Making God's Love Known

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Luke 2:1-20

    We know this story well, right?  Probably more than any other story in the Bible, even if you aren’t that familiar with the Bible or go to church that regularly, we have heard Luke’s Christmas story told even in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on TV.  But there are things about Christ’s birth that we might not realize, even so.  When you visit the town of Bethlehem, for example, the revered site of Jesus’ birth is not in a stable but located in an underground cave.  In fact, Luke tells us that the baby Jesus was placed in a manger, but never says where that manger was located.  Tradition has it that an innkeeper refuses Mary and Joseph at the door, but if you look back at our gospel for today, there is no innkeeper at all – there’s no place for them in the inn, but who tells them that? We don’t know.  We sing “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” but Matthew’s gospel never says that there are three wise men, or that they are all men or kings!  We think we know what Christmas is about, but each year, we have an opportunity to hear this old familiar story anew.  
On this special day, this Christmas Eve, we take a moment to savor the good news that a child has been born for us – that news never gets old!  We humble ourselves like Mary, who ponders all that has happened in her heart, to recognize that in this baby is One with more authority than any of us, who knows us better than we know ourselves.  Isn’t this what Christmas is ultimately about?  God knows us, better than we know ourselves.  God knows the whole story – the real story – about who we are and what needs to be done to save us and this world God so lovingly created.  God sends his only begotten Son to save us so that we might know God and one another – to restore the relationship.  Christ’s birth is the beginning of this story.
    Mary and Joseph, young peasant parents, come to Bethlehem to be registered and Mary places her firstborn son Jesus in a manger “because there was no place for them in the inn,” Luke reports.  The angels first appear to shepherds who lived on the outskirts of the city, of a lower social class, in many ways outsiders themselves, to tell them this good news for ALL people, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  It’s significant that the Lord speaks and acts through people on the fringes of society, the people we might overlook or not suspect, because all people really means ALL people, to God.  God sees and knows the shepherds.  God sees Mary and Joseph’s faithfulness, despite their age and social circumstances, that they are able to be parents of the Messiah.  God sees and knows what others may not.
    This timeless Christmas story challenges us to think about the people who have felt misplaced or out of place – the people whom society has not made room for.  We gather together with family and friends in these next few days to be with people who really know us and remind us who we are and to whom we belong, and we pray for all those who feel like they don’t fit in or belong.  We hear in worship tonight that because Jesus is born, dies, and is raised for us, we belong to God, eternally.  We sing in the hymn Joy to the World, “Let every heart prepare him room,” and this becomes our prayer – that for the Savior of the world who is born into a world who has said there is no room for him, that we might create space in our hearts and in the hearts of those around us for Jesus to heal, forgive, and save us.  From one who is born on the margins and rejected at his death on the cross, we discover that we have received consistent welcome – God in Jesus Christ always makes room for us; in the Father’s house there is always room.
While the world is despairing and broken and seemingly irreparable, God sends Jesus the Christ so that we might know light, love, hope and peace are God’s will for us.  Did you notice?  The shepherds cannot keep this good news to themselves.  Discovering that they are fully known by God, knowing who this newborn baby is in the manger, “they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them,” Luke says.  When we think of all that we know because of our faith in Christ, because of this miracle of Christmas, may we like the shepherds “make haste” to make known all that we know about this child Jesus.  Amen.