12/19/65

Scripture: Luke 2: 1-20.

The New Testament lives, and moves, and has its being in an atmosphere of wonder. To begin with, there are the birth stories in Matthew and Luke about the coming of Jesus. The writers tell of a child born to humble parents, born in a stable and cradled in a manger because “there was no room for them in the inn.” One could picture the circumstance as one of the greatest frustration. Not many of us would look with favor upon a stable as the proper birth place for any child. The gospel writers do explain that the reason for this use of a stable is that the hotel was full, and there was no more room for anybody ---- not even for a woman about to bear a child.

But the story, as told by the gospel writers, does not dwell on the frustrations --- but only upon the wonder of it. Joseph had accepted the situation for what it was. He had tried to make Mary as comfortable as possible in the barn. Probably the travelers were grateful to have that much shelter from the night’s chill. The wonder is heightened by the message of a celestial messenger proclaiming the birth of a Savior, Christ the Lord, to humble, ordinary men watching over sheep on the hillside near Bethlehem. These shepherds went, in wonder, to see what had happened. And they returned praising God for all that they had seen and heard. Matthew’s gospel narrates that not long thereafter, certain wise men from a distance came to the place where the young child lay, “fell down and worshipped him,” and presented him with costly gifts.

These stories are tremendously significant, any way one looks at them. There are people who can not accept them as history. But even to those, the stories have a profound insight into the meaning of Jesus’ coming. The wonder of it is significantly stated in the language of poetry. This feeling of wonder, which is expressed in the birth stories, appears over and over again in the New Testament. As the account of Jesus unfolds, you find people marveling at the things they have seen and heard. There are those who say, “No man ever spoke like this man.” Others exclaim: “We never saw anything like this.”

When the story moves swiftly to its tragic climax on a skull-shaped hill, the atmosphere is still charged with wonder. The victim, nailed to a cross, prays: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” [Luke 23: 34]. And when the dreadful business is over, a hard-bitten soldier exclaims: “Certainly this man was innocent!” [Luke 23: 47]. The account goes on from there to the experience of Christ’s resurrection in the hearts and lives of his followers; to a confession of faith that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself;” [II Corinthians 5: 19]; to paeans of praise. “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” [I Corinthians 15: 57].

The New Testament proclaims the wonder of people who were inspired by Jesus, from the day of his birth, on throughout his ministry. There is something of wonder in the very fact that Jesus escaped oblivion. Secular historians paid little attention to him at the time, though they have had to recognize his influence upon people through all the years of history since he came. This, too, is wonderful. Who, after all, was he? He was a Jew (one of a despised little nation of people, among the many vassals of the great Roman Empire). He was of a family that belonged in the peasant class. He left no written records -- at least none that has been preserved. He was rejected and repudiated by many of the leaders of his nation. When he was arrested, his disciples deserted him. He was ignored by some, hated and derided by others, and was put to death like a common criminal. But none of these ended him. Instead, his name and spirit have spread like great waves all over history. In Emerson’s phrase, the name of Jesus is “not so much written as ploughed into the history of the world.”

One can not now tell the story of music or letters, of painting or sculpture or architecture, and leave Jesus out. And what of his influence in the realm of character? Once, in a discussion of the world’s great religious leaders, a Chinese scholar, not himself a Christian, said concerning Jesus: “He seems to me to have the power to create a more sensitive conscience.” When it comes to this, one has only to trace to its source any unusual manifestation of human concern for the poor, the suffering, the downtroddden and oppressed. What sent John Wesley to England’s coal miners or Lord Shaftsbury to his unwearied efforts in behalf of exploited women and children in the mills and mines of that country? Whence comes the magnanimity with which Abraham Lincoln could say, “With malice toward none, with charity for all?” Can any other source account for these?

More than nineteen and one-half centuries after his birth, man can not forget that there once lived in this world one named Jesus. The church reminds us; the art of Michelangelo and the music of Bach remind us; the succession of excellent lives remind us. There is a civilization -- far from Christian, but profoundly influenced by the Christ -- to remind us. There is our own individual consciences reminding us, far more than we realize, of the things that Jesus stood for, and that Christ still stands for.

All of these things reflect the wonder of mankind at the coming of Jesus into history. And the words of an ancient Hebrew prophet come alive with great meaning: “His name shall be called Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’.” [Isaiah 7: 14]. He has made a tremendous difference to the whole world, and to countless individual lives in the world. --- And he will continue to do so, whatever befall the inhabitants of this earth.

Let us review again the story of his birth at this Christmastide. Only two, of the four, gospel writers tell us about it. And those two have put down details that differ one from another. Today, we follow Dr. Luke’s account in particular. It seems that an imperial decree went out that all of the Roman world was to be enrolled. It was a giant census that among other things was to be used for the assessment of more taxes. Each householder was to go to the city of his birth for the enrollment. And so Joseph, then a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee, had to go clear down to Bethlehem, the City of David, in Judea, where he had been born, to be registered. He took his young betrothed wife along on the trip.

It mattered to Augustus Caesar that the census should be complete. It was important to Governor Quirinius of Syria that everyone comply. It mattered to Governor Herod of Judea, who was having trouble maintaining order among the rebellious Hebrews. It mattered to all the people who gave their names, households, and property qualifications -- they would have to tighten their belts again for another levy of taxation. All this mattered to a Bethlehem innkeeper who did an unprecedented business, with all these people coming to be enrolled. It mattered to Joseph and Mary that there was no room for them in the crowded inn.

But what mattered most was not the enrollment event over which they all felt concern. What mattered supremely was a birth that occurred in a stable on the grounds adjoining the inn. That event was to change the moral and spiritual climate of the world.

I don’t know what Augustus was doing that night. Probably he had important things to attend to at his court. If any angel had come to him that night to announce the birth of a baby in a barn in Palestine, he might have suspected some lunatic was trying to be funny. He could have laughed, or could have coined some sarcastic remark, or could have become angry. Why should he care?

The birth of Jesus, of course, was obscure; but it was not deliberately hidden. Some shepherds found out about it. The shepherd tale presented in Luke, accords with the historical fact that the first Christians were, for the most part, simple folk without benefit of very much education, wealth or social position. This does not mean Christians can be derided as being only the unwise, the perennially poor and those with no great social position. There are too many examples of those who have been superbly educated and whose wisdom has been spent in great benefit to mankind; there are too many who have substance who have been good stewards of their wealth, directing its use in excellence; there are too many who do have social prestige who refuse to use it for the exploitation of others --- there are too many of them for us to allow it to be laid down as any universal rule that Christians are found only among the people of humble circumstance. But, the wonder of Christ is apparent to receptive and sensitive people of every sort. And if the simple are able to take in divine revelation readily, it may be because they are free of intellectual pride and free of the haughtiness that sometimes goes with privilege. After all, Matthew tells another story in which it is wise men, of kingly bearing, from the Orient, who hear about Jesus and come to worship and wonder. Probably the shepherds of Luke’s account were unlettered, simple folk. The “wise men” of Matthew’s account would seem to be the highly trained and cultured “scientists” of their day. Both found meaning and satisfaction in the Christ-fact. Wise men followed a star. Shepherds followed angelic voices. Both found the manger and both wondered at Bethlehem’s babe.

What the shepherds heard was: “I bring you good news.” Christianity came as good news to a great many folk in the ancient world. Life was hard, in that day, for the common man. It was not easy for the uncommon man either. For instance, a Seneca, for all his services to the emperor, might any day come under suspicion and receive the order to die. Great numbers of people, some of them in high position, were oppressed with feelings of insecurity. Moreover, there was a widespread loss of faith due to the “acids of modernity” in that time. Many there were who were haunted by a sense of meaninglessness and futility.

Perhaps we can hardly know how wonderful the Christian gospel seemed to that ancient world. Possibly we could begin to imagine it is we could do certain things that might strip us completely of the things we owe to Christ. Pull down every church and chapel building. Obliterate the music of Bach; stop the work of the Quakers and all others in relief work; wipe out the very idea of voluntary service that embraces both friend and foe; get rid of all the faith and hope that has come through Christ. Then, if all this and more erasure were possible, one might have some idea of the impression which Christianity made on that pagan world in the time of the Caesars.

Christianity is good news about God, the final reality with which we have to deal. It is the news that God is aware of us, and of our need, and that there is help for us. It is the news that God is present and active in history and in the life of us individuals. It is the special news of God’s action in Christ; how, in Jesus of Nazareth, God can be seen and understood in human life where Jesus was born, and lived, and shared this earthly way.

That is “good news.” Think of it in relation to what people are up against today. Here is a fellow for whom alcoholic beverage has become a poison. He can not handle it, nor can he let it alone. Not that he doesn’t try; he exerts his will to the utmost, knowing that it is becoming a life and death matter for him. But his own will does not solve the problem. He drinks himself out of a job; out of one job after another. He brings suffering to his family. He is filled with self-reproach and self-loathing. Nevertheless, he keeps on drinking. Is there any hope for him? He really doubts that there is hope until one day he hears it said: “You can not save yourself, as you surely know by now. But you can be saved by a Power beyond yourself, if out of the depths you cry unto God.” That for an alcoholic is good news!

Here is one who is in a “tight spot,” putting up a gallant fight, hating the very idea of being a quitter, but sometimes wondering if he is equal to the strain. Then one day he hears it said: “Why fight alone? There are divine resources on which a person can draw and find himself upheld and empowered.” That, for anyone who is up against it, is good news.

The news that Christ is born in to the life of our world is gloriously good. There is a story concerning the poet, Tennyson, that is probably apocryphal, but is nonetheless pointed. Meeting a friend on the street at Christmas time, he was greeted with the words: “What’s the news today?” to which he replied: “Nothing new; only that Christ is born;” whereupon the friend replied, “Why, that’s old news, and new news, and good news.” And so it is good news indeed!

“Which will come to all people,” says the angel voice to the shepherds. Christianity affirms that the love of God is all-embracing. Jesus does not confine his ministry to the healing of his own people. He heals a Jewish blind man, a Samaritan leper, the stricken daughter of a Syrophoenician woman. His healing mercy is for a soldier’s child, for a friends’ brother or mother. He demonstrates that the love of God makes no exclusion of nationality, race, sex, color or class. It embraces rich and poor; educated and unlettered; black, white, yellow, red or brown. Jesus mingles with all sorts of people -- not with the respectable and pious only but with disreputable folk, like the hated Roman tax collectors, hypocritical men, notorious women. The love of God embraces people, good and bad, and with mixtures of good and bad.

And we need the presence of God’s love, -- to welcome his coming into our lives. This is true in the church as a community of people, as it is everywhere in contemporary life. One of the mildest-mannered people whom I have known is the Reverend Samuel Keck, for many years Superintendent of the South Dakota Congregational Conference, and then active with the Congregational pension boards, now retired and much in demand as an interim minister. He is temporarily at a church in Hilo, Hawaii, where the Rev. Fred Hyslop is about to begin a ministry next month. Writing from that Island state in the Pacific, mild-mannered Sam Keck has this to say: “At this Christmas season we are aware of the new wilderness to be conquered in our society by faith and love. In the fifty years that I have been in the ministry, there seems to have been no time so fraught with division, conflict and malice in the fellowship of the church as now. Even strong men are fearful of their responsibility.” He continues, “To meet such dynamic forces, Christ must truly come on earth. ----- Man’s part in the redemption of the world may be small but very important. For it is none other than the “opening of doors for God.”

Is there any better time to “open doors for God” than right now at this Christmas tide? The good news is that he comes to all people --- to you and to me and to all who will open a door to him and for him. “Unto you is born a Savior.” The word is fulfilled as surely to every one of us here in this room as it was to a few shepherds on the Palestinian hills near Bethlehem. Are we ready for the good news? Do we want to open a door for him in our own hearts?

This morning’s anthem points up a difference in the kind of welcome we offer. If it be the Lord of the empire, the king of the land, the president of the nation, the governor of the state, that invites himself to be our guest, “How we should stir ourselves” to be sure the table is set with fine food, the room clean and well lighted, everything well-appointed. “But at the coming of the King of Heaven,” he may find us in our mess and confusion, carelessly wallowing in our sin with no guest room prepared --- after all, is he not a stranger who can just as well be lodged in the stable manger? Which shall be our welcome to Jesus? Shall we be ready to leave him in the barn, or to welcome him into the home and hearth of our lives? It makes a difference!

The place is not the difference. It might be a manger; it might be the parlor, it might be the special guest room. Any “place” can be cold and forbidding, or can be made warm and inviting if the guest be taken into a sharing of our lives.

“Thou dids’t leave thy throne and thy kingly crown

When thou camest to earth for me

But in Bethlehem’s home there was found no room

For thy holy nativity.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,

There is room in my heart for thee!”

“Unto you is born a Savior.” The word spoken by the angel has been fulfilled. Thanks to the faith, the hope, the regenerative power which the coming of Jesus has released to all people who will receive him, countless millions of human lives have been blessed and bettered. People have been rescued by the Savior -- saved from inordinate love of self, saved from hopelessness and despair, saved from the debasing kind of lusts, saved from slavery to custom, given power to triumph over disaster. You can be one of Christ’s men and women, called by him to salvation and service, made whole and hopeful by his assurance.

After the angel had told the shepherds that “a Savior is born unto you,” there seemed to be many angels’ voices singing, “Glory to God in the Highest.” This ascription to God appears throughout all the New Testament. “The God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever.” [I Peter 5: 10-11]. Time after time a New Testament writer closes his book with an ascription of glory to God. The art of worship is to glorify God.

... “And on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.” This there, too, runs through the New Testament. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” [John 14: 27]. In Christ there is peace for those tormented by guilt and fear. There is peace for those torn by hostility. There is peace that passes all mortal understanding.

It makes a difference if we approach Christmas through Advent and Christmas Eve with an expectation that the Savior is to be born to us; if we live Christmas Day as a joyful welcome to him. Then the day after Christmas need be no “let down,” but like simple, inspired shepherds of old we can return to our work glorifying and praising God for all that we have seen and heard as it has been told to us.

“To you is born this day ... a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Then come, all ye faithful, and bless the Lord!

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 19, 1965.