Luke 2:1-20; Titus 2:11-14; Isaiah 9:2-7
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever noticed how fear pervades the story of Jesus’ birth? St. Luke tells us three times in the first two chapters of his Gospel that someone was afraid. First there was Zechariah the priest and father of John the Baptist. Then there was Mary the Mother of our Lord. And last there were the Bethlehem shepherds watching over their flocks by night. Of course, those three were each afraid for the same reason – they had each been visited by one of God’s holy angels and were told some truly amazing news.
Still, there are several other indications in the Christmas story that people were afraid, even if the scriptural text does not explicitly say so. Let’s begin with Mary and Joseph. Due to Caesar Augustus’ decree that all the world be counted in a census, the newly betrothed couple was forced to make the arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the City of David, because they were of the house and lineage of David. The distance between the two villages was ninety miles, south along the flatlands by the Jordan River and then west over the hills of Judea. It was a grueling trip under the best of conditions. Most would travel no more than twenty miles per day, but Joseph and Mary, nine months pregnant, likely traveled no more than ten miles a day due to Mary’s impending delivery. It was also winter. The average daytime temperature would have been in the 30s, and it rained daily and was freezing at night. There were also bandits and wild animals to contend with. Truly, there was much for Joseph and Mary to be fearful of. It seems the only thing more frightening, however were the ramifications of disobeying Caesar’s edict.
And let’s not forget the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy. Mary was a young unmarried woman, a girl, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and proclaimed that she would conceive and bear the Son of God. Mary was afraid, and for many reasons: She was afraid of the angel, and of her sin in the presence of the glory of God. She was afraid of the scandal and the shame of being pregnant outside the bonds of marriage. She was afraid of how Joseph, her family, and their community would take the news. But Gabriel said, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” When Mary told her husband the news, Joseph also was afraid of the scandal and the shame that would be brought upon them, and he sought to end their relationship quietly. However, an angel of the Lord also appeared to Joseph in a dream and said to him, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
This still, however, is not the totality of the fearful things that make up the Christmas story. When Joseph and Mary finally arrived at their destination in Bethlehem, “there was no place for them in the inn.” Here an unfortunate misunderstanding has entered our tradition the result of a mistranslation of the original Greek of St. Luke’s Gospel. The Greek word καταλύματι, translated as inn, is not a motel or a traveler’s inn, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which is a different word altogether, but rather it is a guest room. Thus, Joseph and his imminently expecting wife Mary did not arrive in Bethlehem after a week and a half arduous travel only to be turned away from the local Motel 6, but when they arrived at the home, most likely that of a relative, they found that the guest room was already full, undoubtedly due to the influx of travelers from the region in Bethlehem for the census just like Joseph and Mary. We must understand that the culture simply would not permit the turning away of an imminently due pregnant woman, and we must not forget that both Joseph and Mary were of the house and lineage of David. Undoubtedly, they had numerous relatives in or near Bethlehem, including Mary’s cousin Elizabeth and her husband the priest Zechariah whom Mary had visited six months earlier. Nevertheless, there was no place for Mary in the guest room. Was there no one who would give up their space for this woman about to deliver a child? Perhaps this was their reaction to Mary’s scandalous pregnancy? We remember Jesus’ words, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Likewise, St. John wrote of Jesus, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” It is possible that Mary was ushered into the main living quarters of the family home. It was not uncommon to have mangers in the main living space, as the stable was attached to the home on the other side of the wall. It is also possible that Mary and Joseph had to spend their stay in Bethlehem in the household stable with the donkeys and the sheep. Either way, it was a fearful situation for a young mother to be in as she was about to give birth. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him swaddling cloths and laid him a manger.”
“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.” Now, shepherds were a suspect lot. They were ceremonially unclean because they spent their days and nights in the wild with their sheep, they regularly had to fight off wild animals and bandits, and they were generally filthy with dirt, and blood, and feces, and they stank from not being able to wash and bathe regularly. Shepherds were not highly regarded by the rich and powerful and by people of influence. Indeed, when the prophet Samuel was sent to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king over Israel, Jesse didn’t even bother to mention his son David who was a shepherd out in the field keeping watch over his father’s flocks. Perhaps that is precisely the reason, however, that the Bethlehem shepherds were the first to receive the good news of Jesus’ birth? Nevertheless, like Zechariah, and Mary, and Joseph, indeed, like every man or woman who has ever been greeted by an angel, the shepherds were sore afraid. In the Greek, the shepherds literally feared with fear.
Yes, the story of Jesus’ birth, the Christmas story we know and cherish so well, is literally permeated with fear. And that is a good thing. It is good that the Christmas story is permeated with fear because our story, our world, and our lives are also permeated with fear. This is now our second Christmas together under the fear of a global pandemic, and there appears to be no end in sight. Instead of the promise of eradication and a return to normalcy, we are faced with more and more easily spread variants that resist and circumvent the vaccines altogether. The economy is in fear-inspiring chaos as the price of literally everything continues to rise weekly with no indication of leveling off or declining. Many families are beginning to wonder how long they will be able to make ends meet. And the political climate today is at a fever pitch that it is difficult to imagine we will be able to simmer down. It’s gotten to the point that families and friends and congregations are divided so that they do not merely agree to disagree, but they actually believe that those holding different views and beliefs are evil and must be silenced, if not destroyed.
Fear is a constant human emotion. Every generation has had its causes and reasons to be afraid. Many of you experienced the fear of 9/11 and the Holocaust and Pearl Harbor before that. Likely your parents or grandparents lived through the darkness and fear of the Great Depression. Earlier still there were plagues and wars and tyrannies as far back as there is history. The world has never been without fear from the moment our first parents hid in fear from the presence of God in the garden after they succumbed to Satan’s temptation to be gods unto themselves.
Yet, it was into such a world as this, as our world, that Jesus was born. God came to us in human flesh, just like yours. He was conceived in the womb of a human mother and was born naked, helpless, and defenseless in blood and gore as we all are. He was wrapped in swaddling cloths, straps of linen, the common wrappings for a common child that resemble all too closely the burial cloths his lifeless body would be wrapped in roughly thirty-three years later. Fearless, willingly, Jesus was born into this fearful world so that we need not be afraid anymore. The constant refrain of God’s holy angels, his messengers, even his pastors is this: DO NOT BE AFRAID! You have found favor with God, regardless of what you have done or haven’t done, regardless of your political persuasion, your gender, the color of your skin, or any other thing that you can imagine. You did not deserve this gift, and you don’t deserve it now, but it has been given to you as a free and perfect gift; it is yours, and no one can take it away from you. Merry Christmas! Your God is not distant, far off, and out of touch, but he is very near you, even in you, for God became man that man should become God. That is what it means that the word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us. God became everything that you are, experienced everything that you experience, and fulfilled the Law for you, and he suffered the punishment you deserve in your place. Death was defeated in the resurrection of Jesus, but that all began in the incarnation of Jesus we celebrate this evening. We were a people walking in the darkness of sin, fear, and death, but upon us has shown a great light
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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