Getting to the Manger

When we read the Christmas story, we tend to believe that the shepherds have done our work for us: that they have found the Christ child once and for all, sparing us the work of searching for him. What if they are, instead, our model of what it means to find the manger for ourselves?

I have arrived at a time in my life when I am very glad that I no longer have to travel during the holidays. This year I was delighted that my family came to us. Fred and I were able to sit on the sofa in our decorated living room, enjoy the glow of the Christmas tree, and wait for our daughters and their families to burst through the front door! But it hasn’t always been that way. We have done our share of traveling at the holidays. For many years, Fred and I bundled up the girls in their winter coats, put our suitcases in the back of the van, packed a thermos of coffee, and headed off to the East Coast to see his family. Most of that traveling was done at night. Fred would come home after a day’s work, we’d eat dinner, and then we’d begin a long night’s drive with the girls asleep in the back seat.

What I remember most about those nights were the signs that regularly appeared along the road as we drove. They were large and easily seen: reflective green signs directed us to exits on the interstate; big billboards enticed us to stop at a hotel or a restaurant; and tall, brightly lighted logos alerted us to a gas station at this exit! They called attention to themselves, thrusting their glow through the winter darkness like huge flashlight beams. These signs are part and parcel of everyone’s travel experiences.  Even if we don’t go long distances to visit family, when we drive to the mall, go out to eat, or treat ourselves to a movie, we rely on those big, brightly lighted signs to get us where we want to go.

But the sign that was the very foundation of Christmas wasn’t brightly lighted at all. In fact, the shepherds had to look hard to find it! God’s angel told them about it on the very first Christmas eve. After that angel announced the Messiah’s birth, the shepherds were told that the sign that it had really happened would be a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. That sign isn’t nearly as impressive as the McDonald’s signs that tower above the trees at interstate exits! A swaddled baby lying in a manger? How ordinary! And how easily overlooked!

Have you ever thought about how difficult it was for the shepherds to get to the manger that first Christmas eve? The night was dark after the angels disappeared, even darker than usual in contrast with the glory that had just flooded the hillsides. And the shepherds had no street lights to guide their way. There must have been dozens of stables in the little village of Bethlehem; and the stable for which they were searching had no neon sign out front. They had to look through every single dark, dirty stable in town. To make matters worse, the village was crowded with other temporary residents who had been required to travel there. I imagine that there were many folks beside Mary and Joseph who had taken refuge in a stable. To get to the manger of the Christ child, the shepherds had to search through dozens of crowded stables in the dark of night. They must have wondered why God had given them a sign that was so hard to find! It must have been especially puzzling since this sign announced the birth of the Messiah.

I’ve often wondered what the shepherds saw as they went trying to get to the Messiah’s manger. They must have seen the worst in life as they went looking for the best. They probably saw travelers who had gone to bed hungry: travelers who had no money to buy food and no family to help them get any. They probably saw beggars and orphaned children on the streets, tucked into a dark corner trying to catch a few winks of sleep in the cold. They might even have passed lepers on their way into Bethlehem, men and women who were exiled from society as they died slowly from their incurable disease. And as the shepherds passed by all this pain and suffering, they must have wondered whether the Messiah had really been born into a broken world such as ours. But when they got to the manger and found the baby who was wrapped in swaddling clothes lying there – then they knew that God had indeed been come into our midst to save us from ourselves!

It isn’t any easier for us to get to the manger today than it was for the shepherds. The signs of Christ’s presence are still hard to find. We look around, and we see poverty and death and greed and corruption, just like the shepherds might have seen on their way to the manger; and we wonder whether the Messiah is really here at all. That’s why, every now and then, someone will ask, “Why doesn’t God give us a sign to show us that he is still around?” When they ask that question, they’re looking for a sign that is big and impressive, like a lighted Cracker Barrel billboard. But that’s not the kind of sign that the shepherds were told to look for. The sign that helped them get to the manger was as ordinary as can be – just a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Maybe we should be looking for something ordinary, too, to help us get to the manger of that very extraordinary child. Maybe, instead of looking for lighted billboards, we should be looking for little signs that are almost invisible unless we’re looking for them – signs of hospitality, compassion, acceptance, and love – signs that are easy to miss because they are overshadowed by all the bad news that we hear every day. But they’re out there for us to find if we search for them. In every place where there are homeless families living in cardboard boxes, here there are also compassionate people who offer them food, clothing, and blankets. Where there are hateful actions directed towards Muslims or Jews or homosexuals, there are loving groups of people who rally around those persecuted communities. And where there is loneliness – in nursing homes, or hospitals, or just in the homes of older adults who have outlived their friends and their families – there are loving folks who are trying their best to ease that loneliness. Those are the kinds of signs that point the way to the manger today. Oh, it’s not easy for us to find the Christ child, because we no longer have a physical manger to find. Today, we have to get to that manger through human hearts. But the good news of Christmas is that the Christ child is always here for us to find. His name is Emmanuel: God with us. And that’s exactly where he is, today and forever: with us. Thanks be to God!

Singing the Symbols of Christmas

As we approach Christmas, what better way to celebrate than by singing? From the sacred ("Silent Night") to the secular ("Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"), we all have songs that we just love to sing! But you may not have guessed that many familiar Christmas hymns are steeped in symbolism! This sermon highlights just five of them. Sing a verse of each one of them as you read about it! And have a very Merry Christmas!!

What would Christmas be without music? Christmas without music just wouldn’t be complete. It would be like a Thanksgiving turkey without the stuffing! Music has been a part of Christmas since the earliest years of its celebration! This morning’s scripture reading (Luke 1:39-55) contains a song that Mary sang when she visited her cousin Elizabeth. “My soul glorifies the Lord,” she sings, “and my spirit rejoices in God my savior!” It’s one of four songs that Luke includes in his story of Jesus birth: Zechariah’s song of praise when his son John the Baptist is born; this song of Mary; the song of the angels on Christmas night; and Simeon’s song of gratitude when he sees the infant savior in the Jerusalem Temple. Luke knew that when our emotions can’t be fully expressed in words, we sing; and Christmas surely is one of those times when spoken words just aren’t enough. But did you know that when we sing the Christmas songs that we love so well, we’re actually singing about the deep symbolism of the miracle of Christmas? The Bible stories of Jesus’ birth, as well as our own Christmas traditions, contain symbols of both who God is and our relationship with our God. We usually just skip by those symbols without thinking much about them; but this morning, we’re going to stop and ponder them for a few minutes; much like Mary pondered the birth of her son after the shepherds visited him in Bethlehem.

The town of Bethlehem itself, in fact, is a symbol. In the Old Testament, the prophet Micah (Micah 5:2) announced, “But you, Bethlehem: though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Bethlehem was the home town of the historic King David from whose family the Messiah would come. But more than that, Bethlehem was a very little place. Bethlehem was to its neighboring city of Jerusalem as West Milton is to Cincinnati! And that’s a clue of how God appears among us. God doesn’t make an appearance in the halls of power like the halls of Congress or the Vatican; but in little, out-of-the way, places where not much usually happens. The Christ child wasn’t born in Jerusalem, but in the little town of Bethlehem. When you sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” you might want to think about that!

We all know that Jesus was laid in a manger, don’t we? If we know anything at all about the Christmas story, we know about the manger! And that manger is a symbol of why Jesus was born at all. He was born to be the Bread of Life, the One who feeds our deepest needs with his own person! So a feed box for animals was a very appropriate place for him to take his first night’s sleep on this earth. Just as the hay nourishes animals, Jesus gives us the nourishment that our souls crave. I’ll bet that you have never realized the powerful truth that the hymn “Away in a Manger” expresses!

On Christmas night, a whole choir of angels appeared in the skies over Bethlehem to tell shepherds that the Messiah had been born. Now, there’s more to those angels than white robes and halos! In Old Testament tradition, angels were God’s messengers; and they only appeared to very special people who had been chosen by God. Angels appeared to Abraham, to Joshua, to Samuel, and to Isaiah. In Luke’s nativity story, an angel appeared to Zechariah and to Mary. But on the night that Jesus was born, angels appeared to a bunch of dirty shepherds who hadn’t had a bath in a month! What’s the symbolism there? Why, if angels could appear to shepherds, then they can appear to any one of us, clean or dirty, rich or poor, man or woman! We are all special and chosen by God! “Peace on earth,” they sang, “and goodwill among all people!” Nothing separates us any more from God and God’s love; and the angels are proof of it! Charles Wesley’s great hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is a perfect reminder of the love that God showed to us by coming to us.

And we can’t forget the star of Bethlehem. Lots of people have tried to figure out exactly what that star was. Was it a comet? A conjunction of planets? Maybe it was a supernova, a distant sun that exploded just at the right time for its final burst of light to arrive in the skies of the ancient Middle East. While all those theories are interesting, what I care about right now is the symbolism behind that star and its light. Is there any more powerful biblical symbol than light? In the beginning, God’s first creation was light; and Jesus called himself the Light of the World. God sends us light to chase away the shadows of ignorance and fear and sorrow and hatred. Of course a star led the way to the Christ child! The light of that star led to the Light of the world! That’s what I hope you remember the next time you sing “We Three Kings” with its familiar refrain, "Oh, star of wonder, star of night..."

Let’s close our journey through the symbolism of the Christmas story by pondering something that we all have in our homes at this time of the year: the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is loaded with symbolism! It is an evergreen that doesn’t die in the winter; that symbolizes the eternal life that we have through Christ. We decorate it with lights, symbolizing the Light of Christ. And its limbs point to the heavens, towards the God who loves us so much that he refused to stay in those heavens, but came to us as one of us! “O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,” the hymn goes, “you lift our eyes to heaven!” This Christmas, let’s not only lift our eyes to heaven, but our hearts as well; and let’s join Mary in singing, “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!”

Get Ready!

The traditional gospel reading for the third Sunday in Advent is another John the Baptist text. The setting is the wilderness, and John is telling the people what they should do to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. But equally important is what John DOESN'T tell the people to do. Interested? Read my sermon!

The people skills of John the Baptist were… well, not the best! He would never have won a Miss Congeniality award. Calling your listeners a “brood of vipers” is not the way to get yourself invited to holiday parties! If I stood in the pulpit on a Sunday morning and called my congregation “a brood of vipers,” I’m pretty sure that they would not-so-gently nudge me towards retirement! But that’s exactly what John the Baptist said. He didn’t stop there, either! After calling his audience a bunch of snakes, he told them that they needed to start behaving themselves. He followed that up by warning them, “Don’t think that you’re all that and a bag of chips because you’re God’s chosen people. God can choose rocks to be his people!” Yeah, John the Baptist didn’t mince words. But I have to hand it to him; he got results! Luke tells us that the people who were listening not only didn’t throw rotten tomatoes at him; they actually asked him what they should do to change! Even tax collectors and Roman soldiers asked for his advice!

When we read this morning’s text (Luke 3:7-14), we spend most of our time focusing on what John the Baptist told people to do to get ready for the Messiah. But equally important was what he didn’t tell people to do! Let me ask you a question: if you heard that the Messiah was on the way, how would you get ready for him? Would you take more time each day for prayer? Maybe you’d pick up that devotional book that you never got around to reading. You’d certainly go to church more often! My guess is that if you knew that the Messiah was passing Toledo heading south on I-75 on his way to these parts, you’d drop everything and concentrate on your spiritual life. But John the Baptist didn’t say anything to the people about getting their spiritual lives in order. He didn’t tell them to head for the Temple with a sacrifice. He didn’t tell them to enroll in a rabbi’s study group to learn to quote the Torah. He didn’t even tell them to pray every day! No, his instructions didn’t focus on the spiritual aspect of life; they concentrated on the physical. He said things like, “Share your extra clothing so that people aren’t cold, and give away your extra food so that people aren’t hungry;” and he told the tax collectors and the Roman soldiers not to squeeze money out of people so that they had enough to live on. Now, isn’t that odd? Most of us believe that God is way more concerned with our spiritual lives than with our physical lives. Some people even believe that our physical life here on earth is something to be endured, one weary day after another, while we wait eagerly for the glories of heaven. But John the Baptist doesn’t seem to agree with that! He insists that God cares about our physical lives, too!

Let’s consider that for a moment. Does God really care about our physical selves? We know that God created the whole universe and called it “good.” (Genesis 1) Then he created human beings and pronounced them “very good.” And throughout the Old Testament, God told the people through the prophets that just going to church was useless if they didn’t take care of one another, especially the ones who had less than they did. And to make sure that everybody got that message that our physical selves are important, God came to us as one of us. God was born of a human woman in a physical place at a physical time. As the gospel of John puts it, “the Word was made flesh.” That’s the good news of Christmas! God comes physically to be with us as a human being that we can embrace and kiss and hold hands with! The Messiah is more than just a spiritual idea; the Messiah is one of us!

We seem to forget that, thought, on a regular basis. Watch any 1960s movie of the life of Christ and you’ll see what I mean. The Jesus in those movies never crack their faces in a smile. Some of them never even seem to focus their eyes! It’s as though they are looking through everything physical to see something spiritual, because the spiritual is what is really important. But I don’t think that the real Jesus was like that at all. I think that when he was a baby, he cried and burped and spit up and did all the other things that babies do. And when he was a man, he laughed and cried and took afternoon naps and stubbed his toe and probably even told a joke or two! His spiritual life was perfect, of course, because he knew God intimately. But if we believe that in preparing to welcome the Messiah into our lives, we should concentrate only on the spiritual, we’re missing something very important. Jesus didn’t float down into this world as a spirit. He was born as a very physical human being.

So what does all this have to do with our preparations for Christmas? Just this. If John the Baptist told us that the way to prepare for the Messiah was to physically take care of other people (and he did); and if Jesus the Messiah came to us as a human (and he did); and if Jesus himself focused on our physical lives (and he certainly did that) – well, then, maybe we should spend a little time on the physical aspects of life, too, and not just the spiritual. After all, our physical behavior reflects our spiritual behavior. There’s nothing wrong with hanging Christmas lights and singing Christmas carols and buying gifts! While it’s true that the Christmas season often feels more like an orgy of commercialism than preparation for the Messiah, those strings of lights that we put up in such abundance reflect the light that has come into our lives in Jesus Christ. Those evergreen wreaths that we hang on our doors reflect the eternal life that we have in Jesus Christ. The gifts that we give to one another reflect the gift of love that God gave us in Jesus Christ. And when we collect clothing for Rosebud, or wrap shoe boxes for the children there; when we purchase Angel Tree gifts and donate for gift cards for needy families; when we drop a dollar in the Salvation Army kettle or donate to the United Church of Christ Christmas Fund, we are living out the love that God gave to us first. So rejoice! The Messiah is almost here! Get your lives in order! And if you’re not quite sure how to do that… well, when the Messiah gets here, he’ll model that for us in his physical life so that we can be more than a brood of vipers. We can really and truly be God’s people!