Unexpect It.

Luke 2:(1-7) 8-20

A key idea for this sermon came from Under the Whispering Door, a novel by TJ Klune.

For four weeks we are called to wrap ourselves in expectation, anticipating the coming of an infant who is our God and Savior. We talk about expectant joy, preparing the way, clearing a path for Jesus in the wilderness of our lives. All the while the world outside the walls of our churches are already screaming “what’s next?” And the stores have put out the Valentine’s Day chocolates. Our expectations are always met and disappointed by Christmas all at once- weather and illness and the facts of life change our plans, gifts live up to our hopes or they don’t and favorite dishes are shared and sometimes an ingredient is missing or forgotten, and still, December 25th arrives and the baby is born and the angels sing to the shepherds and the wise ones begin their journey from East to West. We have heard this story countless times, of the highly favored virgin and the righteous man she is to marry, the shepherds and the flocks and the angels in the sky. It is an old familiar story, an heirloom passed down through the generations with no small amount of effort. It has featured in our storybook bibles and our favorite carols and Christmas pageants and lawn ornaments and movies. It has been preached on by every Christian preacher and taught in every Sunday School class. Somehow, somewhere along the way, we learned to expect him- the God-in-flesh, the infant lying in the manger. Our Advent journey became a countdown to traditions. The son of God is expected, and he comes. 

I recently read a novel that had an element of the Christmas Carol of Charles Dickens, but turns the story on its head. A man of questionable character dies, and as a ghost is brought to a place where he can prepare to pass on to the next life. Rather than a living Scrooge haunted by three symbolic ghosts, our antihero is a ghost himself among the living, and some of those living people can see him, talk to him, and teach him how to move through the world in his new form. Another ghost is there, an elder who go has been dead several years and has the whole ghost thing figured out. He can interact with corporeal things- he can sit in his favorite armchair, turn pages in a book, raise a cup of tea. He teaches our antihero to do the same, all the while repeating the same refrain. “Unexpect it!” In the world of the novel, one must stop assuming things will be as they’ve always been, in order for something new to happen. 

I woke up this morning with that refrain ringing through my mind. Unexpect it. I have spent hours poring over hundreds of pages of commentary, sermons, theological explorations, and poetry about the story of a baby born in Bethlehem over the course of my preaching career, and all the scholars are in agreement- jesus was unexpected. Of course Mary knew to some extent what she was signing up for- her consent was based on a life of prayer and scripture study and a knowledge of God reflected in her prophetic Magnificat. The shepherds were told what to expect, that they would see a baby wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. The wise ones from the East saw signs of the birth of a king, and they found one. But Jesus was an unexpected king, an impossible baby, one that would live a life even his mother could not have predicted fully. The scholars call it the scandal, the fact that God would choose to come among God’s creatures in humble human form, in a vulnerable and dependent and tiny mortal frame. As with the king whose lineage Jesus shared, the Lord was born in an unexpected place among unassuming people. And the first to hear the good news of his birth were shepherds, people on the fringes, the last people one would normally expect to receive a proclamation of any substance. Yes Jesus was entirely unexpected, and yet we have come to experience his story with nostalgic sentimentality and tender familiarity. We’ve gotten used to it, and in the process of handling it over and over again we’ve dulled the scandal’s edges. 

As you know and the secular world decidedly does not know nor care- Christmas Day is the beginning of a twelve day long season. Christmastide has traditionally been celebrated by days of feasting and sharing and gifting and traveling to be with far away loved ones. What would it look like, how would it shape us, if we spent these next twelve days trying to Unexpect the familiar story. What if we practiced, for the next two weeks, not assuming we know the story? It will be a great effort, but I think a worthwhile one. Revisit the story and imagine it is the first time you’ve ever heard it. Read it to a young child, or discuss it with a friend who did not grow up in the church. Find art and poetry and unfamiliar hymns that tell the story from new angles or with a different focus. Reach for this story each day as if it is the first and last time you will ever encounter it. Unexpect it, and see what new thing God will do in you.