Charlotte
Collins Reed
Christ
Church Episcopal
December 24,
2019
Christmas Eve
If I were to travel to my ancestral
home, I would be going to either Headland, Alabama, or Fordyce, Arkansas. Neither are easy to get to. Both require either a long trip by car, or an
airline flight with multiple layovers and a rental car. Neither are places where I know even one soul
anymore, and I am pretty sure neither boasts so much as a Motel 6. But as I visited the Piggly Wiggly grocery store
in Headland, or drove past my grandmother’s old house, or paid my respects at
the graves of loved ones in either Headland or Fordyce, I am confident that my
soul would recognize those places as home in one way or another. Whatever my reason for traveling, whether by
choice or obligation, I trust that I would find a sense of belonging there.
Joseph and Mary are on a journey of
obligation to Joseph’s ancestral home tonight.
They travel in order to be counted for the census. The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem was
not an easy one on a good day, much less when hugely pregnant and either
walking, or riding on the back of an animal.
Did Joseph see anyone he knew in Bethlehem? Were the sights, sounds, and smells at all
familiar? Did he experience any sense of
home there? Those details are left to
our imagination, but we are told that, while they were there, “the time came
for Mary to deliver her child. And 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.” On
the one hand, Joseph’s visit to his ancestral home was hardly a happy
homecoming. But on the other hand, Joseph
and Mary made a home where they found themselves, and I imagine they fell
asleep that night joyful, but completely and utterly exhausted.
If we were hearing the story for the
first time, we might think that, while inconvenient to say the least, this
story is still the simple story of poor timing and a young couple making the best
of a challenging situation. But the
angels and shepherds tell us that this is no normal story about a trip to the
ancestral homeland. An angel of the Lord
appears to some terrified shepherds and says "Do not be afraid; for see--
I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born
this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will
be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in
a manger." Good news of great joy
for all the people-including shepherds-is being proclaimed. The shepherds may or may not have a home, and
if they have an ancestral home, that home is likely the fields in which they
find themselves. The shepherds spend
their lives doing the work no one else wants to do, out in the middle of the
night, keeping sheep from wandering off or being eaten by wolves. But, for them the night sky lights up with a multitude
of angels, singing God’s praise. Clearly
this birth announcement is for no ordinary birth, and no ordinary child. So the shepherds leave their flocks to their
own devices, a bit of a risky move, and go to Bethlehem to see this child. How could they not, having heard the song of
the angels? No doubt Mary and Joseph
were a bit surprised to find the shepherds at the barn door, but they listened
to the words of the shepherds and we are told that Mary pondered those words in
her heart.
Some of us may have traveled to our
ancestral home, or at least the home of our upbringing, for Christmas, looking
for the familiar sights and experiences of Christmas that Hudson and Christ
Church offer. Some of us may be wishing
we could bridge distance and time to be with beloved family somewhere else tonight
and are missing the sense of home that we associate with Christmas. Some of us may long for a home in ways that are
no longer possible. And some of us did
not have to travel at all to feel that we are right where we belong this
night. The power of Christmas, however,
is that we do not have to travel to our ancestral home for the baby Jesus to be
born in our midst. The gospel of Matthew
reminds us that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with Us.
So, the power of Christmas actually flips our understanding of home
upside down. Precisely because Mary and
Joseph had to travel to a far off place, in a circumstance not of their
choosing, give birth to Jesus in a barn, and use a manger for a crib, and because
the angels sang and the shepherds traveled, we know that the Christ Child can
be born anywhere, under any circumstances.
Whenever and where ever the Christ Child is born in our midst, we are in
our ancestral home-the home that connects us with all people, the home made holy
by the song of the angels and the visit of the shepherds, the home where all are
welcome and there is room for everyone. The
message of Christmas is that wherever the Christ Child is born in our midst, we
are home because God has made a home with us.
Amen.
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