Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

It's not easy to tell the Christmas story in a way that seems new and fresh, but this year I came across a sermon, written by Rev. Heidi Neumark, that made it make sense to me in a very creative way.

Did you notice how the Christmas story begins? It's not with the voice of God, not with the song of angels, but with the order of an emperor. Emperor Augustus orders everyone to register at the town of their birth in order to be counted in the census. This means that Joseph and Mary, who live in Nazareth, must travel to Bethlehem. It doesn't matter that the journey is two hundred bumpy miles on the back of a donkey during the rainy season. It doesn't matter that Mary is nine months pregnant…

I'm sure that you can imagine with me the physical discomfort of Mary during that long journey, her anxiety over the well-being of her unborn child, and Joseph's frustration and anger at being forced to obey the emperor at the cost of endangering his wife and the baby cradled in her womb…

How ironic it is, then, that when Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem to be counted there is no place for them and they are forced to go to a stable intended for animals. The fact that they had traveled for two hundred miles and must have been exhausted didn't count for anything. The fact that Mary was in the early stages of labor, for God's sake, didn't count for anything. Mary and Joseph went to be counted, but they were treated as if they didn't count at all…

The drama of the story of Jesus has always turned on the fact that God's values are radically different than those of the world. And nowhere is this more obvious than on Christmas Eve. There must have been plenty of people who did find room at the inns; people with wealth and connections, people who slipped the innkeeper a little extra under the table, some, I'm sure, who just had the foresight or good fortune to set out for Bethlehem a little sooner. But how many more were forced to sleep on the streets, in the gutters or the doorways of public buildings? A stable, all things considered, wouldn't have been the worst possible option, but it was hardly a place someone of "means" would have put up with.

Yet, this is precisely where we find Jesus, in the most humble of circumstances, right from the very beginning identified with the poor, the homeless, the weary, the unwashed and unacknowledged masses, those the world usually treats as if they don't count at all. To God, they do count. That's the message of the manger. To God, we all count. We are all of such infinite worth, regardless of our circumstances, that God chose to enter into our human lives in order to lead us home.

And maybe, the hope behind the story, God's hope, is that when we know the true depth of God's caring, we will be inspired to care ourselves. Maybe, God's taking on human form can serve to deepen our own humanity; can teach us how to be the best we have it in us to be, for the sake of all God's children. And if it does, the circle of the ministry of love, which began in a manger, will be complete.

The Birth of Wonder

By Madeleine L'Engle

As I grow older

I get surer

Man's heart is colder,

His life no purer.

As I grow steadily

More austere

I come less readily

To Christmas each year.

I can't keep taking

Without a thought

Forced merrymaking

And presents bought

In crowds and jostling.

Alas, there's naught

In empty wassailing

Where oblivion's sought.

Oh, I'd be waiting

With quiet fasting

Anticipating

A joy more lasting.

And so I rhyme

With no apology

During this time

Of eschatology:

Judgment and warning

Come like thunder.

But now is the hour

When I remember

An infant's power

On a cold December.

Midnight is dawning

And the birth of wonder.

Merry Christmas.