It Was NOT a Silent Night
Incarnation Reality and Myth
Introduction:
Illustration (humor):
Christmas is a time of surprises. A lady was preparing her Christmas cookies. There came a knock at the door. She went to find a man, his clothes poor, obviously looking for some Christmas odd jobs. He asked her if there was anything he could do. She said, “Can you paint?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m a rather good painter.”
“Well,” she said, “there are two gallons of green paint there and a brush, and there’s a porch out back that needs to be painted. Please do a good job. I’ll pay you what the job is worth.”
He said, “Fine. I’ll be done quickly.”
She went back to her cookie making and didn’t think much more about it until there was a knock at the door. She went, and the obviousness of his painting was evident: he had it on his clothes. She said, “Did you finish the job.”
He said, “Yes.”
She said, “Did you do a good job?”
He said, “Yes. But lady, there’s one thing I’d like to point out to you. That’s not a Porsche back there. That’s a Mercedes.”
Of all the surprises of Christmas, one of them is surely the whole idea that you are I would think of that first Christmas as a silent night.
LK 2: 1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register.
I. Counting
Powerful men like to count things. They like to count guns, missiles, planes, and, above all, they like to count people. When you count people you make them less than human.
You there, you’re number 17934, stand over there in that group.
You count people when you want to gauge your success or when you want to increase your income. You count people when you want to control them, make them less than human. Prisoners are counted because they are no longer free. Soldiers are counted because they may be expendable. You count animals you plan to slaughter, but you name animals you plan to keep as family pets. You can pretty tell your fate (if you’re an animal) by whether or not people call you Fluffy or Number 5918.
You also count machines. My car gets 24.5 miles per gallon. Or, my car can go from zero to sixty in just 9.3 seconds. Or, this machine is running at 83% capacity. That’s also how we talk about businesses. Profits are up 30%. The market is down 10%. We have 320 employees. We get a 5% raise this year.
Now people, real people, don’t fit well into numbers. How’s your wife? Seventeen. Seventeen what? Just seventeen. Last week she was twenty-three, but the week before that she was only fifteen. So, all in all, seventeen is not bad. Don’t you agree.
When you talk about people as human beings you talk about things like health, emotions, unity, love, discouragement, despair, hope. Numbers don’t address any of those things. Not really.
But we are like Augustus. We love numbers. We even count churches and we count attendance and we count offering. How was November at Indian Creek is generally looking for numbers as an answer.
Funny, Jesus wasn’t good at numbers. In fact, he really do well with big crowds. Not really. Sure, he feed several thousand. But, when they came back the next day he preached a sermon the Bread of Life that ended up getting everybody except the twelve to walk away. Boy he blew it that day. Betcha he won’t preach that sermon again.
Jesus, how was last week. Well, Monday was great. We have more than 10,000 in attendance. But the rest of the week was a disaster. By Wednesday I had preached that 10,000 listeners right down to 12.
Hmm, don’t guess you’ll be written up in Preacher’s Quarterly this year, huh?
Augustus was a powerful man and Rome was really just a massive machine where human beings served as little more then economic units to support the empire.
On the night that Jesus was born, there was a lot of men sitting around counting things. Money. Profits. Slaves, Conquests. Population. No wonder they didn’t notice a child born in a barn. And when his parents later had to flee to Egypt, he was just another Palestinian refugee. Another nameless face in a sea of nameless faces.
II. Traveling
LK 2: 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
It’s no fun to travel anywhere during the holiday season. The roads are crowded. Semi’s are hurtling by at 90 mph. Gas prices are up. The kids are bored.
It says something interesting about American society when you can sell a family vehicle for taking on family trips by pointing out that you can strap the kids in the back, stick headphones on them, drop a little screen down, and have them watching the same mindless cartoons they watch at home. A great family trip. Right, Everyone sitting in the same vehicle and no one talking or listening to anyone else.
We don’t know how long it was after Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem before the birth. Was it an hour, a day, a week? We don’t even know how they traveled. There is no mentioned of Mary riding a donkey. We just don’t know.
What we do know is that it was a night when tired people were on the road. Some on business. Some on vacation. Some looking for work. Some looking for food. Some fleeing for their lives. And in Bethlehem that night they would have had the full gamut. Families, thieves, businessmen, soldiers on leave, and, of course, shepherds.
And here was this young couple. A girl little more than sixteen or seventeen. Pregnant outside wedlock. Another unwed mother. No wonder they were shuffled off into a barn. Exhausted. Confused.
III. Listening
Luke 2: 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
LK 2:8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
I have been present for the birth of all four of my children. It is supposed to be a bonding experience. Some people take videos of the moment.
IL – childbirth classes
I remember preparing for the birth of our first child. Like all well-educated couples, we faithfully attended childbirth classes. Breathe-Breathe-Stop, Breathe-Breathe-Stop. And so forth. About twenty other couples were in the same class. The wives, all looking pretty much like the King James Bible put it: great with child. And we were doing fine. Head of the class. Best breathers in the bunch. Until . . . they showed us the video of a childbirth. Interestingly, they left this until the end of the series of lessons. There may be a reason for this. While other couples stared glassy-eyed with appropriate comments like, “Oh, isn’t that beautiful. It’s a miracle.
My wife and I were just staring. Blood had drained from our faces and our brains were frozen around two thoughts. First, whatever that lady on the video was doing, it couldn’t possibly be normal. We were sure she was doing to die (she didn’t). Second, a urgent set of internet questions about re-exploring ideas like a general anesthetic or at least a massive amount of some powerful narcotic. No way a little breathing was going to work for us.
But, it did. Just like the pioneer women of old, Linda bit the bullet and give birth to all four of our children without a drop of anesthetic. Two things that I now know based on those experiences. First, I do not get nearly as must sympathy when I claim some bodily pain as I used to. Second, if there was a baby born in Bethlehem that night, it was most definitely not born in silence. Mary cried. The baby cried. For all I know Joseph cried.
Like all births, Jesus entered the world through pain and agony and blood and love and hope. The incarnation was a blood smeared newborn, crying helplessly in a feeding trough, long before it was a theological concept waiting to be analyzed in nicely typed academic papers.
IV. Hoping
LK 2: 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
It is hard not to read the story and distort it. We already know the ending. We’ve known it since childhood. But Mary did not know the story even a moment beyond whatever was the now in her life. This was not a night framed in the beautiful art of countless Christmas cards, this was a night of pain and, perhaps, fear.
Imagine how things looked to Mary?
Not heard a word since the Angel had spoken to her nine months earlier. Joseph had experienced a dream, but nothing else came to Mary. Did she think they’d get to Bethlehem and then make it back home to Nazareth before the birth? Before we leave that thought, may I suggest that, surely, no Jewish girl would choose to five birth to her firstborn far from her mother, her aunts, her sisters. Give birth in a town full of strangers with her own companion a man who was probably as frightened and confused as she was. But, here she was, and the waves of overwhelming pain made it absolutely clear what was about to happen.
Maybe she feared she’d blown it. Think about it.
Maybe they should not have tried to travel. Maybe Joseph should have gone to Bethlehem, alone. Maybe the birth was coming a few weeks earlier than she had expected. None of that really mattered. It was too late for anything but enduring that shadow of the valley of death known to every woman who’s birthed a child. Even more so in the ancient world, when it was not uncommon for a woman to die while trying to give birth.
And, surely she would have thought, she must have missed something. Some clue. Some voice in the middle of night telling them what to do.
Now, here they were, in a town full of strangers and, on top of that, in a barn. This couldn’t right. Gabriel had said nothing at all about barns. No mention of cattle. She was sure he never once said the word “manger.” This was all supposed to have happened somewhere else. Surely.
And Joseph wasn’t much help. What did he know about giving birth? Most men didn’t know anything about that. “Go boil some water,” is midwife code for, “Hey, buddy, you go do something to keep busy and stay out of my hair until this thing is over. Got it?”
But it was over. Mary’s body was shaking and trembling, as so often happens as the mother’s body reacts to the exhaustion and trauma of birth.
And there was the baby. Even in her exhaustion, she felt the waves of amazement and contentment sweeping over her. But she was also so very confused. Confused and afraid. What do they do next? Where do they go from here? Since she had obviously taken a wrong turn somewhere, would God just abandon her and seek someone else?
Just then, the old door creaked loudly. Mary’s heart jumped as she saw it slowly moving. Slowly being pushed open from the outside. A head appeared. Not a handsome face. A rough-looking man. Hardened. Skin wrinkled by the sun. Maybe a thief, or worse. Then the head disappeared and the door quickly closed, again.. She heard loud whispering outside. There was more than one of them. More than just two or three, it sounded like to her. Mary grabbed Joseph’s hand. Like her, he was watching the door, and wondering how he could possible protect his beloved Mary against a group of local ruffians.
Then the door opened again. Slowly. And the man great worn hard-faced man shuffled slowly into the room. Sure enough, behind him shuffled no less than six equally foul looking men.
The big one, the one who had first entered, suddenly stopped and looked at the baby. And, then, he looked at Mary. He seemed so ill-at-ease she was sure, for a moment, that he wouldn’t say anything. But, after a moment, he cleared his throat and took a deep breathe.
“Listen, Ma’am. Sorry to both you.” His words came slowly, almost like a child who does not know quite how to say what they want to say.
“Ah, don’t suppose you heard a heavenly host a few minutes ago?”
Mary glanced at Joseph and both of them looked equally puzzled by the question.
“Didn’t think so. Don’t guess anyone in town heard it at all. We, if you’ll pardon us, Ma’am, we all heard it. And we hadn’t been passing the wineskin around or nothing. And, we was told about you and (pointing to the infant) about him.”
Mary’s initial fear was replaced by confusion. “Who are you?”
“Shepherds Ma’am. And, if you don’t mind, we’d like to help. We know quite a bit about giving birth, you know. We’ll get you cleaned up. And, you know, we all live here about. And I’ll tell you one thing, Ma’am. This is the last night you and your husband and (point) him that’s going to be our Savior are going to sleep in a barn. Are you all right?”
The big man noticed the tears that had filled Mary’s eyes. But, at the same moment, he also noticed her face lighten and she began to smile.
Then we were expected. Expected here. Angels. Thousands of them. She knew that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything is . . . well . . . Thank you (and then whispered) thank you.
Who else but shepherds could have provided the perfect messengers of hope to Mary? Where else but a staple could a prince turned pauper be born? And what better moment, what better time, than when all the ordinary business of life plods on in its noisy endless chaos could such a thing happen?
Listening for God in the Ordinary:
There’s a painting of that by Holman Hunt (it hangs in the British National Gallery in London): Jesus standing there, gently rapping at a door, the door unopened. A little boy was standing in front of the painting with his father. “Daddy,” he said, “why don’t they answer the door?”
The father said, “I don’t know why.”
There was a moment’s pause. Then the youngster said, “Maybe they’re making too much noise to hear him knocking.” And that might be true.
On that anything but a silent night, the silence of eternity stepped into the world of noise and fury, and even as He did, the storms began to calm.
All Scripture is from the New International Version
