According to Plan

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
December 24, 2021

Christmas Eve

Back in the day when dresses came in large, well constructed boxes, my parents would save those boxes so that a few weeks before Christmas, my brother, sister, and I could fill one of the boxes with toys we no longer played with.  We were told that we needed to make room for the new toys we would receive on Christmas morning.  On the one hand, we rejoiced in the perceived promise that good things would happen on Christmas morning.  We did not know what, exactly, those good things would be, but we did want to be ready.  On the other hand, we were not such good sports about having to part with any of our toys.  I wish I could tell you that those toys were given to charity, but the reality is that Mom and Dad hid them away until some dark winter day in February when school was cancelled for snow and we were stuck in the house.  Then the box would be brought out and we would have toys to play with that we had long forgotten.  This was an act of self-defense on the part of my parents that brought them some sanity in the middle of a New Jersey winter.  However, the idea of making space for Christmas is at the heart of Advent, that season of making ready for the birth of Jesus.  So without even knowing it, Mom and Dad played right into the liturgical season of preparation.

I think about the practice and discipline of preparing for Christmas by making room for new toys when I hear the line in the Christmas story “And she gave birth to her first born son, and wrapped him in cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”  There are many scholarly ideas in the commentaries about why there was no room in the inn, such as that Mary and Joseph had no money to pay for the inn and they certainly could not stay for free, or that if she gave birth in the inn the room would be ritually unpure according to the Jewish law, or the fact that Mary was pregnant, they weren’t married, and the innkeeper would have none of that.  Those theories serve to perpetuate stereotypes about our Jewish brothers and sisters and are inappropriate interpretations of the story.  The story tells us that everyone had to go to their hometowns to be registered for the census, so everyone was traveling, and the hotels were all booked.  I believe that, in an act of generosity, the innkeeper made room for Mary and Joseph to stay in the barn rather than turn them out in the street.

Over the last four weeks during the season of Advent, we have prepared for the birth of Jesus.  We may have done the spiritual equivalent of putting toys away to make room for new gifts as we made room for Jesus through the disciplines of prayer, giving, study, or even other acts of preparation such as cleaning, wrapping, cooking, or finding meaningful and thoughtful gifts for loved ones.   Our acts of love for others help us make room within ourselves for the birth of the Christ child.  We have done the work of preparing and making room, and now we have gathered to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. 

However, the beauty and promise of Christmas is not that Jesus will be born in our midst just the way we planned.  If we did not know that before, we are definitely learning it this year!  Mary and Joseph had certainly prepared for the birth of this child, but not for Jesus to be born in a stable while they were out of town.  The innkeeper had no idea that the Messiah would be born in his barn that night when he made space for Mary and Joseph.  The shepherds had prepared for their work tending sheep, but not for the heavens to open and the angels to sing.  We have prepared with gifts and meals, music and flowers.  But preparing for the birth of Jesus is not like preparing to make a lasagna where we go to the store, buy the ingredients, follow a recipe, and get the lasagna we expected.  We prepare, not because we know what to expect, but precisely because we do not know what to expect.  The Christmas story tells us that the promise of Christmas is that the Christ child is born in our midst even in the midst of unplanned, unexpected, and even unwanted circumstances.  The promise of Christmas is Emmanuel, God with us, always.  Our response to that promise is to be prepared to greet the Christ child even, or perhaps especially, when things do not go according to plan.                        Amen.