Luke 2:1-20, Christmas Eve A, December 24,
2013
Grace
and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, Amen.
Rachel Held Evans is a popular
Christian blogger. Recently, she wrote a post about how difficult it is to find
the perfect nativity set. She wonders, “How hard can it be to find a
handmade, fair-trade, biblically-accurate, ethnically-realistic,
reasonably-priced, child-safe nativity scene?” She concludes, pretty
hard, actually. After looking on the internet, I agree with her.
Handmade fair-trade nativity scenes are available, but they usually depict other cultures’ interpretations of the nativity.
Some nativity scenes disregard the biblical story and leave out important characters, like the wise men or shepherds.
American and European nativities completely disregard the ethnicity of the holy family.
Jesus is often blue-eyed and blond,
yet for some reason one of the wise men is often
black.
Many nativities are reasonably priced, but some are not.
Child-safe
nativities are a great way to teach the Christmas story to kids, but they fail
miserably in other categories.
Rachel’s quest for the perfect nativity scene
ended in failure.
In the comments on her post, nobody had the perfect
solution. Some didn’t care that Jesus is often blond-haired and blue-eyed.
Others suggested that Rachel keep a collection of nativities. The sum of the
whole may equal what she was looking for.
Why, I wonder, does no nativity scene seem to
work just right? What is missing from those figurines? Let’s look at each
character to find out. Well, maybe not the wise men. They don’t come until
Epiphany on January 6th anyway.
Let’s start with the animals. How could they go
wrong with animals? Well, some cultures put their own animals in the nativity,
so there’s that.
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/nativities/bengal-nativity
We know that the shepherds probably had their sheep nearby, although I doubt they brought their whole flock in town!
http://www.amazon.com/Fontanini-Roman-Nativity-Figurine-5-Piece/dp/B0000CFWLG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1387484850&sr=8-2&keywords=sheep+nativity+set
Because Jesus was born in a stable, barn animals were certainly there. That explains the donkeys and oxen, but what about camels? Maybe the wise men brought those. What gets me every time is that the animals are almost never scaled correctly.
Look at that tiny camel!
Next, let’s look at the shepherds. The shepherds were out in the fields keeping their sheep together. They probably had been in the fields for some days, so they were quite dirty.
Pigpen should have played the shepherd, not Linus!
In fact, shepherds were held in very low regard in society. They had their sheep feed on others’
private property, so most landowners despised them.
Shepherds in nativity scenes never look degraded or scorned. They are always so clean and beautiful.
Often, one is holding a lamb in his arms. When we don’t see the shepherds as homeless, conniving social scum, we forget how wondrous God was to announce our Savior’s birth to them first. The angels didn’t appear to the rich and powerful; the angels appeared to the lowest of the low.
God sent the angels to them because God loves these least among men.
And the angels’ message was so extraordinary that the shepherds had to see
Jesus for themselves. I doubt that they stopped along the way to wash their
faces.
Next, let’s talk about those angels.
We don’t know much about these heavenly folk,
so maybe they were in white robes and had white, downy wings. Or maybe they didn’t. Angel in Greek, ἄγγελος, really just means “messenger.” These angels
are messengers of God. Surely they didn’t look ordinary, but maybe they didn’t
look extraordinary either.
The
heavenly host is another story.
Now
that we have covered all of the secondary characters, let’s move onto the holy
family. First, Joseph.
Joseph was probably in his thirties, not his eighties!
Next,
Mary.
We know that Mary was a young mother, probably in her early teens. Many
nativity sets show her kneeling by the manger in her demure blue. For just
having given birth, she looks really good!
She doesn’t have any baby weight,
nor does she look exhausted, sweaty, or completely worn out. Mothers have told
me that it is absurd that Mary would be on her knees right after giving birth.
I will have to take their word for it.
Finally,
we come to eight pound six ounce newborn infant Jesus.
Jesus was not born half-grown! Jesus was
wrapped in bands of cloth to keep his arms and legs straight, so only his head
should be visible. He was put in a manger, the feeding trough, which I doubt
was as clean as this hay.
We
have seen that nativities are woefully inadequate.
They can barely represent
the characters involved, let alone be able to express the emotions of the
event.
When you look at a nativity set, do you feel that “The hopes and fears
of all the years are met” in Jesus? The fear turned into joy, the danger turned
into peace, the despair turned into hope. Jesus does all of this for us, and
for the world.
Nativities
show the baby Jesus, but they cannot express how he is fully God and fully
human. They cannot show the magnitude of this event, of how this world is
changed forever in that one tiny child. No visual representation can do that.
Which
is why we are here. We come to worship Jesus, to hear his story anew. Together with our families and friends we light our candles and sing our praises of his birth. In this place, God comes among us - in the word, in the song, and in the breaking of the bread. In these moments, God changes us. God empowers us to overcome whatever is stopping us from sharing the good news.
In our fear, God says, "Be not afraid."
In our grief, God says, "I am with you."
In our despair, God says, "I will give you salvation."
Our God found in Jesus loves us in these profound ways. Jesus gives us all of the joy, peace, and hope that we can ever need. Empowered by God, we like the shepherds can go out and spread the good news of Christ's birth to all who will hear. For all of who Jesus is and will be is found in his first moments on this earth - as that little baby squirming and crying in a trough of dirty hay. Amen.
In our fear, God says, "Be not afraid."
In our grief, God says, "I am with you."
In our despair, God says, "I will give you salvation."
Our God found in Jesus loves us in these profound ways. Jesus gives us all of the joy, peace, and hope that we can ever need. Empowered by God, we like the shepherds can go out and spread the good news of Christ's birth to all who will hear. For all of who Jesus is and will be is found in his first moments on this earth - as that little baby squirming and crying in a trough of dirty hay. Amen.
