Christmas Eve, 12/24/2008

Sermon on Luke 2:1-14, by Ciska Stark

Only a few words in the Bible provide a setting for what we experience at this time of year as the excessive hurly-burly of Christmas. The Christmas gospel is only a short text. Somewhere in the background, hidden behind everything demanding our attention for glittering commercial interests and no less glittering ideals, this short narrative by Luke can be found. In fact, it takes up no more than a few verses in the Bible.
The Christmas story is so different from what we might suppose based on what we see of Christmas nowadays. The story is short, restrained, simple - precisely the tone for which we sometimes yearn in vain. It is a story you need to read in solitude - away from all the commotion from all the crowds. You have to get back to what it's really about. Back to where the Christmas music does not rudely force itself upon you. It is a place where you listen closely and sing to yourself. You have to go back to where you also feel yourself to be alone, alone before God, even in a full church. Back to where the light of God's future is reborn. In this night.
Back to Bethlehem they went, Joseph and Mary. Not because they wanted to - why should they seek what lay behind them? Therefore, they did not go voluntarily. But others, with more power than they, had the say over their lives and their future. And despite 60 years of human rights that still happens just as often to many people today. That's how it is in this world: the powerful are mentioned by name - Augustus and Quirinius, presidents and directors. They make the front page. They say how much room and credit is left over for simple people. At least, that's what it seems like - if you do not count the One, the Other.
Joseph and Mary go back to Bethlehem. They are sent back to their past where they are not welcome. There is no one who knows them, no one who notices them in the hustle and bustle of city life. No one asks about them. Oh well, that's how it goes: everyone has enough of their own worries. That was not any different before.
Although .... I do remember that my father talked about his experiences growing up in a family with ten children and an aunt who lived with them just before the Second World War. They did not have much of a fixed income and they were difficult years. But whoever dropped by to eat or to sleep was always greeted with the words: "There's always room for one more." It was simply a matter of everyone shoving up a bit. Nowadays we are so unaccustomed to living together that even the annual family dinner produces stress! And just try to find a place in a family with two children and a 4-bedroom home - would there be any room?
When Jesus is born in Bethlehem there is no room. He comes into this world alongside the crowd, outside of the hustle and bustle, outside of the company of those who were invited, in the simplicity of a cave, a stable, a makeshift existence where at most the traditional ox and the ass step aside. There is no one who is waiting for him.
Or is there? He comes into the world somewhere out of the way, among poor people. It is not coincidence that Mary and Joseph are described as poor. They are those who have been hit hardest by life's blows. Somewhere out of the way a new future is born while the world just goes as it always has, both internally and externally, as nothing special is going on.
Nor is there is anything special going on for those who do not look and listen carefully. Don't be surprised if we don't notice this birth very much. Don't be surprised that we still let that stable go by unnoticed after 2000 years. For He is not of our world and yet he is. It does not happen in our time and yet it happens today. He did not ask for our endorsement, but nevertheless stirs us to follow him. Why? What is going on?
Somewhere out of the way people set off on a trip: Joseph and Mary, obeying the order of their rulers. But for those who listen closely much more is being said. A name was heard: the name of David. Mary and Joseph are on their way to the city of King David. That sounded like music in the ears of those who heard Luke telling his story. The name of David is a symbol for a good period in the Jews' history. The name of David has to do with peace, with a blessed period, a period of prosperity and peace for which we all hope, for the whole earth, peace among people and between God and people. The name of David invokes the prince of peace. If people are on their way towards that, it cannot be only because of Augustus and Quirinius, only because of current and future presidents and rulers of the world. God has to be involved. If the name of David is sounded, then God is speaking and nothing else than justice and peace can be at stake.
The meaninglessness with which people wander around on their way to some place or another, the darkness in which the powers manifest themselves - all of that appears in a different light in one infinitesimal moment. Not as a flash of lightning against clear skies, after which everything is the same as it was, but as the first distant light of the morning star in a pitch-black night. A light as herald of the morning.
It is an angel, in a brilliant light. An angel that is first seen ... again by those who exist outside the crowds. Shepherds in the fields. It's safe to say that they did not have any more esoteric or spiritual talent than others. They were not waiting for an angel - why would they be? They can do nothing else but keep watch over their sheep, doing their work well. And it is precisely in these people that God's light finds its reflection. When God engages with people on this earth, then these simple people are the place to which God comes. Is that because it makes the story even better?
No, but so that the world will be better. Those ordinary people, with the poor in front, see first what is important. Their eyes, formed by the darkness, are drawn to a wonderful light. An irresistable light. The light shines not outside of reality but in the midst of the darkness, in the midst of their reality - that is where the light shines. God's light. A light for the future. Eternal light. Light that brings people to God, brings them home out of the darkness. Light that you need when you despair. Light that you need when disease renders your body unrecognizable. Light that this world needs in Africa and Asia, in America and Australia and in old Europe. Light, that seems so far away. But it must also come from afar! It only comes from God. And if you have ever seen something of that light, then you never forget it. It remains with you, even if it has been snuffed out a long time ago. Light that you sometimes simply encounter, a beam of sunlight, a word of light, a warm gesture, an angel of God on your way to the city of David. Light that you can find if you read the Bible, if you keep watch in the night.
For in the night on the field a voice is heard in a light and the name is sounded again: the city of David. That is where you should go; that is where your Saviour is born: the Lord. Glory to God and peace on earth. Not a God who demands his own glory and sacrifices but a God who establishes glory in peace on earth. This child will witness to that. This child brings joy that will last longer than just the Christmas holidays. In him a future has been reborn. That is how God wants to dwell among us, in this Jesus, as light for the world.
Only a few words in the Bible are the source of what we experience at this time of year as the excessive hurly-burly of Christmas. But whoever lives by this light will find peace.

Dr. Assistant Professor Ciska Stark
Mennonite Seminary
VU University Amsterdam NL

E-Mail: f.stark@planet.nl

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