A RIGHT CHRISTMAS

Delivered to St. Andrew's Chatsworth, Dec. 8, 2019

For some lay preachers, dare I say preachers in general...the Advent or Christmas season may not be the easiest in the church lectionary calendar for developing meaningful messages that are just a bit different from what you have heard hundreds of times before a this time.

Nevertheless, I could be talking to you this morning exclusively on the subject of Advent -- the "waiting period"; but because, as it turns out, that this will be the only opportunity for me to be with you (St. Andrew's Chatsworth) in the month of December, I choose to place total emphasis on the birth of Christ.

While proclaiming the story of Jesus’s birth is a tremendous privilege, the number of potential preaching texts, in reality, is limited.

Neither the sandwiching gospels of St. Mark and St. John include the an account of Jesus birth. And to make matters more difficult, at least two passages in Matthew’s account do not appear to be listener-friendly. One seems too mundane, the other too disturbing.

But there is another challenge facing preachers. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth have been overlaid with centuries of interpretive misunderstandings and legendary elaborations and assumptions. It is that acknowledgement that I want to expand upon this morning.

Initially, however, it is interesting to observe the reaction of people to the Christmas season which is now fully upon us with Second Sunday in Advent.

Christmas, of course, means different things to different people...Fun, presents, shopping, parties, good food, increased business.

But Christmas, and what it represents, means much more to the real Christian than Santa Claus, tinsel and mistletoe. It means that God loves us. It means that God has regarded his lost condition and has done something about it.

It means God has given the best gift the world has ever known and that the Saviour is born: to set an example with His life, to die for our sins, to be raised for our justification, to ascend on high and make intercession for him, to give him the hope of His coming again to gather all believers unto Himself.

Christmas means to us that we have a Companion for life--a Friend in the hour of death--a loving Brother for eternity.

Christmas has also become synonymous with some assumptions of an interpretive nature, the nativity story being the most common.

We're all familiar with the protrayal of the night Christ was born. We have seen it in Christmas concerts and pageants since we were knee high to a grasshopper. We see it in Christmas cards and religious art and nativity displays of all descriptions.

Through the years artists have portrayed that scene as they have imagined it. Each of us can readily visualize it--the straw on which the baby Jesus lay, the rough-hewn wooden beams of the stable, the animals nearby, and the star-studded sky overhead.

But, how does this compare to the actual word of God?

Scant information about Christ's birth is recorded in the second chapter of Luke which served as our primary Gospel Lesson this morning, and again I read:

"Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." I'LL COME BACK TO THAT IN A MINUTE.

In reality, the Bible does not provide us with many more details than this about the birth of Christ. The passages in Luke 2 discuss the angel's announcement of Christ's birth to the shepherds and the shepherds' subsequent visit to see Jesus, some believe as much as two years after his birth.

A few points must be made as we compare the modern retelling of the birth of Jesus. First, the Bible certainly teaches that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but it does not state that Joseph and Mary arrived in that town just in time for her to deliver.

In fact, this scenario is highly unlikely since it is doubtful that the two would attempt to make the arduous 70-mile trip from Nazareth on foot and in the final stages of Mary's pregnancy. Also, Luke 2:6 implies that they were in Bethlehem for a while before Jesus was born ("while they were there, the days were completed", it is stated in Luke).

The Gospel of Luke also says that Mary gave birth to Jesus and placed him in a manger “because there was no place for them in the inn", but does not explain where Jesus birth actually took place other than a reference to a manger.

It must be recognized that the books of the Christian New Testament are widely agreed to have originally been written in Greek, even though some authors often included translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts.

Right off the top, it should be acknowledged that we are talking about 2000 years ago when there were no such things as lodges, motels or inns. Travellers from distant locations would normally have stayed with extended families or relations.

The Greek word kat-al'-oo-mah may be translated as either “inn” or “guestroom”, and biblical scholars have speculated that Joseph and Mary more reasonably would have sought to stay with relatives, only to find that the common area of the house where everyone slept, was full; whereupon they resorted to the shelter of a separate lower room with a manger. This could have been be a place to keep the sheep and a logical option for Mary and Joseph to have privacy during the delivery.

Jesus used the same Greek word in Luke 22:11 to refer to a "guest room." This room is now known as the Upper Room—the scene of the Last Supper, the meal that Jesus ate with His disciples the night before His Crucifixion.

It must be remembered that Joseph and Mary returned to Joseph's ancestral home of Bethlehem because of the census proclaimed throughout the Roman Empire and requiring many Jewish families to travel long distances.

Archaeologists have excavated first century homes from the Judean hill country, that was common for its cave dwellings. They have discovered that the upper level served as a guest chamber while the lower level served as the living and dining rooms. Oftentimes, the more vulnerable animals would be brought in at night to protect them from the cold and theft.

This sounds strange to many of us, since we wouldn't dream of bringing some of our farm animals into the house at night, but even today in some countries of Europe (e.g., Germany and Austria), the farmhouse and the animal quarters are often different parts of the same building.

This is where the manger comes into play. And again, Mary more than likely gave birth to Jesus in the lower level of a crowded dwelling, and in which some of the animals, probably sheep, had been brought in for the night. No "lowing cattle" as mentioned in the late 19th century carol "Away in a Manger".

In fact St. Francis of Assisi, is credited with staging the first nativity scene in the year 1223. According to his biography, St. Francis got permission from Pope Honorious III to set up a manger with hay and two live animals—an ox and an ass—in a cave in the Italian village of Grecio. He then invited the villagers to come gaze upon the scene while he preached about “the babe of Bethlehem.”

The nativity scene’s popularity took off from there.
Keep in mind that the proper understanding of any word is based on its context. In Luke 2: verses 7, 12, and 16, Jesus was born and then placed or laid in a manger. He was not born in the manger. It makes sense that Mary wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and then laid him in a feeding trough carved into a wall, which in turn served as a makeshift crib.

Now, the significance of this reinterpretation of the story is that it undercuts the idea that what made Jesus remarkable was that he was born to humble, outcast parents in a stable, of all places. “In the true sense of the Christmas story, Jesus is not sad and lonely, born some distance away in a stable of some sort, needing our sympathy. Rather, we should see Him in the midst of family, and all the visiting relations, right in the thick of it and demanding our attention.

This should fundamentally change our approach to enacting and preaching on the nativity.

Admittedly, it makes for a less compelling scene than the one most nativities capture. There’s an appealing and fitting degree of vulnerability to these popular Nativity images: the holy family, huddled around a newborn, exposed to the elements, and illuminated only by the light of a bright star. The idyllic visuals may explain why this detail stuck, and was further cemented in the cultural consciousness by the lyrics of countless Christmas carols that have followed.

Paul says that what is extraordinary about the birth of Jesus is that it shows God shifting from the divine to the human. If that happened in a crowded family home, the message is preserved. If it happened in an isolated stable, “that just shows that the descent was from a respected human to a disrespected, lowly human.”

Of course, we should never become so focused on the peripheral details of this account that we miss the most important point. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became a descendant of Adam so that He could ultimately go to the Cross and die in our place...The descendants of Adam saved from an eternity of separation from their Creator.

God gave His Son to this world. Let us celebrate this truth and tell the world about His amazing love.

If you and I are to have a Right Christmas, we must make time to worship Him in spirit and in truth. We, too, need to come with haste like the Shepherds, and bow down before Him in love.

A Right Christmas includes the matter of telling others about Jesus. The shepherds are our models. "And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this Child ... the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for the things they had heard and seen" (Luke 2:17-20).

When John introduced his Gospel, he pointed out that men were in darkness and Jesus came as the Light.

There is a plan for the spread of the Gospel and that is for us to be witnesses. Success in witnessing is sharing the story of the Lord Jesus Christ and then leaving the results up to Him.

There is no true Christmas without Jesus...He IS the reason for the season.

Let us all acknowledge that the meaning of Christmas is in His birth, His death and resurrection, and His coming again.

In truth, less emphasis should be placed on the questionable interpretation of "inn" and "innkeeper" in our Christmas accounts...Certainly something we should think about in the stories we tell youngsters each year at this time.

It is the "room" we make in our hearts for Jesus that really matters. That is an analogy that we can all accept.

In one of his prayers, St. Augustine is quoted as saying: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

I know for some of us who have the nativity embedded in our minds, it may be easier said than done, but let's leave here this morning not preoccupied with the speculative conditions under which the virgin's child was born, but with hearts filled with the spirit of Jesus Christ who ultimately gave His life for us. Only then will we have "A Right Christmas."