Christmas Eve
Our waiting is over the child promised from the beginning has come. Jesus pitched a tent among his people and we have seen his glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. And yet we are still waiting for His return.
No sooner had God confronted Adam and Eve over their disobedience, He laid out a plan for a promised son to crush our foe. A Son that would command all power. A Son that would reverse the fall of Adam and redeem His chosen people. And a Son that will one day gathers all His people to Him when heaven and earth are one.
We come together every year to hear these readings and celebrate the fulfillment of prophesies of the birth of a Messiah. It's like a natural cycle of life, like salmon returning to the spawning grounds, families coming together perhaps over great distances to celebrate this marvelous event. It's a time that we feel it is good to be with family and hear the account of the birth of a baby 2000 years ago. An account we celebrate with Joy year after year across millennia.
Luke tells us the angels appeared to the shepherds to share the great news. And Matthew tells us about the Magi seeking the King of the Jews. The Holy birth is revealed to the lowest, the shepherds, and the most respected, the Magi.
The shepherds were not often viewed as the most savory of characters, often considered thieves, and considered poor witnesses in court. Shepherds were not in the top ten lists of Rabbi Favorites. Tending sheep is not the cleanest job you could have and the job often kept them in the pastures on the Sabbath which means they were not the good attendees of the temple the Rabbi's would like them to be. However its good news to us that this baby was revealed to the lowest first so that we would know that we are all welcome to sing His praises. We sing these same praises nearly ever Sunday as a reminder of this wonderful fact. This heavenly revelation shows us that no one is excluded by Jesus, only by self exclusion do we fall away.
At the other end of the spectrum we have Magi traveling from the near east seeking a baby prophesied as King of the Jews, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. In those days this journey would have been a major undertaking. The Magi, their servants, and probably some type of military detachment to protect them would travel a great distance following a sign in the heavens.
We have to wonder about how spectacular the heavenly sign must have been to engage the resources of hundreds if not thousands of people to follow this "star" that appeared in the west. If you have ever been out in the wilderness at night you know it's cold and lonely but the stars are never more beautiful. And yet there was one star that must have been more spectacular than anything ever seen, an inviting sight guiding to a place of warmth and safety.
Often the Magi are called wise men and other sources confirm they were learned men regarded as a priesthood. We know there were Magi of Persia and of Babylonia so it is highly likely they had access to the Hebrew writings prophesying the Messiah.
What is just as interesting as the Magi's travels is that we don't hear of the wise men of the Jews rushing to see the baby. The Jews had an image of a warrior king coming to free them from Roman rule, a narrow view of their present time. It just wasn't possible a baby born in a small place like Bethlehem could rise to be the warrior king. They missed the big picture of a King that would free them from the burden of sin in this world. They doubted this baby could be the Messiah of prophesy.
Today many still doubt Jesus is the Messiah. Some work hard to try to disprove Jesus was anything other than a common man. Well doubt is not necessarily a bad thing. Doubt helps us process the facts at hand and for some it motivates them to dig in and uncover all the facts. In some cases the efforts of disbelievers to disprove Jesus as Messiah has converted them to be ardent believers.
I'm sure you have all seen the Christmas cards with the picture of Magi on the cover and the phrase "Wise men still seek Him." That phrase is true in the sense there are academics and scientists who continue to dig into the mystery of God incarnate. Many of us here continue to dig as well.
It's hard to make sense of God wanting to mingle with us. But He does want to mingle with us. Of all the ways that our imaginations could devise for God to live among us very few if any would think of a baby born in a stable. Further that baby would grow up as a normal man to experience our challenges in a sinful world firsthand, perform miracles, die, and rise again. Then as a final step to dwell in each of our hearts to counsel, comfort, and celebrate with us in our lives.
It seems that the more we know, the smarter we are, the more difficult it is to accept His incarnation, or for that matter to accept other biblical accounts from the creation through the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. Take heart as science advances confirmation of the biblical accounts increase. Although science will never be able to confirm the divine nature of this baby God provides other hints of confirmation. We have the miraculous signs of His birth and ministry recorded for us in the Bible. And sometimes God guides a modern day person to write down thoughts that help us understand this miracle.
When we struggle with the incarnation of God here on earth or why He would even conceive such a plan the modern Parable of the Birds enlightens us in simple terms. Journalist, Louis Cassels, wrote this marvelous parable in 1956 to help us understand the reason for the miraculous birth of Jesus. I would like to share it with you now.
Parable of the Birds
This is about a modern man, one of us, he was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others. But he did not believe in all that incarnation stuff that the Churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn't make sense to him and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just could not swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as man. I'm truly sorry to distress you, he told his wife, but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve. He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he would much rather stay home, but that he would wait up for them. He stayed, they went.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another and another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. Well, when he went to the front door, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter they had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze. He remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter -- if he could direct the birds to it. He quickly put on his coat and galoshes, trampled through the deepening snow to the barn, opened the door wide, and turned on a light. But the birds did not come in.
He figured food would entice them in and he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow making a trail to the yellow lighted wide open doorway of the stable, but to his dismay the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them, he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms -- instead they scattered in every direction except into the warm lighted barn. Then he realized they were afraid of him.
To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature, if only I could think of some way to let them know they can trust me: That I'm not trying to hurt them, but to help them. How? Any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. If I could only be a bird myself he thought. If only I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language, and tell them not to be afraid, and show them the way to the safe, warm barn. But I'd have to be one of them, so they could see and hear and understand.
"If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety," he thought. Just at that moment the church bells began to ring. He stood silently for a while, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. Then he sank to his knees in the snow. "Now I understand," he whispered. "Now I see why You had to do it. "
God loves us so much that He sent His only Son, as a helpless babe, so that He could lead us to the safety of a brightly lit doorway in a dark stormy world.
With great joy and thanksgiving we welcome this child into our lives. Amen
