Scripture:  Luke 2:1-20

Tonight is just my fourth Christmas here with you, but already this night feels like a coming home for me, and I’ve found myself over the past week or so thinking about this moment—the sights and sounds, the warm, familiar faces gathered here.  I’ve always felt that Christmas Eve has a feel of homecoming to it.  Hearing the story again about Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus has a way of bringing us home—to a place where we find ourselves connected to other Christmases in other times and places—so that as shepherds and angels come into focus, we find ourselves revisiting the past, celebrating memories, flipping through childhood and younger images in our lives.  I’m experiencing that with you this year, and it’s a true pleasure.  So friends, welcome to this Christmas moment of homecoming.  It’s good to be here with you again—good to tell the old story again and good to wonder with you a little more about what it all means—what it could mean for us in the coming year.

 I’d like to begin tonight with a Christmas tale that comes from Spain.  It’s Christmas Eve, and a pastor is sitting in his study, putting the finishing touches on his sermon for Christmas morning, working hard to come up with something fresh and meaningful to say about Christmas.  As he struggles over his desk, there is a knock at the door.  He goes to the door and opens it to discover a woman sobbing at his doorstep.   Her son has been arrested, and she asks if the priest will come with her to the police station.  He agrees.

They walk through the snowy town to the station, and spend time there in conversation with the police, but in the end there’s nothing they can do.  The son will have to spend Christmas in jail.   Sad and discouraged, they leave the station.  It’s late now and the air is cold and damp, and as they are making their way through the snow back to the church, they see a small figure walking just ahead of them.  Coming closer, they realize that it’s a child, huddled over, with a blanket around her shoulders, clutching something heavy.  Soon the pastor realizes that it’s the baby Jesus from his church’s nativity scene.  And the figure is a young girl, not older than eight.  She’s trudging through the snow with the baby Jesus in her arms. 

The pastor, full of compassion and patience after his trip to the police, says to her, “Are you okay sweetie?”  She looks up, with tears running down her face, and says, “I got lost, and Mama says that I’ve gotta walk with Jesus, so I went to the church and found Jesus.”  The pastor puts his coat over the young girl’s shoulders and says, “It’s all right.  Let’s walk with Jesus together.”  The pastor, the mother, and the young girl walk arm in arm with Jesus through the streets of Barcelona on Christmas Eve.  [1]

What an image of Christmas.  A complicated moment of peace and compassion against a backdrop of discouragement and loss.  Three wayward souls bearing the infant Christ through the quiet, lonely streets of a city, not knowing what’s next, not certain of what tomorrow will hold—just certain that for now, at least, they should walk with Jesus together.  Isn’t that the biblical story?  Jesus born into a messy time and place.

At our first story tonight, our children helped us tell the story of Jesus’ birth.  Upon entering the church, each child received a character figure of the Christmas story, and as the Scripture was read, they came forward and put them together in the manger.  Of course, we had 30-some-odd children here, so you can bet we used every manger piece we’ve got.  You can see what they put together as you exit the church through these doors.  It’s messy.  It doesn’t match.  A 3-inch figure of Mary is dwarfed next to a wise man three time her size.  But there they all are together, gathered around three or four baby Jesus’.  I like that image of Jesus’ birth… unkempt, miss-matched, unpredictable… 

That’s what it was, friends.  Jesus was born into a messy time and place—into a culture ruled by powers beyond its control?  It’s worth remembering that the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was Rome’s requirement, not Jerusalem’s.  The Emperor was counting each and every head in anticipation of the tax revenue.  Jesus’ parents were coping with that reality as best they could.  It didn’t matter that Mary was very pregnant and Rome didn’t care that travel for them was difficult.  That’s the Christmas story:Jesus the Christ, God-With-Us, born into the messy complexities of life.

In a few moments, we’ll light candles together and sing, “Silent night, holy night.  All is calm; all is bright.”  We’ll hold the Christ light in our hands and for a moment illuminate the darkness around us.  I recognize that sharing the light on Christmas Eve is a moment of wonderful Christmas tradition.   But remember that it is also an act of faithful defiance in a world where all is not holy or calm or bright—where conflict and chaos, war and mistrust will not blink even at the sight of angels singing over fields.

Tonight I invite each of you to hold the Christ light and simply walk with Jesus. Through the cold dark streets of life, through moments of separation and loneliness, through the turbulence of hardship and fear.  Hold the light and walk with Jesus, and remember that God is in the business of being born into the broken places of our world and of our lives. 

Friends, let us celebrate this as we remember Christ’s birth and as we move through these Christmas days.  Merry Christmas.  Amen. 

1.  This story’s been out there for a while, but I received it in a December 12^th sermon by Ian Lawton.