Sermon for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2023

Isaiah 9:2-7+Psalm 96+Titus 2:11-14+Luke 2:1-20

There are few things in life that I enjoy more than studying and listening to smart people give lectures on topics that interest me. I could easily be a perpetual student, and, I suppose in some ways, I am. Fortunately for me, I attended a divinity school that hosts all kinds of free bible studies and theology courses, and as often as I am able, I take advantage of them. It's good for my mind, good for my preaching, and costs nothing but my time. Well worth it, in my book.

This year, Yale Divinity School's Advent bible study was called "Casting the Pageant: Meeting the Characters of Christmas," taught by pastor, teacher, and preacher Allen Hilton. Over the course of four weeks, we took a close look at the major and minor characters that might appear in a Christmas pageant. You see, we know this story so well that we sometimes gloss over the people we read about, or we think we know what the story is, but maybe we're a little fuzzy on the details.

The first class centered on three minor characters in the story.  None of them will make it into your nativity scene and two are figures you would not see in a children's Christmas pageant. Augustus Caesar was, obviously, the Roman emperor, and Quirinius was the governor or Syria. The only reason these names are included is to situate this story in time, in history, although truth be told, Augustus and Quirinus did not overlap as rulers, but that is a small detail in the great scheme of things. They were real people, truly awful and cruel as rulers, but they were active around the turn of the millenium when we believe Jesus to have been born.

Okay, we are done with them; they exit stage left.

The third character, the Innkeeper, has a few words to say to the couple looking for a place to stay for the night, even though there is no innkeeper in the actual text. It just tells us that there was no room in the inn. In the All Saints version of the pageant last week, our young actor used the universal symbol for "no" - like an umpire calling a runner safe, actually - and then this character, too, exits stage left.

The second week was all about Mary and the angels. Mary was the young peasant girl chosen by God to bear the savior of the world. We imagine a lot of things about her, that she was young and fragile and submissive. But in her time, marriageable age was at about 13 for many reasons I don't need to go into here, and girls worked. Hard. Life in 1st century Palestine was no bed of roses, and so she was accustomed to household labor, perhaps caring for the animals needed for milk and hauling things, and walking long distances through the countryside, even while pregnant. And her reaction to the announcement of Gabriel's news was not one of fear, but one of confusion. Yet, still, she said yes.

Mary does not exit stage left. We'll leave her right where she is.

As for the angels, we have Gabriel delivering the news to Mary, Joseph (presumably), and to the shepherds (Luke doesn't say that it was Gabriel, but I think it's a good assumption), and then that heavenly host singing "Glory to God in the highest heaven" (Luke 2:14). Scripture is filled with heavenly beings. An angel, ἄγγελος, was a messenger. In Hebrew (מֲלְאָךְ), it has the sense of an ambassador. We don't know if they had wings, although wings are referred to in discussions of cherubim and seraphim, but what they certainly were not were cute little chubby-cheeked winged things. More likely than not, they were terrifying which is why they always start their announcements telling folks not to be afraid. We love the angels, so they can be scattered around our scene from start to finish.

Week three of this class was about Joseph, who is more shrouded in mystery than just about anyone in this story. We have to look at Matthew's gospel to learn about how Joseph was going to break their engagement over the news of her pregnancy, but an angel appeared to him and told him who this child was to be. Matthew says that Joseph was a "righteous man" (1:19), a good man, and so he married the mother of Jesus. The only other times we hear about Joseph by name are when the Holy Family returns from Egypt after Herod's death and settle in Nazareth (Matthew again) and when, in Luke, when Jesus first sits down to teach, and those who heard him couldn’t believe it. "Isn't this Joseph's son" (Luke 4:22)? There are other references to the parents of Jesus, like when Jesus is teaching in the temple as a boy, we know that "his parents" go looking for him (Luke 2:41-51), and later in Matthew when people are scoffing at Jesus and say, "Isn't this the carpenter’s son" (13:55)? That's about it. Joseph the silent one can stay in our scene, good and faithful and protective.

The fourth and final class included shepherds, King Herod, and the Magi. Let's start with Herod. Much like Augustus and Quirinius, he will never take the stage in our pageant. He was a power-hungry, evil, and murderous king, and when he heard from the Magi that another king had been born, he first tried to trick the Magi into telling him where to find this king, and then, when they did not, he had all the boy babies in Bethlehem under the age of two slaughtered. It's a terrible story, so not only does he not exit stage left, he isn't invited onto the stage in the first place.

That leaves us with shepherds and the Magi. Shepherds were what we might call "rough sleepers." If they are keeping watch over flocks at night, they are sleeping outside, not bathing or changing their clothes, and most likely have a bottle of something to keep them warm. They are the least likely suspects to receive this good news. And the Magi? They are foreigners, Gentiles, also not the expected ones to travel hundreds of miles to see a Jewish king. But our God, who is extravagant with boundless love and mercy, doesn't do the expected things. If the first people to witness to the resurrection later on can be women, then the first to understand the significance of this baby can be outdoor laborers and foreigners. We'll keep them in our scene.

And there we have it. Maybe throw in the donkey that carried Mary from Nazareth and those lowing cattle and the camel that brought the Magi, but this is the cast of characters. In our renderings of the pageant, it is sweet and lovely and sometimes comical when little sheep go astray, but in real time, it was none of those things. Oppressed by a brutal empire, a local king who will put up with no threat to his power, and there are Mary and Joseph, traveling for days just to register for the census so that they could be taxed, with Mary nine months pregnant. And then they find no place to stay?

This year in Bethlehem in Palestine, the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church assembled its nativity scene by placing the baby Jesus in the rubble from a building surrounded by the other figures who populate the Christmas pageant. Christmas Eve celebrations in Bethlehem this year are muted. Where usually thousands of people gather in festive celebration, tourists are asked to stay away as quiet observances take the place of those from happier times.

Now, you may be thinking, "Pastor Elaine, we did not come to church on Christmas Eve to be reminded of how awful things are in the world, of the terror perpetrated on Israel by Hamas or the terror perpetrated on Palestinians in response."

To this, I say, I know, and I hear you.

And.

This is much more in keeping with the true Christmas story. God did not come to us in a perfectly staged Christmas Pageant. God came to poor, oppressed, impoverished ones, to shepherds on hillsides and foreign astrologers and a peasant girl and her fiancé. God comes to us now no matter who we are or where we come from or how much money we do or do not have or how happy or sad or ready or not we are, still God comes this night and gives us the greatest gift, a savior who is Christ the Lord.

There is a Christmas hymn based on a poem of Christina Rossetti that says

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine,
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign. (#84, The Hymnal 1982)

Love came down for the people of Bethlehem then, for the people of Bethlehem now, and for every one of us.

I don't know how love is represented in a Christmas Pageant, but once you have come to the manger, you know that it is there and that it is yours. Whatever role it is that you play in the ongoing story of God's people, take that love with you wherever you go. And may the peace of the Christ child be yours.

The Holy Family Amid the Rubble - Bethlehem