All Saints Oakham 10.30 Holy Communion
Readings – Isaiah 9.2-7; Luke 2.1-20
We have seen the birth of Jesus presented to us by Sunday School, and thank you again to them. But it was so long ago, in such a different culture – how do we properly connect with this story?
We know the events, perhaps, too well. And as well as from the children, we have heard again this morning the exact words Luke uses to describe it. I’ve heard Luke’s description and Isaiah’s prediction read at Christmas for more than 70 years (some of you a fair bit longer) – how can it be fresh for us this morning?
Well let’s remind ourselves a few things. And as usual with Luke, every detail matters
FIRST, Luke wants us to have no doubt ……. that this happened. It is not a fairy story or a children’s play or the plot for a blockbuster movie. It happened. So Luke bolts it into history, into the geopolitical reality of the time.
- Augustus is emperor. He demands ‘a registration’, which is really the 1st C equivalent of census or ID cards, except instead of applying on the internet or by post you have to go to the birth town of your family and be ticked off on the list. And for the avoidance of doubt , Luke locks the date it happened by confirming that this was the first not the second registration, just in case you weren’t sure, this is the one which happened when Quirinius was governor. It happened.
- This ‘registration’ was to be frank a hassle. Nazareth where Joseph & Mary live, to Bethlehem is only about 70 miles, but it is dirt roads, Mary is 39 weeks pregnant, and Joseph somehow has to get them to to Bethlehem, presumably on the back of a donkey when she was too exhausted to take another step. And when they arrive, every hotel room is fully booked, and Mary goes into labour and delivers in a barn, and the child spends his first night on earth in a wooden tub built to hold animal feed. The birth became known to shepherds who soon reached the barn realising that something awesome was afoot. Later some wise men appeared, Luke does not mention wise men, but Matthew does in his description of Jesus’ birth, which we will be looking at over the next couple of Sundays.
We often like to present the scene as rather gentle and charming, but that runs the risk of sanitising the events. Because..
SECOND point… we must continually remind ourselves that this is in many ways a tough story . There is a gritty reality about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.
Luke tells us a lot about the birth. But there are many things he does not mention …… things about which you and I might be very curious….
For example
- How old was Mary?
- How much flak and social embarrassment did Joseph get for having a pregnant fiancé?
- What did the future in-laws think of it all?
- How difficult was the birth? What did the baby weigh?
- How did Mary get on with the breast feeding?
- Did Jesus sleep well or was he a colicky baby?
Wouldn’t it be interesting to know the answers to all those questions?
And nowadays, if that family were even remotely well-known, the popular media would deem that such details were in the public interest – and would be sniffing around for answers and demanding interviews from those who were there, as well as those who would like us to believe they were there.
But THIRD as always the Bible does not tell us those many things we might be interested in. The Bible tells us what is important about these events. And that is enough.
FOURTH These events are unequivocally supernatural. These are not whimsical fairy tale additions added by Bible writers for a gullible poorly educated readership. No – they happened – but they were supernatural events – God intervening clearly in the normal every day.
A young woman who has never had sex with her fiancé becoming pregnant is supernatural. That same young woman being confronted by the angel Gabriel, which Luke describes in chapter 1, is supernatural, the angel telling her that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit, is supernatural. And now shepherds near the place of his birth have a spectacular vision of angels telling them v11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. And v14 ‘Glory to God … These events are unequivocally supernatural.
The appearance of the angels is as much fact to the precisely minded Luke, as much fact as Mary’s virgin pregnancy, her visitation by Gabriel, and a 1st century census. Facts – some supernatural interventions, some not.
Neither I, and as far as I know any of you, has been confronted with a band of angels. How did the shepherd react. Were they excited? Did it warm the cockles of their hearts because they felt close to God? No Luke tells us v9 They were terrified, they were terrified and I would have been too.
But they also felt compelled. They did not huddle down and stay talking among themselves. They felt compelled 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ They wanted to see this Jesus, personally for themselves.
FIFTH Isaiah and other OT prophets had predicted all this 600 years or more earlier. You heard Isaiah telling of us a unique child who will transform the world – lifting our burdens, turning darkness into light, ending war, the child will have real authority, the child will be named Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counsellor, and most explicitly Mighty God. Isaiah does not here use the phrase Son of God, but be in no doubt that this prophecy points to Jesus.
But we still have not answered the question I posed as I started…it was so long ago, in such a different culture – how do we truly connect with these familiar events
Well not I suggest by invoking many of the recent traditions which we now associate with Christmas.
Christmas cards are a Victorian idea, as is the idea of covering an evergreen tree with baubles and tinsel. The habit of lighting advent candles in church is less than 200 years old, as is everything we are singing in church today. The service of Nine Lessons & Carols is less than 150 years old.
If we had celebrated Xmas in this church 150 years ago – there would have been some similarities, though people would have probably have been rather better dressed -hats for the ladies, suit and tie for the gentlemen. But if we had been here 500 years ago with paintings on the wall, no seats, and everything being said in Latin, it would be unrecognisable.
None of that really helps us to connect back? Jesus was born in a time and place which to be frank are a great mystery to us.
Mary had her confinement in a hut that probably smelt of manure. You had to be careful where you put your feet.
There were no childhood immunisations or vitamin supplements.
There was no social worker or health visitor to help them out.
Infant mortality was about 20%, average life expectancy less than 50 .
And besides those realities, we really have no understanding of the social mores of the day, and just how grim it was for Mary and Joseph as she grew larger, and they remained unmarried.
Our own outer world is unrecognisably different from that of 1st C Palestine– so how do we connect with it?
How? Because though our outer worlds may be utterly different, our inner world is the same – it’s called the human condition. However different the structure of our society, the support mechanism for young mums, life expectancy, those extraordinary things called televisions and computers….
our inner world is very much the same – the same frailties, the same disappointments in love and life, and the same insecurities about our physical wellbeing, let alone our eternal future. Deep in our core we are just the same as the people of 1st century Palestine.
To make the connection with the birth of Jesus we have to answer only one question. ….. what is the relevance of this child to the ‘human condition’, to the deep, deep realities of our hearts, each of us.
Some prefer the idea that Jesus is just one of several men and women through history who have spread wisdom with courage. He was executed without fair trial at a tender age: there are many even this week around the world to whom that has happened. That does not make him unique. If Jesus was just another of those, we wouldn’t be here.
But the angels in Luke, and Isaiah are clear that this baby is unique. And there is one more thing about Jesus which to an uninitiated outsider might be very curious. Today we are here remembering and celebrating his birth. But we do so in the shadow of his death. Even as we celebrate the new born child, we know his death will be early, brutish and critically important … We connect his birth and his death
I’ve just finished reading the biography of Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa. A fascinating and fine man who did much good. It’s a big 500 page book. His birth is explained in one sentence, his death in one paragraph.
How different to Jesus – Luke and Matthew focusing on his birth with much detail, and then all four gospels disproportionately covering the last week of his life and especially his death, and what followed. And then the rest of NT chews over the unique meaning of his death and what it achieved.
Because these 2 moments –Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ death – are the 2 moments which define that he is unique.
The 2 moments – when you and I have the privilege of a glimpse into the mind of God. Of God’s unique plan for the world
Not some accident or error – not a man picked out by God from among all of humanity with feet of clay like the rest of us, but a different and unique person – the God Man Jesus, the Son of God.
6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; ……..and he is named Mighty God…
This is THE moment. The world holds its breath – because
God chooses, for no reason other than his remarkable love for his world, to enter our space powerfully, uniquely.
With a strategy which seems so frail we wonder it can succeed – just this child – yes
But a strategy which will wonderfully succeed – because he is not – just this child from a poor home in a poor place. But the child is the Man God – Jesus who will save us from our sins.
How is this happened? Coincidence, fluke….. no, no Isaiah tells us at the end of v7
7 The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. God’s love for the world, drives His absolute commitment to save it The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this
Jesus entry into the world demonstrates that God has no truck with
human views of greatness or importance, whether that is a 1st century notion that the Son of a King should be born in a palace, or perhaps a 21st century notion that the Son of God should bow to the media’s cult of celebrity.
Jesus entry point is through apparently ordinary people, his birth is in tough circumstances – yet the supernatural moments, and in hindsight its prediction in the OT, launch the unique life of the God Man Jesus. And for Him there can only be one end – as we glimpse into the mind of God, and see in God’s plan that there must be the Cross in just a few years’ time, because only his unique death can win the forgiveness for us, which we do not deserve.
His birth – His death – God’s plan – for us all
So we are connected …..
This is THE moment: God’s plan is underway.
Amen