Luke 2:1-20: You can relax, Christmas ISN'T over

Its two days after Christmas.  Women, and a few men, are exhaling, vowing to go nowhere near a kitchen for several days.  As enjoyable as Christmas is- the time with family, the meals, the exchanging of presents- we can’t help but feel a sense of relief when it is over.  And yet, is Christmas really over?  There might be a single day where we emphasize Jesus’ birth; His coming into our world, but that doesn’t mean that it should not be something we celebrate all year long.  That’s where the shepherds become important.  Luke actually spends as much time talking about the shepherds in the field, as he does Jesus in the manger.  Why?  Because how we respond to the good news of the incarnation goes a long way in determining whether Christmas is just another day for us, or whether it is something that shapes the way we live all year long. 

The first thing that the shepherds did is hear.  They heard that their salvation, our salvation, comes not from human might, but from God who has come to live among us.  Even in Jesus’ time, there was a temptation to see human might as the ultimate source of salvation.  Paullus Fabius Maximus, the proconsul (governor) of Asia, would say this about Caesar:

“(It is hard to tell) whether the birthday of the most divine Caesar is a matter of greater pleasure or benefit.  We could justly hold it to be equivalent to the beginning of all things...; and he has given a different aspect to the whole world, which blindly would have embraced its own destruction if Caesar had not been born for the common benefit of all.”

We hear the same thing now.  We are called to believe that the person in power, or the person trying to replace that person, will deliver us from all of our troubles.  Luke speaks to us a different gospel.  It isn’t one of human origins, but one whose good news begins with the divine.  You see, while Caesar might have ruled over the “known world”, Jesus is worshipped in every corner of the globe.  Caesar was worshipped as a god for decades, but Jesus has been praised as the Son of God for millennia. 

We hear that there will be salvation, and we also here that there will be peace.  Most importantly, we hear that the peace achieved by the Messiah will be for all.  One of the most famous prophecies dealing with the coming of this Messiah speaks of the ending of conflict, and the ushering in of an era of peace.    

“For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.  The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.” - Isaiah 9:5-7

We should read “among those with whom he is pleased” as an inclusive term.  In some versions it is translated so as to almost imply that the gift of the Messiah is only for those with whom God is pleased.  But the idea in the original text is that God’s gift of a Messiah is evidence of His favor towards humankind.  In other words God favors the entire earth, with the birth of Jesus the Messiah. 

The second thing that the shepherds did is witness in two distinct ways.  First of all, they witnessed firsthand that God had indeed kept His promise.  The prophet Micah had spoken of the future birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem:

 “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.  Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.  And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.  And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.  And he shall be their peace.” - Micah 5:2-5

Now the shepherds knew that the word they heard from the angels was true.  It was not enough for them to hear about what God had done, they had to experience it for themselves before it could affect their faith.  Because they personally witnessed God’s goodness, revealed to them in the form of a manger, they were able to become witnesses themselves.  The shepherds, along with Anna, are the first evangelists.  The shepherds become to others, what the angels were to them, proclaimers of good news. 

Our journey is to go from being shepherds, to being angels.  Our word angel is derived from the word for “messenger”.  Once the shepherds experienced the newborn Son of God in a manger, they stopped being shepherds who had received the good news about Jesus Christ, and became angels who proclaimed the good news. 

Christmas may have passed, but the result of Christmas is as real every day of the year as it is on December 25^th.  Christ has come and lived among us.  May the good news that you hear lead you to the manger, not just in December, but throughout the year.  May what you experience there, lead you to become a messenger, an angel, boldly proclaiming the fact that our Messiah has been born.  May the sounding forth of that message bring the peace to our world that was inaugurated with the birth of Jesus Christ.   

Luke 1:39-56: Mary did you know?

It’s the time of year when we are reminded of the unexpected nature of God’s work in our world.  Perhaps nothing is more unexpected than the birth of the Messiah, in a manger, in a backwater town like Bethlehem.  When we read of the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth, when Mary was pregnant with Jesus and Elizabeth with John the Baptist, we are reminded by their words that God did not just make His appearance in our world in unexpected ways, but that His appearance was only the beginning of the unexpected. 

It is not overstatement to say that God comes in unexpected ways.  The very fact that God comes at all is a testimony to the graciously unexpected nature of God’s actions.  Even before Jesus was born, He began demonstrating His willingness to meet us where we are.  After all, according to social convention, it should have been Elizabeth who visited Mary.  Elizabeth says as much when she asks, “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43)  And yet there she is, Mary at Elizabeth’s doorstep, with an unborn king in her womb.  As we see her standing there, it is a reminder of a Savior who makes house-calls, a reminder of the fact that the seat at God’s right-hand stood empty for some thirty-odd years as God demonstrated how far He was willing to go to meet us.  And when Christ displays the humility necessary to leave heaven, He humbles Himself entirely in that He forgoes not only the glory of heaven, but the luxuries of earth.  He is not born to a queen or a princess, but to an unwed virgin.  His first cries as He enters our world do not echo through the halls of a marble palace, but emanate from a manger, in the all but forgotten town of Bethlehem.  God comes in unexpected ways, through unexpected people, but most importantly, He comes.     

And when God does come in unexpected ways, through unexpected people, he continues to surprise us as He does unexpected things.  In a passage referred to as “the Magnificat”, Mary lifts her voice in praise to God, not just for the role she has been granted to play in the divine drama, but for the role that her Son will play.  She says things that we are quick to overlook or at least water-down, because they don’t sit well with our first-world mentality.  She states that God opposes the proud.  Why?  Because the proud insist on saving themselves, they insist on their own brand of self-attained righteousness.  In all Jesus’ run-ins with the Pharisees and with lawyers, what is at stake if not the source of human righteousness and sanctification?  She says that God opposes the powerful.  Who is it that puts Jesus on trial?  It might be the common man who shouts "crucify", but it’s the Jewish and Roman establishment, the council, Herod, and Pilate who sit in judgment.  The powers of this world stand opposed to a God who is willing to manifest Himself not only in power, but also in humility demonstrated by self-sacrificial love. Finally we hear from Mary that God opposes the rich.  This is the deepest cut to those of us who think we live modestly, but yet are rich when compared to our brothers and sisters around the globe.  It is startling the number of run-ins Jesus has with the rich.  He chastises the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21), listens to the lament of the rich man who failed to help Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), and causes the rich ruler to leave grief stricken, after he is unable to surrender his riches in order to follow Christ (Luke 18:18-30).  But that isn’t the end of the story.   

God does not simply oppose, He also looks…upon His humble servants.  He also shows mercy…to those who fear Him.  He also exalts…the humble.  He also feeds…the hungry and the poor. 

If we view the story of the manger through the eyes of Mary, it should cause us to change how we see ourselves, and how we want to be seen by others.  Rather than striving so hard to place ourselves among the proud, the powerful, and the rich, maybe we should learn to be ok with being humble, fearful, and poor. 

God will do great things in our church, in our community, and in the world.  The question is, will we turn ourselves over to God, to be used as instruments to accomplish those things?  If we will, then like Mary, all generations will call us blessed.