December 24, 1998
Tonight is a night of great contrast in our spiritual lives and in our cycle of life and no greater contrast, perhaps, than between the two men whose lives collide this night. Neither knows the other. On the one hand, we have Augustus Caesar, and on the other, we have Jesus of Nazareth born in Bethlehem. Both men, in their own time, were called the Prince of Peace, but one possesses legions and the other will have disciples. One Prince of Peace will command his men to conquer. The other will command his to love.
And so this night, Caesar Augustus sends Jesus on a journey. The journey is hard from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the womb of his mother, riding on the back of a donkey over hard and terrible miles. In that journey, the seed is asked to survive. We know what that's like. In our lives at this turn of the year, all of us will be making new resolutions for what we are going to do in 1999. Many of us have made new friendships, others of us have taken on new responsibilities, and all of those things will be asked to survive the journey of the next year.
The journey of the child is made possible by fellow travelers. Jesus would not have survived the trip had not Mary and Joseph and their family and friends and relatives been there with them to protect them and keep them safe, to feed and nourish them on the journey. And so it is with our journey into spirituality. We, too, can survive the trip. We, too, can come to new life and prosperity because of others who journey with us.
For Jesus the journey is not a choice. Caesar Augustus decides it would be a great idea to take a census. It is the first census, we are told, and so they did not have the Census Bureau of the United States to give them any pointers. Rather that counting people where they actually lived, they decided to count people in their ancestral homes. And so Joseph who, actually lives in the town of Nazareth, is legally a native of Bethlehem. This edict comes down from the far away capital of the empire (you know how that works) and it tells us to do something that doesn't make a lot of local sense (you know how that works).
Joseph is told, "Now, Joseph, you take your family and go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It is an inconvenient instruction. Joseph had a job; he had a trade; people depended upon him. To take his pregnant Mary with him is life-threatening for her and for the child she carries. Not only is it a hard journey for a pregnant woman, but there are many dangers on the way. Fortunately the trio are guarded by others who also travel. We, too, like Joseph are sometimes ordered about willy-nilly by our employers, sometimes by the church, sometimes by the government, sometimes because of circumstances of life and family, to make a move from where we are, where we like to live, to another place and for other purposes. We know that in the uprooting and moving, it takes a lot of care from others to protect us on our way.
The holy family arrives at an inn, we are told, — an inn, a symbol of the bright celebrative part of our life where there is warmth and camaraderie, a blazing fire on a cold night, drink and food and conversation. Of course they go there and when they arrive they are told, perhaps with deep regret, by the innkeeper, "I am sorry, but we have sold the last room, there is no room here." Seeing Mary off to the side, the innkeeper adds, "But wait Joseph, I do have a little corner in the stable and it is late, so why don't you take that place." Sure enough, that is where they go and that is where Christ is born.
Our inns, the things that are about our life that are celebrative — our crises, our distractions — all of those things tend to push Christ aside. Sometimes, it is even to the point where we work so hard for the Lord, we do not have room for the Lord. We push him aside and say, "Not now, we are busy you know, Lord. We have liturgies to do, we have holidays to celebrate, we have people to visit. We don't have time to pray now or to meditate now; we don't have time to listen to guidance now because we know what we must do." And so whatever our lives in our own inns, we push the family aside and Christ must be born today in our stables.
Now there is some passing good news about all of that. The good news is that Christ is born in the stable. He actually goes there — the son of Almighty God, the Incarnate Word, eternal with the Father from before time and forever — goes to a stable. He doesn't go elsewhere. He doesn't huff and puff and demand that other guests be tossed out to make room. They simply go to the stable and he is born. Helpless and vulnerable, Christ is born. He needs nourishment, he needs protection, he needs nurture. He needs to grow up so that he can face us as adults. He does it.
That birth in that stable was of ultimate importance to you and to me, and to the world. The birth of Christ in my stable and in yours is of ultimate importance to you, to me, and to the world. On this holy night, let us seek the place of the manger in our own lives. Let us seek where it is in the marginal, forgotten, lowly place in our own lives, that Christ is being born tonight, that the incarnate word of God is tapping at our door asking for admission. Perhaps, just perhaps, in the unfrequented place in your own lives, you shall find a new birth of Christ in you. It takes looking, it takes faith in order to go, in order to find. But like the shepherds, if we go there, the story tells us, we shall find the Christ in our own place.
AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
24 December 1998