery room, they would know it is anything but a meek and mild experience. Luke’s Mary is a frightened, unwed teenage mother, engaged to Joseph who is way over his head, having to take his family back home and search relentlessly for a place to stay. The shepherds whom the angels greet stand at the very bottom of society’s ladder. They would have brought their own dirt, grime and smell, along with their filthy flocks, to the birth barn. This night of Jesus’ birth was not a picturesque night.

So all of us can perhaps admit that we easily soften the edges of Christmas. But the messy, smelly, fragile and vulnerable scene is not what we want on Christmas, is it?! We have enough hard realities already in our daily lives. We don’t need any more realism, do we? It’s hard enough to keep our tenuous lives in tact, and stem the tide of chaos that threatens to turn our work, our home and our world upside down. It’s hard enough to turn on the news, or open a newspaper and have to see how mucky and messy our world is. Can’t we just clean Jesus up, keep him nice and tidy, and enjoy this little respite from the world's madness?

But even though the beautiful, precious and wonderful lives we work so hard to carefully manage do an excellent job of removing the blemishes in our lives....can we confess this Christmas night...that that life is still not fully, deep down satisfying? Are we willing to confess that our beautiful and wonderful lives are at the same time fragile, vulnerable and ultimately insufficient...

For that is exactly where Jesus comes to save us. He comes to up-end the ordered life that Herod tries to enforce by registering, counting and taxing everyone. Jesus comes far away from the centers of power, far from our efforts to protect our lives through achievement, acquisition and ego. Jesus is born at our most vulnerable fringes. He comes at the fringes to overturn an authoritative empire. He comes at the fringes of surviving a childbirth that could have cost him his life, to die at the fringes for us so that we would be born into his new life. He comes to the fringes where outsiders like common laborer shepherds become his messengers of the best news the world has ever heard.

Jesus comes at the fringes to reveal God does not condemn us for our broken lives, nor does he come to offer us life that is “just a little better” or “just a little more bearable”. Jesus comes at the fringes to completely transform, redeem and resurrect our lives precisely from our fragile center. His coming paints a picture of us that shows us what we look like through God’s eyes. God's view sees the fragile fringes where we reside in for most of our lives, but God hasn't photoshopped them. The view that God comes to see in us through Jesus saves us, and convinces us of God’s belief that we are completely and totally loveable.

I’m guessing that all of us have moments of our lives that contain blemishes we would prefer not to have others to see. A few times now, unfortunately, I have had the unfortunate experience of being videotaped doing something I would not exactly be proud of. Several times I have opened the day’s mail to see an envelope from the City of Chicago, telling me that I had to pay a $100 fine for running a red light. There is nothing more humiliating than going onto the website the city provides to watch a video of yourself breaking the law. There’s no denying it, no getting around it.

God’s tape of us runs much longer and much deeper into our lives--and it’s all because in coming to us in Jesus, there is no place in our experience that God’s presence cannot be found. No matter how fragile our life's videotape is, God comes to offer redemption to us, one and all--even those who disobey a traffic signal.

Despite the tape of our lives carrying warts, muck and blemishes...the image we come to watch and embrace this night is the image of a promise that comes at the fringes...to give us not just more of our same lives...but an abundant life...a redeemed life...a life that is saved for us by Christ. God goes through all the red lights we put up to make a way into to our broken lives.

At the risk of ruining a perfect Christmas escape from our troubles, we can invest our faith this Christmas not in the perfect escape, but in the Savior who was perfectly human and perfectly God-ly for our sake. We can come and seek the One who feeds us in the place deep down inside that wants something more. We can embrace Christ's promise that he has at the fringes to offer us the abundant life we seek, abundant life that shows his light through our cracks, abundant life that will seek us out until all can join in singing, “Let heaven and earth rejoice!”

Amen.