Christmas On the Road
A sermon preached by The Rev. Dianne Andrews at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Port Townsend, WA, December 24, 2016.
We celebrate this night with an angelic chorus welcoming us, once again, to this holy place to meet the promised one, the Christ child, born in the most-humble of circumstances… in a harsh moment in history. In the form of a newborn baby, God came that we might see and understand the power of love and the beauty of peace. This night has arrived to strike us with awe and fill our hearts with wonder… that we might be unsettled… and inspired… and changed by the sight of this holy child, born to a couple who had barely a roof over their heads… yet who possessed everything.
Jesus was born on the road. Mary and Joseph lived in an inconsequential town called Nazareth in the region of southern Galilee to the north of Jerusalem. This region had recently been annexed by the Romans and declared a part of the more southern region of Judea… a region that was then vulnerable to taxation by the Roman empire. For the purpose of taxing the occupied regions, the Roman governor of Syria ordered a census for Judea which meant that all who lived in the region were required report to their hometown of origin to be counted. Because Joseph was a descendent of the house of David, he was required that he return to the “city of David” that we know as Bethlehem. As the crow flies, the distance between Nazareth and Bethlehem is 70 miles. In our time it would take mere two hours to make the journey by car. It is likely that Mary and Joseph made the journey on a longer, though less challenging and somewhat safer route along the Jordan River. If we were to make a similar 90-mile trek, we would travel from Port Townsend, over the Hood Canal bridge, south east to the outskirts of Olympia. Imagine doing that on foot. Mary and Joseph may, or may not, have had a donkey to ease the journey. The trip probably took 4 or 5 days or may even y days, which means that Joseph, and Mary… very heavy with child… would have accomplished 20 or so miles each day. We don’t know if they camped along the way or spent the night with groups of fellow travelers. We are told that they made it to their destination only to find that there would be no place of rest and comfort for the weary travelers.
The Prince of Peace was not born in a palace. The holy child was born as his family was on the move. Mary had no bed. She was not attended to by doctors or midwives. Jesus was born in a barn that was probably cold and somewhat smelly. The animals in attendance made no fuss, they carried on doing what they do, even as the newborn was placed in their feeding trough. It is to this most humble place that the shepherds were drawn… shepherds whose rating on society’s measure of importance was near the bottom. It was to the poorest in society that the good news was first given… and their lives were touched and changed because they listened… and got up… and made their way to the stable to meet the holy child Jesus. Later came kings from the east bearing gifts… and now us. It is to this place that we have been drawn to come and see for ourselves, to gather here together in the glow of this holy night to cast the gaze of our yearning hearts onto this scene filled with new life, new hope and new possibility.
Love has been born as flesh and blood in response to the prayers of the world’s restless and broken hearts …
born to stir us…
and to inspire us…
born to call us onto a new path, into a new way of being
that we may be changed and transformed…
and called to the way caring, and peacemaking
and radical hospitality that empty bellies may be filled,
that strangers may be welcomed and grieving hearts held gently….
that economic injustice may be righted,
the planet healed and sorrow turned to joy…
that darkness may be scattered from every forsaken and forgotten corner and crevice of our world…
that God’s light and love may fill each and every beating heart with the mighty power of caring and compassion…
that swords will be turned into plowshares
that violence in word, or thought or action… of any kind… will crumble and fade away that the least and the lost will be welcomed in…
and welcomed home….
The child Jesus grew and learned, and in his thirtieth year he was on the road again spending the whole of his three-year ministry on the move before his life ended when he stood up to the political and religious establishment of his time. As he moved heading in the direction of Jerusalem, Jesus taught and healed… collecting followers along the way showing all whom he met a better “way”… a “way” that had little to do with possessions or control over others… and everything to do with sharing and caring everyone… foreigners, outcasts and sinners included. Jesus came to wake us up. He taught us that the last shall be first. With the whole of his being Jesus showed us the truest meaning of life and love.
The story of Jesus begins in the peace and silence of this holy night. The light of Christmas is a powerful wedge that seeks to make its way to the far corners of our world to bring warmth to souls filled with despair… and to melt even the most hardened of hearts. The gift of Jesus is God’s way shaking us up, turn things over, around and inside out, and of make all things new. In a Sojourners article entitled “Why is Christmas Radical?” John Gehrig says:
Jesus grows up to discomfort the political and religious elite, overturn cultural norms, and challenge theological certainties. Eating with prostitutes and befriending tax collectors, this strange man from Nazareth is a menace and a mystery to many. He is a holy disturber of the peace. A revolutionary without a gun or a political platform, Jesus still continues to teach us that our neighbor isn’t defined by physical proximity language, or religion. [Jesus embodies] the radical idea that we are all made in the image of God.1
The light comes… “searching out what is hidden and lost”2 Jesus came for us all… the proud and the humble, the rich and the poor, the thoughtful and the thoughtless. The picture is large. Stand back and take a wider view. The Christ child has been born in the midst of our world in which jetliners crisscross the world above parades of women carrying water on their head, in plastic buckets, in tin cans, and in jars made of clay. The child has been born to yacht owners and farm workers, to hedge fund managers, tech moguls and street vendors alike. The child is born to conservatives and liberals and every one in between. The Christ child is present in refugee camps, in penthouses, in farm houses and favelas… He has been born in the ruins of Aleppo, in fear laden Somalia, in homes afflicted by violence… and amidst families struggling with addiction. Jesus has been born in the state house… in the jail house and at every border and frontier. Christ has been born to us here this night.
The power of God’s love and peace has been born again into the world this Christmas night. It is for us to let the meaning of this night reach into the depths of our hearts and of our imaginations that it may do its work in us… that we may be changed by this holy birth… and that we might keep this night close, like a touchstone, to remember that God is with us, now and always… and to remember God’s most pure and powerful gift of love.
The meaning of Christmas is about coming to a humble stable and offering ourselves, our hearts and our lives, to the one who brings us joy and the promise peace… In truly meeting the holy one, and allowing ourselves to be changed… we are empowered to reflect God’s love, light and life to the world… On this night we have been given, once again, the simple and most powerful gift of love…
Merry Christmas…
Amen…
1 https://sojo.net/articles/why-christmas-radical
2 Jan Richardson “How the Light Comes” from Circle of Grace.