Isaiah 61. 10- 62.3

Psalm 148

Galatians 4. 4-7

Gospel Reading Luke 2. 15-21

Over the last couple of weeks we have been enjoying the build up to Christmas day. Enjoying beautiful carols and listening to magical stories of Jesus, meek and mild being laid in a manger. This familiarity gives us this warm feeling inside as we reminisce about our childhood Christmas days. However, the week after the Christmas comes and we’re fed up of hearing the same old carols, we remember our childhood Christmas with a little less nostalgia as we come face to face with our families over the Christmas period and we just want everyone to leave and for everything to go back to normal! Yet, with the coming of Jesus into the world, something has happened to the normal.

Let us go back and revisit the story of Jesus birth, but instead of seeing it as this magical scene, let us focus more on the humanity of this story. This morning’s gospel reading is part of the familiar Luke version of Jesus birth. Mary and Joseph have had to travel to Bethlehem, the home of Joseph’s family. Reading this today made me think of the Palestinians who were asked to move from south Gaza to north and then back again. I could only imagine how hard that would be, especially if you were pregnant. Although Mary and Joseph weren’t moving through a war zone, the order to go back to Bethlehem would have felt similar in its urgency and the potential danger if it was ignored. So, Mary and Joseph journey to Bethlehem. It isn’t completely clear if they did this journey alone or with other family members. However, what is misleading in the text is that it was thought they were going from Inn to Inn looking for somewhere to stay. Recent Scholars believe that the Greek term kataluna, translated to mean, ‘place to stay’, is more likely to be a generic term and that the Luke translation should read, ‘they had no room in their place to stay’. Therefore, it is believed that Joseph was going back to his family home and not that when he arrived in Bethlehem there was nowhere for them to stay. As all of Joseph’s family was going back to Bethlehem, his family home would have been packed with people, so the family decide the best place for them to be for Mary to give birth would have been where the animals were kept at night. This again wouldn’t have been unheard of, there is lots of evidence across the world during this period that describe people sleeping in stables close by to the animals. Mary and Joseph would have been surrounded by family and friends all helping them, which for this period of history would have been very ordinary.

The extraordinary part of this story is the angels visiting the Shepherds. Ordinary people being visited by God’s messengers, proclaiming that the Messiah has come and has been born among us. You’d think God’s son being born among us would be proclaimed in the great halls of Caesar Augustus, but God has chosen the lowly shepherds to be the heralds of Jesus’ birth. These simple people managed to share this extraordinary story so well that two thousand years later their story is still shared for everyone to hear. Poetry, films, and songs have been created about this extraordinary story of the most humble being chosen rather than the elite or powerful. Throughout scripture God has made it clear that his interest is always to bring up the lowly and set the captive free. God often chooses the least likely, like David or Moses. People who are not all powerful, but God calls them to do mighty things.  

Why is it important for us to reflect on the real story of Jesus’ birth rather than to stay with the fuzzy fantasy? It’s because the real story of Jesus is even more special. That Jesus was incarnated into Mary but was born exactly how all of us are, through the body of a women. God didn’t want to have some magical way to be among us, he wanted to experience the messy reality of it. Contrary to the lyrics of Away in a Manger, Jesus would have cried and fussed like all babies do, because this is how babies communicate their needs. Being both human and divine meant limiting that divinity to experience the humanity. Through Joseph and Mary, Jesus would have learned what it was to be human. Like all parents, they had to learn along the way and would have had their ups and downs, bad days, and good days.

Although Jesus’ birth was ordinary, the visitation of the Shepherds to Mary that evening would have reminded Mary that this child she had carried in her womb, was from God. In the gospel passage Luke says, ‘But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.’ I think Mary did more than just ponder what she had taken on. It would have taken a great deal of courage to accept this call from God. Like all first time mothers, she would have no idea what to expect but she did her best to nurture Jesus. God chose this faithful Jewish couple to care and nurture his only son and trusted that they would show Jesus how to love. Jesus would grow up and minister to people, he would show his compassion and empathy to those who he met, and he would teach them how to be better people. Although parts of this would have come from his divinity, he would have also learned this through being part of a normal family. After Jesus birth the role of Mary and Joseph is often overlooked. Yet they would have taught Jesus how to walk and talk, how to be a good Jewish boy who knew the Law and how to keep it. They are part of the reason Jesus grew into a man who had wisdom and integrity.

So as you reflect on your Christmas and bewail it’s messiness, value the beauty of the ordinary and trust God’s call on your life. God isn’t interested in the picture perfect, God values the normal and every day to be capable of doing extraordinary things, like nurture and bring up the son of God. God has faith in us to be extraordinary, let us therefore trust in the God who picked an ordinary family to bring up the son of Man and the ordinary shepherds to be the messengers of God. At this Christmas time, let us be reminded that anything is possible with God.  

Amen.