Sermon for Christmas Morn

admin | 25 December 2009

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is Christ the Lord”

Christmas is rich in images. Yet all of the many, many images that belong to the Christmas story circle around one place, little Bethlehem; little and yet great, a fitting place for the coming of “God’s great little one”. But it is only on Christmas morning that we first hear of Bethlehem in the Scripture readings in the Angels’ words to shepherds in their fields.

A place of insignificance, the place that is the least of the clans of Judah, as the prophet Micah, puts it; and yet the place that is not the least of the princes of Judah, as Matthew puts it. A contradiction in the Scriptures? A mistranslation by Matthew? Probably. And, yet, by no means the only contradiction or error, if you will, in the Scriptures. What? How can that be and the Scriptures still be true? Or is all just a tale for a winter’s morning? A quaint and touching story that somehow touches human hearts?

That won’t suffice, I’m afraid, to account for the quiet wonders of Christmas morn. The apparent contradictions and errors of a factual nature often turn on a number of things; one source juxtaposed with another and yet placed side-by-side in the Scripture texts thereby defying the most prosaic of human minds; and then there are matters that can never be known with any degree of historical accuracy, such as the actual date of the birth of Christ, and, hence, of Christmas itself; and even more there are other details that simply admit of complementary interpretations. Micah is right about Bethlehem as the place of the least of the tribes of Judah; Matthew is right with respect to the honour belonging to Bethlehem as the place of Christ’s holy birth, and therefore, not the least. There is nothing new about this except our cultural and intellectual forgetfulness.

This is, of course, the kind of thinking drives literal and linear minds absolutely crazy. But it is the kind of thinking that belongs to the metaphorical and the metaphysical; in short, to theology, to an insight and a way of thinking about our humanity and about God. For Christians, God and man meet in Jesus Christ. It is the idea the reality of which challenges our fragile and tenuous hold on reality; in short, it speaks to our darkness, the darkness of sin and wickedness. “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” There can be no greater validation of human will and its destructiveness and no greater testament to the goodness and grace of God for us than this.

God engages our humanity in all its truth and untruth in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. The holy birth of Christ is utter nonsense and mere sentimentality if it is not about the divine Word and Son of God become man in the most intimate way possible. Bethlehem becomes the critical metaphor for our age and its concerns. Why and how?

Because Bethlehem, at once least and greatest, is the image of paradise restored, an image of the very thing our world and day, our culture and civilisation, most craves and seeks. And what is that? Nothing less than the harmony of nature and our humanity, the harmony of the human community, the harmony of our humanity and God, the ultimate reality. For what are our discontents but the sense of dislocation and disconnect from one another, from the world around us and from God?

The paradoxes are just so great. At a time when the connections of the digital world are at their height via cell-phones, i-pods and i-phones and so forth, our culture experiences the greatest sense of unease and fearful uncertainty about ourselves and our world. The sense of disconnect has never been greater and the desire for real and substantial connection never more needed and wanted.

Bethlehem is the place of the greatest connection through the holy birth of the Child Christ, the connection between God and humanity, between the Creator and his creation, between the divine and the natural. Here, in the rich metaphors of the Scriptures, is the image of paradise: the harmony of humans and beasts; the harmony of angels and men; of shepherds and kings; of God and man. And all of this in what must seem to be a most unlikely place, a place that is “the least of all the clans of Judah”, and the least promising in any respect, a lowly stable. And yet, that is the perennial truth and message of the Christian faith. Christ’s Incarnation turns our world on its head.

He who is born in Bethlehem is born for all, from the greatest to the least. Here, as the poet T.S. Eliot puts it, is “a moment in time” in which “time was made through that moment” and in that place, that holy place, little Bethlehem, once unsung and now sung about forever. “For without the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning”. Christmas is about the meaning that redeems all times and seasons and all places. Why and how? By “the Word made flesh” who “dwelt among us”, there and then, but here and now and always, in the hearts and minds that will receive him still. Everywhere is Bethlehem at Christmas, “for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour.”

The great lessons of this holy season concentrate the images of Christmas upon this day and this place. The images of Scripture, Old Testament and New, the images of tradition and prayer, the images of art and music all gather around this holy scene in Bethlehem, in a stable “because there was no room for them in the inn”. It is a lowly and impoverished scene which grace and glory, art and prayer, have made rich and which, in turn, enriches us greatly, and all because God in Christ “is born this day [for us] in the city of David.”

The Christian religion is image-filled, so much so that it becomes the constant struggle to connect the images to the essential message against the constant temptation to get lost in one image or another and lose their vital connection to the central and defining truth. And what is that? Nothing less than “the Word made flesh” born in the least and greatest of all places, little Bethlehem, born there and for us and for all humanity.

The great blessings of little Bethlehem are proclaimed in Word and Sacrament and are meant to be lived in sacrifice and service, in loving care and kindness. Our challenge, now and always, is to let “God’s great little one” live in us that we may live through him. It requires the humility of those other little ones, the shepherds who come on Angels’ wings to behold the child King of Bethlehem. Only so does something of Bethlehem remain with us and in us.