Emmanuel, God with Us in the Mess: A Christmas Eve Sermon

Dear siblings in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 
           Merry Christmas!! As we read through the Christmas story, it sounds so perfect and joyous, but yet we realize there are a lot of details left out. We don’t hear how long Mary labored or if there were complications or even if a midwife was there to help. We don’t hear how they waited with baited breath to hear the baby’s first cries, we don’t hear how tired Mary was after such a long journey, or how she felt to not only not have a comfortable place to stay, but to have to deliver her baby amongst animals. We don’t hear how Mary and Joseph were filled with worry, like any new parents for the world their child will be growing up in or their own ability to keep their him safe, we don’t hear how they worried about what it means to raise their baby who is both fully human and fully divine, in the midst of the political climate in a land governed by the tyrant King Herod under the occupation of the Roman empire. We don’t even hear how, I would assume any new parents would be annoyed at the intrusion of the shepherds just showing up, perhaps after Jesus finally fell asleep. I’m sure for Mary, Joseph, and even the shepherds whose night was interrupted by the angels' glorious news, that that first Christmas night was not one they would consider the perfect, peaceful night that they may have been hoping to have. 
           So often, the perfectly set up nativity scene and that of the way in which we tell and share the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth, we sanitize some of the grittier truths and realities of this story. It’s no secret that child birth is a messy endeavor, especially in the 1st century when there wasn’t pristine hospital beds in a labor and delivery unit to welcome a child on, so in the midst of all the animals around the manger, Mary added her own mess and sounds while birthing the Messiah, and then other than the few verses that talk about the census decree causing Mary and Joseph to make the trip to Bethlehem, we so often gloss over what the messy and worrisome realities of living and growing up under the empire includes and how truly subversive it was that God came to earth as a baby facing the realities of oppression and not in places of powerful rulers.  
            This morning I came across an article written by the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Lutheran Pastor and Theologian, which I would highly recommend all read at some point. In the article Rev. Isaac writes, “In the West, Christmas is a cultural marketplace. It is commercialized, romanticized and wrapped in layers of sentimentality … The season has become a performance of abundance, nostalgia, and consumerism - a holiday stripped of its theological and moral core. Even the familiar lines of the Christmas song Silent Night obscure the true nature of the story: Jesus was not born into serenity but into upheaval. He was born under military occupation, to a family displaced by an imperial decree, in a region living under the shadow of violence. The holy family were forced to flee as refugees because the infants of Bethlehem, according to [Matthew’s] Gospel narrative, were massacred by a fearful tyrant determined to preserve his reign… Indeed, Christmas is a story of empire, injustice, and the vulnerability of ordinary people caught in its path.” Within the article Rev. Isaac implores his readers to see Bethlehem as more than just this ancient city of our beloved favorite bible story, but as a real place, where real people, many Christians still live and are currently living under similar conditions as that of what the Holy Family lived under, just with a different occupying empire than the days of Jesus’ birth. 
            In this messy world so full of oppression, hurt, and so many yearning for a more just and loving world for all people, longing for a better way, just as those at the time of Jesus’ birth also longed for, this is where God entered our world as a tiny vulnerable baby boy that relied on Mary and Joseph to keep him alive and safe as he grows and lives and experiences human life, walking among us, God with us, Emmanuel, bringing the good news that the promise of the long awaited coming peace and salvation for all people and all of creation will soon become a reality through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. As Rev. Isaac reminds us, “at its heart, Christmas is a story of the solidarity of God. It is the story of God who does not rule from afar, but is present among the people and takes the side of those on the margins.” The incarnation - God the son being born human, as a vulnerable baby, growing up and living among God’s people. “It is a radical statement about where God chooses to dwell: in vulnerability, in poverty, among the occupied, among those with no power except the power of hope.” And that is the good news of the long foretold Messiah’s birth, that God knows the pain of the world, and God continues to meet us in unexpected ways, sharing the news of God’s unconditional love for all people, and the promise that one day, all will be made right and all oppression shall cease, and this hope that was given so long ago in an unexpected way, in the messy realities that is the nativity, this still rings true today in our world full of violence, war, oppression, and injustice both near and far.  
            In a far off place, heaven touched the earth on that holy night as a manger became an altar and a stable became a place of sanctuary in the face of empire. The angels sang. The humble shepherds witnessed and praised, the wisemen began their journey from the East. And tonight, we join them and all people of all time and space as we are gathered around the manger to worship God who has come to us as the tiny baby Jesus, God with us, Emmanuel. What fantastic news to share that that good news Jesus’ birth brought still rings true today of God’s love for all people and all of creation throughout the world. And now today we are called to be like those shepherds rejoicing, sharing and showing this good news of God’s love come to earth with all people, no if’s, ands, or but’s! For the prince of peace, God with us, Emmanuel has been born for the sake of the world! Amen.
  -- Written and Preached by Pastor Tamara Siburg
If you wish to listen to the sermon, the gospel reading happens throughout the early part (starting at 23:54) of the service as the youth and young at heart help us to build our nativity scene, and the sermon starts at 48:48.