Christmas Eve, 12/24/2007

Sermon on Luke 2:1-20, by Luke Bouman

Luke 2:1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

⁸In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ¹⁴"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" ¹⁵When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

The Manger is Empty

One of my favorite authors, Walter Wangerin, Jr. has written a book entitled, "The Manger is Empty." I immediately resonated with the title and the themes of the book, especially the Christmas section, because of something that had happened at my own house about the same time as the book came out. Join me now, as I remember those days with you.

If there had been a tabloid newspaper about the daily happenings in the Lutheran parsonage in Hondo, Texas, the headlines for this particular Christmas would have screamed something like this: "BABY JESUS MISSING FROM NATIVITY MANGER!" "LONG SEARCH YIELDS NO RESULTS!" "CAT SUSPECTED" The Italian nativity set had been a gift to us, and at the time was likely the most expensive thing in our house. But it had proved too tempting for our year-old cat, Nicky. We had chased him away several times, but he had finally succeeded in running away with the only piece that fit in his mouth, the infant Jesus.

Nicky will always be associated in our minds and hearts with Christmas. He was selected the year before to join our household menagerie that already included Precious, a stray kitten who had picked us some years earlier, and Rumpleteezer, who had been a gift. Nicky was our choice and we had selected him and brought him home on St. Nicholas day, December 6. Nicky was really only half a cat. He was not aloof, like the other two, but loved being with people. He had spent time with dogs before we had him and I suppose he may even have thought of himself as a dog. He played fetch, greeted visitors when the doorbell rang, and had he the capacity, I'm sure he would have barked. He also loved anything small and mobile. If it wasn't nailed down, it was a toy for him, sooner or later.

So it was no surprise to us that Nicky had taken away the Infant Jesus from the manger. It was a surprise that we couldn't find the tiny figurine. We looked in all the usual places and then searched all of the unusual places. Finally we determined that we were out one tiny piece of the set.

That year at Christmas, as a young preacher in my second year in the parish, I made the most of this ready example in my sermon. I was a master at preaching the law at that point in my career. I was good at pointing out the ways in which society had failed to live up to God's standards. My good congregation was patient with me for the most part, and the self-righteous among them nodded their heads in agreement and complimented me when I was done. I had yet to learn the deeper lesson of the empty manger. Just so I preached to the congregation that Christmas Eve.

"It is just like our commercial society," I ranted. "They have taken Jesus right out of the Christmas season. We no longer celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord, we celebrate the excess of our appetites. And in doing so we have removed the real good news from this day, that God is with us." I knew a little of the Gospel, but had yet to encounter it in its fullness. So full of myself and my self-righteousness, was I. "We need to remember this night to keep the baby in the manger so that this celebration can have meaning."

So I went home fully satisfied that my congregation had gotten the message and would keep the feast in the right way. So naïve was I to think that this was the full message to be had, or that my congregation, especially the older folks, did not know that there was deeper truth to be found. I am grateful these years later that they were such patient teachers, my first parish. I continue to be in their debt. They knew (as did I, though for a moment I had forgotten) that the good news, the Gospel of God is not about what we have to do, or know or remember. They knew that it was always about what God is doing. This story continues...

Many months later when we were rearranging our furniture, the Jesus figurine reappeared. In the midst of the dust and accumulated "stuff" under a large chair, there he was. Only upon close examination would you have noticed the small scratches and tiny teeth indentations that indicated that our cat had enjoyed his toy for but a little while. Some days later, though, that I realized that there was more than just a "lost and found" significance to what had happened in our house.

I began to rethink my Christmas message. It was incomplete. It was incomplete for us to "find" Jesus, somehow, and counter-culturally place him back in the manger. It was incomplete because we do not do the finding. And God is not hiding. The incarnation and the crucifixion, the birthing and the dying are all part and parcel of what it means for God to be Immanuel, God with us. With us in the pain and shock and nakedness of birth, and with us in the loneliness and nakedness of death are all part of what God does, what God is, when God is born among us. It was a coincidence, for sure, but a happy one that found my "baby Jesus" in the midst of the grime and the dust under a chair. For it is to the grime and dust of the stable that he comes, it is to the pain and suffering of the world that he attends and it was by torture and pain that he dies, WITH US.

A growing thought, a GOSPEL thought. The manger is empty, not because we have shut Jesus out of our lives or our world. The manger is empty because God has dared to come into our world in Jesus! God did not mean to remain cute, in the safety of a manger. God meant to redeem us, all of us, every bit of us. And he chose the surprising path of human existence to do it. So he walks through every part of our existence, from birth to death, sparing himself nothing in the process. And by doing so he has opened the doors for us to lead lives of courage and hope now, and look forward to renewed life in Christ to come. Because of this we are set free to live our lives also in the shadow of the cross, as we too go out into the underbelly of human existence and live in solidarity with the poor, the pained, and the oppressed. For this is what our God has done in Jesus.

Thus did I learn of the incarnation from the great theologian, Nicky, the cat. The manger is empty indeed.

Rev. Dr. Luke Bouman
Valparaiso University
E-Mail: Luke.Bouman@Valpo.edu

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