December 25, 2020

Christmas Day

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Poor, ordinary shepherds are accosted by the glory of heaven, as an angel announces to them good news of great joy: the messiah, the savior, the hope of Israel and the world has been born.  They are given a sign: a manger, bands of cloths. The terror of the moment is ratcheted up now as the barrier between heaven and earth blurs, and the shepherds are greeted with the entire host, the entire army of angelic beings praising God and singing. In a moment it is gone. They are returned to the ordinary. To the dark field. To their sheep.

The shepherds set out to confirm what was spoken to them and, sure enough, they find the sign promised to them: a baby, wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in a manger. All who hear this word are amazed, and for good reason. The messiah? In a feeding trough? The savior, surrounded by donkeys and goats? Certainly not. It's amazing, not in its wonder, but in its ridiculousness. The hope of the world amid livestock.

Surely the shepherds knew how shocking, how surprising this scene was. Could they have believed it without the backing of heaven's army? Nothing about the scene at Bethlehem speaks of a miraculous savior appearing. Jesus doesn't shimmer with a heavenly light. Mary doesn't recline in beatific serenity. Joseph's halo is nowhere to be found. All that's found is a newborn: perhaps asleep, perhaps fussing. A new mother, exhausted from the pain of labor. A new father, terrified of this new little person who is his to protect. Not the kind of scene often found on our Christmas cards. Yet here, so the angels say, so the shepherds believe, is the hope of humanity. Here is the savior of the world. Here is God in human flesh.

Yet the shepherds believe the word of the angels, they trust that this ordinary place is the site of the extraordinary. Here in a manger lies the savior of the world. Here in a manger lies God himself. As they approach this exceedingly ordinary baby, they approach the Holy One of Israel. In Bethlehem they find what the angel reported and that is enough for them. As the great theologian Hans Von Balthasar has said about this episode: "the sign fits!" They rejoice, they praise God, they celebrate this great miracle - the birth of Jesus Christ. Emmanuel. God with us! Not because of some miraculous proof that confirms that Jesus is actually the messiah. But simply because what the angel said was true.

Jesus outgrew the manger, but Jesus has not outgrown his penchant for showing up amid the ordinary. Jesus continues to be found in the most ordinary, shocking, surprising places. Jesus is found in his body, the church. In the women and men who make up our parishes and congregation. Jesus is found in the sip of wine and taste of what is "technically" bread. Jesus is found in the stories and laws and letters of a book so profoundly ordinary at times that Christians have shuddered to think God could be found there. These may not be an animal's feeding trough, but they are as ordinary a place as that first Christmas. They are as surprising a place to find our salvation and hope as any. Like the shepherds we approach them and we don't find anything shining or miraculous. We find things shockingly ordinary.

Christmas calls us to put aside our penchant for imagining how God should be encountered. At Christmas, we are reminded that God shows up in his own way. Sometimes with great fanfare, sometimes without. We cannot know in advance. All we can know is that Jesus has promised to be present in these things. That we would find him there.