The Nativity

Scripture Luke 2:8-20.  Christmas Eve 2011

Isn’t it just wonderful hearing that story?  We can imagine the beautiful scene.  The stable, with light all around it, Mary and Joseph kneeling down at the manger.  The baby Jesus laying there content with his arms held up - kind of pointing to God, the shepherds looking on with their sheep in the background. 

We usually throw in the wise men - even though we know they came later.  One of them is kneeling,  their camels are next to them, and they are holding their gifts - stretching them out toward Jesus.  We glimps angels in the background - the glow from star forms a halo over this scene and sometimes we can even hear Christmas carols in the background.

Everyone is in awe of the baby, everyone is happy, the animals even seem to be smiling.  It is just this perfect comforting calm scene. This is the feel good scene we see on Christmas cards, were  taught in Sunday School, envision in our minds.

But think about it - in this scene is a women who just gave birth.  After giving birth, I agree that many mothers are glowing and happy - but face it, there is some residual pain after birth and she certainly is not going to be kneeling on floor.  This was a natural birth - Mary did not have an epidural and she didn’t even have a bed to lay in to give birth.  And if all those animals were surrounding her - she gave birth in a pretty smelly place.

And on top of that she and Joseph had been traveling - have you ever been on a trip and not been able to find a hotel??  I don’t know about you but I get really cranky - and here is Mary tired,  in labor, with no place to stay, and ends up giving birth in a stable -  you only imagine what she was yelling at Joseph during the birth!

So there they are Mary a scared teenager who just gave birth in a stable and Joseph who I would think was also kind of scared - after all Mary is giving birth to the son of God and he couldn’t even find a room for her.  Then all these shepherds show up.   From what I have learned about shepherds in the first century is they were about the lowest rung on the social ladder.  They stayed out in the fields with their sheep most of the time; so they were dirty, they smelled, and here they are showing up at the birth.

After all that do you think everyone would be happy and smiling???


How we have santized this scene.  Cleaned it up and  wrapped it in a nice bow so we could feel good on Christmas Eve. Lets face it, the scene we invision today is not he scene that the 1st century writer of Luke is explaining to us. Let’s try to put this story in the  21st century. 

What would we say if the homeless people, living under the Penn Street Bridge, would start talking about hearing angles sing and walk through the city telling about the messiah being born -that God had come to live with us???                 

And then what if that child was found in the back room of an abandonded/condemed/crack house.  Born to an unwed teenager, who traveled from New York with her boyfriend (who says he is not the father of her child)?

Doesn’t look like the scene we want to have on our Christmas cards does it?  But, that scene is more like the story in Luke than what we have turned the nativity into.

The story of Jesus birth is telling us that God comes to us in the fringes.  Jesus was not born to Caesar’s’s daughter but a peasant girl.  The Angles announce the birth to the lowly shepherds, not the rich elite.  This miraculous birth did not occur in a large palace with room enough for everyone to visit. It happens in a smelly stable.  And there God is, as a child, laying in a manger. 

God comes to us in the fringes.  In places you least expect God to be.

God comes to us when we are living under the Penn Street Bridge or the homeless shelter.  God comes to us when we are we are sitting in a room waiting for a loved one to die.  God comes to us when everything we hoped and dreamed for has suddenly crashed and we don’t know which way is up any more. 

Lets face it, all of our lives are filled with regret and disappointment.  But we know there are so many people who live on the fringe, whose lives are, more often than not, difficult, painful and all too short.   And in this wonderful Christmas story - God comes ...

God come not at the center of the world; but on the fringe to call the orders and structures of the day into question and herald a new beginning.   A new beginning for a world that will be turned upside down.  For God will not play favorites with the rich and the powerful.  God will not play favorites with anyone...  God will be there for everyone.  Especially the down trodden and the helpless.

Luke's nativity scene is all about being on the fringe.  God comes, in a little backwater town called Bethlehem.  God comes, when a scared young teenager and her equally scared fiancee can't even find a decent place in which to give birth and are forced to take refuge with animals.  God comes, and only dirty shepherds and their even dirtier sheep take notice.

God did not come to earth in a touchy, feel good, perfect picture.  God came to earth to those  living on the fringe in a dirty, real life way.  Yes we can keep the sanitized nativity picture in our minds - but don’t let that picture determine who God is. 

God came into this world to break out of that perfect image.  To show us that all people are worthy and those who society places on the bottom, those who live on the fringe, are on the top. 

God did not come to perfect people.  God came in the midst of a very chaotic scene.  In an anything but perfect way. 

God came to us in the fringes for a reason.