It was a quiet night in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.  Our Christmas Eve   leading characters are Mary, a young teenager from Nazareth, and Joseph, her betrothed.  It was Joseph that was descended from the house and family of David.  Because the emperor had decreed that the whole world should be registered, all men had to go to their own towns for this census; therefore, Joseph went to Bethlehem with his pregnant fiancé.  It was a long trip over rough, dusty roads. Bethlehem was about 80 miles from Nazareth and the trip probably took 5 or 6 days.  A lot of the trip went through Samaria and the Samaritans were not friends of the Jews,  so there must have been some unease in taking this journey.  I wonder if they traveled alone or went with others.  Traveling by caravan was usual and much safer.

Except for the crowds, it was an ordinary night in Bethlehem.  Some shepherds were in the fields close by watching their flocks and trying to keep warm. It came time for Mary to deliver, a young girl with her first pregnancy—far from an ordinary pregnancy—as she had been approached by an angel and told that she was favored by God and would be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Son of God.  Certainly not ordinary!  What a paradox! In these very humble surroundings, the Messiah, Emmanuelle was born, the long expected Savior.  No longer an ordinary night!  Angels came to announce the birth to the Shepherds, a great joy to all the people.  The shepherds were so amazed that they decided to leave their flocks and go and find this babe where he lie in the manger.

What a night! No longer an ordinary night!  It was a night that divided history from before and after Christ had been born.  Not only the calendars were changed but those that believed were also changed for ever.  God had been speaking to human beings for a long time, in many times and places.  The Hebrew Bible or what we often call the Old Testament is filled with the voice of God as interpreted by the people of Israel.  I wonder if God was frustrated that he was so often seen as the harsh ruler and judge, no matter how many messages God sent through the prophets that he loves us, and so God decided to be born as a baby so that we might realize his vulnerability and his gentleness, a newborn baby, cradled in his mother’s arms.  To me this birth is Love with a capital L, the Love that I know as God, Love come down to human kind. God came to us to be with us, to love us because we are God’s beloved.

Those first visitors to Jesus were not the well-off, not the royalty of the day.  They were laborers from the fields.  These coarse shepherds may have been the only ones to feel comfortable in the birth’s surroundings.  After their initial fear, they worshipped him and their terror turned to joy and their joy turned to witness and they became our first evangelists, bearers of the good news. Even now, this very night, Christmas is about a God who still comes down to earth.   This God of pure light and love chose to become a human being and live with us.  Both then and now God has esteemed us as worthy and continues to call us to a true and living faith. Just as Mary was favored by God so are we.  God has called each of us Beloved and wants us to love ourselves so that we can love each other. Remember, the second commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Just as God reached in to our ordinary selves with all our imperfections and showered us with Love, I suggest that this Christmas is a time when we might open our hearts to others, especially those that are close to us, and to accept each other with warts and all.  It can be a time when we find new ways to reach into the lives of those we love. Relationships are difficult; it’s easy to say:  “Oh, he or she will never change”; or “I can’t change, it’s hopeless.”  We all know people that have strong faith and still they experience a lot of difficulties. What helps is the assurance that God is there.  That no matter how rough things get, you are not alone. Jesus came to let us know that God is always with us, Emmanuelle.  So this Christmas look at your children not as wayward troublemakers, but as human beings that you can simply love.  Maybe you can look at a parent that failed to live up to your expectations, whether dead or still living, and realize that he or she may have done the best they could but even if not, you can forgive and love them any way.   Maybe you can even look at your spouse and decide to remember the reasons you fell in love in the first place and find that love all over again, although it be at a different intensity. And don’t forget to look at yourself as a beloved child of God.  If you do, you will become more of who you really are.  We all can become more like the image of God we are intended to be.  Remember not only Mary is favored by God but each of us here tonight is also favored, also worthy, also loved by a love that is greater than anything we could possibly imagine in human terms.

And suddenly there appeared the heavenly host, who began praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.

Peace and love to each of you this night.  Merry Christmas.