Light in the Darkness (Luke 2:1-20)

Christmas Eve
Luke 2:1-20
December 24, 2010

Light in the Darkness

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

It’s a strange night. It’s among the darkest, longest nights of the year and instead of huddling in front of a fire or curling up beneath blankets, we have come here, for no more compelling reasons than to tell and to sing the Story again. We live in a culture that values the new above all else, but in spite of that we have come here for an old story, a story that we already know.

We have come and we encounter more strangeness: a finely appointed table set in the presence of barn doors, a suggestion of a feed trough, and enough candles to make us wonder whether there has been a power failure. Stranger still, we have that most ancient pagan symbol—a living tree, an evergreen—cut down and given a place of honor in a Christian holy place. And strangest of all, none of this seems wrong or out of place.

We turn to the story itself and we find emperors and peasants, frightened subjects and the rulers that order them around, shepherds and angels, good news given to the scorned and the poor, and darkness in the light.

There are two worlds set out in the story. On the one hand there is the world of the powerful and rich. They are people like the emperor, Gaius Julius Octavius, known to history as Augustus, the title given to him by the Roman Senate.

On the other hand there is the world of the weak and the poor. They are people like the tradesman Yosef and his peasant fiancée Miriam—Joseph and Mary. They are people like the shepherds, distrusted and scorned by folks who lived in the villages.

The two worlds rub against each other in our story. Augustus wanted to count the subjects of his empire. He wanted to know how many subjects he had so that he could better estimate just how much tax and tribute he could squeeze out of them. So he ordered a census. Everyone was to be counted in the city of their citizenship. So folks like Joseph and Mary dropped everything and scurried off to their hometowns. They knew better than to think they could defy the powerful rich.

If that were the end of the story, it certainly wouldn’t make the news. That peasants and shepherds don’t count for much, but emperors and kings do, would not surprise anyone.

But that isn’t the end of the story. There is another character in our story. God has crept in beside us. God has crept in beside us and everything has changed. The old structures are turned upside down. The old values are eclipsed. There is now the hope that old pains will be eased, old longings fulfilled, and old questions answered.

And look where it is that God has come! God could have chosen Rome, a city of power and dignity, an unanswerable arrangement of propaganda in marble and concrete. God could have visited the emperor, clothed in purple, honored as the Savior, the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. But God chose the peasant couple Yosef and Miriam and the backwater village of Bethlehem. The Prince of Peace, the Savior, the Son of God was born this night and the emperor in Rome never had a clue.

The angels could have made the announcement of Jesus’ birth to the nobility and the religious leaders. They could have appeared in Jerusalem and sung their glad news from the rooftop of the Temple. But the angels chose shepherds who were living with their flocks in the Judean hills. Shepherds were despised in those days as barely civilized, untrustworthy, sneaky and dangerous. People would have said that they lived like the animals they lived with. But it was not to the nobility that the shepherds appeared. It was the shepherds who had the chance to run to Bethlehem to see for themselves the signs that the angels had promised. The nobility slept through the night, unaware.

The significance of the story doesn’t just lie in these ironies, which I find delicious in themselves. God crept in beside us and everything changed. God came to Yosef and Miriam and from now on, peasants matter. God came to Bethlehem and from now on, backwater towns matter. The angels appeared to shepherds and from now on those who are despised and looked down on matter. God crept in beside us and from now on we matter.

There are, of course, those of us like me who already believe that we matter, that we matter a lot, actually. The truth is I do matter, but probably not in the way nor as much as I think. It was not to the holders of PhDs that the angels appeared. The learned and wise of Jesus’ day were more often than not found working against him and we who accounted today among the very best educated are warned in this way to be careful we are not still working against him.

But I’m not thinking so much of those who seem to matter as of those who seem not to. God has crept in beside us and things are no longer what they seem to be. Emperors and kings and capital cities seem to matter but they don’t. Peasants and shepherds and hick towns seem not to matter, but they do.

Nearly one in ten of our workforce is looking for work and cannot find it. The unemployed are scorned as lazy parasites for whom continued support becomes a “hammock” even though if every job in the United States were filled, our unemployment rate would still be 7.6%. When economists decide whether a recession is over, they don’t count unemployment. So those of us who are unemployed may not believe that we matter. But the story we tell and sing tonight says to us, “To us is born in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. God crept in beside us. We matter.”

It’s Christmas Eve, but one in six children in Iowa will go to bed tonight without a sure source of food for tomorrow. Perhaps the real scandal of this little fact is that there are thirty-one states where children are at greater risk. Nationwide, the rate of food insecurity among children is about twenty percent, or one in five. Either way, when economists decide whether a recession is over, they don’t count food insecure children. So those of us who are children who live in a home where the food for tomorrow is not in our cupboard tonight, can’t really be blamed for thinking that we don’t matter. But the story we tell and sing tonight says to us, “To us is born in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. God crept in beside us. We matter.”

There are some of us look on the outside like we’re doing just fine. We have good jobs, nice homes, good marriages, beautiful children. But somehow it isn’t fine for us on the inside. In spite of all the things we’ve accomplished, we’re convinced that we’re not really worth anything. Some of us were abused or neglected, while others of us received no more than the usual sorts of bumps and bruises that come from being raised by people who, while they loved us and did the best they could, were human and therefore not perfect. From whatever cause, not matter how much or how well we do, it’s never quite enough to satisfy the tyrant in our heads. But the story we tell and sing tonight says to us, “To us is born in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. God crept in beside us. We matter.”

We celebrate this night and its news with joy. At the same time we mourn the hungry, the oppressed, and the victims of war and violence. We grieve for our world, where life and health are sold so cheap and wealth is bought so dear. We have thrown our weight into the struggle for peace and justice, but we are tired. And we wonder what difference our effort makes. We are surprised that we have lasted another year and wonder if we will last one more. But the story we tell and sing tonight says to us, “To us is born in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. From now on until forever, no matter what else happens or fails to happen, the world has changed and so have we. God has embraced this world in the most intimate way possible. From now the world matters. God has crept in beside us. From now on we matter.

©2010, John M. Caldwell. Permission is given by the author to reproduce and distribute the unaltered text of this sermon provided this notice is reproduced in full and provided that this sermon shall not be offered for sale, nor included in any collection or publication that is offered for sale, without the express written permission of the author.