Luke 2.1-20, Isaiah 9.2-7
Last Saturday, I stood in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one of the oldest churches in Christendom. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, founded it in the year 327. Directly below the altar is the cave that the church remembers as the birthplace of Jesus. Not a stable in the western sense of the word, but a place where animals were held during Jesus’ time and before. Bethlehem is a major player in the story we heard from the Gospel of Luke.
Bethlehem is the original city of David, the famous king having been born there and where he lived when called by God, through Samuel, to be ancient Israel’s second king. As sacred a place as Bethlehem is today, I have always considered the ancient people of Bethlehem to be cold and uncaring if not downright mean. I came to believe this because, when acting out the nativity story, the innkeepers close their doors on Joseph and the pregnant Mary. I imagine them walking door-to-door, knocking and being turned away. Come on! I imagined myself in the same position knowing that I would keep an open heart; I would be the one who cared and would open my doors to those wayward travelers. Those people of Bethlehem were the ones who needed to shake up their ways and were most in need of that elusive Christmas spirit.
During this time of year, we often say and hear that the spirit of Christmas is upon us. It, certainly, happens to me. One of my family’s Christmas traditions, when I was growing up, was to attend the annual staging of The Christmas Carol at the Omaha Community Playhouse. It was a highlight, every December, to be transported to a different time and place. The play opened on the main street of an English village where happy merchants and residents prepared for the celebrations of Christmas. The play then transitioned to the cold counting house of Scrooge and Marley. The actor portraying the kind Bob Cratchit made me feel cold, desperate and angry at the vileness of Ebenezzer Scrooge. The miserly Scrooge tasked Cratchit to work until the last possible moment on Christmas Eve, for only a meager wage and not enough coal to keep him warm. Bob Cratchit left the cold, dark office to be with his joy-filled family including his handicapped son, Tiny Tim. Each member of the Cratchit family passed on the hope that exists even in desperation. Scrooge, on the other hand, lived in a mansion, all alone, sleeping in a four-poster bed and ignoring, even stamping out, the cheer of those he encountered. He was the equivalent of the Bethlehemites of the Christmas story.
On the Christmas Eve in that story, Scrooge visioned three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future. Scrooge realized how his attitude voided the meaning of Christmas and those visions inspired Scrooge to open his heart to the Cratchits and others in the town to bring joy and wonder to their lives. As I remember this story and the annual journey to see the characters portrayed on stage, I knew that we were called during the Christmas season to be generous and to share joy with our neighbors, to think of others before ourselves, and smile and be of good cheer. I remember the feelings that the retelling of the classic story instilled in my heart and I knew, then, that was what Christmas meant.
That kind of Christmas spirit is an easier message to understand than the theology of incarnation told through prophetic voices and gospel accounts. Before I knew Dickens’ Christmas story, I acted out and heard the story of Jesus’ birth many times. The story has been told so often and in so many ways that it doesn’t even register anymore. I make assumptions from images drilled into my psyche and from the cultural understanding of Jesus’s birth. As I said, I imagined Mary and Joseph entering the town of Bethlehem for the census ordered by Caesar Augustus only to find that there was ‘no vacancy.’ I pictured the people of Bethlehem treating Mary and Joseph poorly, kind of like Scrooge. I placed myself in their shoes and imagined that I would be different. I would have opened my home if Mary and Joseph knocked on my door. And that feeling of self-satisfaction about my own generosity makes me feel completely satisfied with Christmas spirit.
Seeing the place where the church remembers Jesus’ birth last week, a cave now located under the altar at the Church of the Nativity, and learning about 1st century life, my conceptions of the people of Bethlehem have changed considerably. As I said, I thought of those people from Bethlehem in terms of their cold shoulders which we take from the words that Luke wrote, “because there was no place for them in the inn.” I had always assumed a closed door but inns back in the 1st century weren’t like the Holiday Inns of today. An inn would have a large room that allowed travelers to roll out their own mat for a night of sheltered sleep. There was no such thing as “no vacancy” because with a little squeezing, everyone fit. Inns were built above caves that served as a place to keep animals. I walked into such a cave in Tekoa, near Bethlehem. Caves had several benefits. In the summer, a cave would be cool and in the winter it was warm. It was a private place, outside of the busyness of the open sleeping quarters. The people of Bethlehem didn’t close their doors. The inn wasn’t full (what I had always assumed); there was just not room to give birth. The innkeeper didn’t shun Mary and Joseph in their moment of need, but instead, provided a blessing of hospitality.
“There was no place for them in the inn.”
The story of Christmas in the Bible has been told so many times that we assume we know what it means. We assume it means that we should share gifts and that we should be generous. We connect the feelings of Dickens’ famous narrative, and stories like it, with the story of Jesus’ birth because that is what we think of when we think of Christmas spirit. What I mean is that shaking off the scrooge that exists in each of us makes us feel powerful, competent, and capable as we serve those less fortunate. This is the Christmas spirit we hold dear, because it allows us to pass out the good cheer and bring joy to those around us, in a way that makes us feel warm and fuzzy.
As great as that feeling is, that is not the theology of the incarnation. The Christmas story found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke tell a different tale. They convey a story of receiving a gift from a stranger, a stranger who spoke to the main characters (that is Mary and Joseph) through angels and dreams. It is not a story about the givers we wish we were, but the receivers that we are. And this is not a gift that can be placed on the mantle, or worn as a badge of honor. This is a gift that is difficult to handle. It certainly wasn’t what Mary asked for nor was it culturally acceptable for Joseph (being that they weren’t yet married).
Centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah described this gift to another ancestor of David, King Ahaz. Ahaz was known for his evil ways and had little use for God. All he considered important was victory over his earthly enemies (primarily the Syrians). So when Isaiah described this wonderful gift of God that would be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Ahaz ignored Isaiah and ignored God. He was not able to open his heart to a gift he couldn’t control for himself.
The story of the incarnation, the God with us named Jesus, is a great shock, a counter-cultural shift that Mary and Joseph open their arms to accept. So the theology of incarnation is not about being in control and passing out warm feelings of great times. Incarnation is about being the one in need of such a gift. You might think that is easy, but consider how difficult it is to receive gifts. For instance, when someone offers a complement, we blush and turn away. When we receive an unexpected gift, we harbor guilt for not having given something in return. Realizing that we need to receive a gift from God forces us to admit that we aren’t in control of our destinies, that we have to be willing to receive unexpected gifts of incomprehensible magnitude. We have to receive knowing that we could never give enough to return the favor. We are not the ones sharing the spirit, passing it to others; we are the ones in need.
This is the true Christmas spirit, the one that calls us to receive a great gift and, just as it did for Mary and Joseph, change our lives in ways previously unimagined. On this yearly festival marking the great gift of God with us, that is Immanuel, we are called to recognize that great gift growing within each one of us. It is a gift with extraordinary potential, it has always been there and as Isaiah tells us it will “grow continually…from this time onward and for evermore.” The challenge before us during these twelve days of Christmas, and everyday thereafter, is to accept this gift as our own, to discover how best to live into the incarnation by fulfilling God’s mission in the world around us. This is something we do together, as a community of faithful and dedicated souls, so that God may transform our lives.
So as we say Merry Christmas be ready to accept God’s gift, the greatest gift of them all.
Christmas A
December 24, 2010
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