God with Us

Luke 2:(1-7) 8-20

An angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. They were terrified. Why were they terrified? We have all gathered in this place, some of us from very far away, others for the first time, and still others are returning home again tonight after a long absence. We have come into this house from a cold and dark night, a wild and anxious world, seeking the light. We have huddled together in this home to be warmed by the presence of family and friends and to light as many candles as we possibly can.

We have come here looking for the light shining in the darkness, and yet we hear that the shepherds who lived and worked in the dark wilderness of the fields were terrified by the light. Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. Do not be afraid. The Angel of God has come to reveal the birth of the savior of all the world, but this revelation is born into a place of confusion and fear. The old familiar story, the greatest story ever told, begins in darkness. The story does not begin in a warmly lit church full of beautiful flowers and wreaths and joyous singing. The story begins in the wilderness.

Mary and Joseph are well-acquainted with the wilderness by the time they meet their son. Mary has become pregnant before her marriage, and Joseph has chosen to marry her and raise the Son of God as his firstborn son. They have survived the rumors and the ridicule, the family drama and the attacks on their pride. Mary nourishes and protects the child in her womb, knowing all along that his birth will begin a new chapter in the history of the world. As if all these things were not enough, now they must travel back to a place where they have no family to welcome them, where Mary has no familiar women to help shepherd her son into the world, where Joseph can find no room for them to rest. The Mother of Jesus, and the man who will raise him as his own, are isolated strangers in a place that makes no room for them. The Gospel even tells us that Mary and Joseph have not been married yet, but are engaged when the time comes for her to deliver her child. In every way imaginable, the Child who changes the world is born into the wilderness, into the in-between. He is born where there is no place for him, no place in his family’s hometown, no place in the inn, no place but the arms of his mother, no place but in the adoration of his father, no place but a manger in the night.

This is terrifying. This is a wild and out of control world, one where best laid plans often fail. The journey takes longer than expected, the room has not been booked, the new mother labors far from home and the child enters into the world in the glow of a No Vacancy sign. These things are no one’s fault, no one’s plan. These are just realities, ordinary events in the unpredictable wilderness of life. And somehow, anyway, the King of Heaven meets us here. The Messiah, the Savior, comes into this world out of control, completely at the mercies of ordinary life, fragile and small and crying out for food and warmth and love. Look to the Angels, to the message they sing out in the darkness of the countryside. The sign of salvation is a child, swaddled for warmth and comfort, sleeping in a place not meant for him. The sign is not one of fantastic proportions, no burning bush or mighty pillar of fire is to be found. The thing that makes this night so incredible, the thing that we huddle in close to see, is not a blaze of glory, but a single candle. A single candle that does not abolish the darkness of our lives, but guides us safely through the shadows. The earth-shaking, change-making miracle, the good news of great joy so unbelievable that the entire heavenly host is required to proclaim it properly, is Immanuel. Immanuel, God is with us. God is with us in an infant that must be cradled by his mother, must be protected and taught how to pronounce his own name. God is with us in a child that will fall and scrape his knees. God is with us in a young man who will weep at a grave and have his heart broken by the betrayal of a beloved friend. God is with us in a body that can be broken and hands that can be held.

Immanuel did not wait to come into the world until we had everything figured out. God with us did not enter into a family that met everyone’s expectations or into a community that would recognize his importance. God’s son does not come to us once our plans are in order, in a neat and tidy and perfectly decorated place. The Light of the World comes wrapped in flesh and bone and all the joy and pain of living. The Word is brought into the world the same way we all are, and his message comes to ordinary people like us, in the midst of labor and love and birth and death. That message, that Good News of great joy, still comes into the world over and over again, in great feats of faith and in small acts of love, from the lips of angels and from choirs of human voices crying out Glory to God in the highest. Do not be afraid, for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day a Savior. So they went with haste, as we hasten each year to this place, to see for ourselves the child lying in the manger. And when they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed. All who heard it were amazed.

That’s us, brothers and sisters. That is why we come here tonight, singing hymns and telling stories. We do not come here to fulfill an obligation, or to continue a vague tradition. We do not come here because it is what we are supposed to do, or what our elders and ancestors would have wanted. We come here to be amazed. We come here because the story we tell tonight is OUR story, is the story of how the God who made us loves us so much that he became one of us, so that we might see ourselves reflected in his eyes. We come here like Mary to treasure these ancient words and ponder these mysteries of faith in our hearts. We return from here into the wild world like the shepherds, glorifying and praising God for all we have heard and seen. We gather together tonight in songs of praise because there is no better choice, no truer way to respond to the darkness once we have seen a great light. We are here tonight because, amazingly, inexplicably, God is with us.