Christmas Stories

Someone said Christianity is not a religion at all, but a way of life. And I agree, he’s right, but only half right. Christianity IS a religion that, because of our stories about Jesus, demands a certain way of life of those who claim him as Lord and Savior. This is true of most any religion.

Christianity is a religion of stories. And they are not stories that mandate dogma of literalist inerrancy, nor stories for non-Christians to tear apart and show how foolish we are to love them so, but beloved stories of our relationship with God, as every religion has its stories.

Defining orthodox Christian theology as Father incomprehensible, Son incomprehensible, and Holy Spirit incomprehensible*, Christianity goes on to insist they are not three incomprehensibles but one incomprehensible, yet claims a three-person God who is Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier - - where our Advent stories are about the Redeemer who both Has come and Will come again.

It’s incomprehensible, our holy history makes no sense at all: I mean, “I will be your God and you will be my people”, what’s in it for God but worry, sorrow, frustration, outraged anger from time to time, as the Bible makes plain. Why would God bother with us, much less come and be ONE of us, Jiminy Christmas. If you ever looked out into the heavens through an astronomical telescope, you got a tiny glimpse of the Big Bang, which is still exploding: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, from this fragile earth, our island home. 105-thousand light years across, our own Milky Way Galaxy alone, of which we are but an infinitesimal, remote part, is an average size galaxy in just this one universe of some 200-BILLION galaxies - - and God bothers with us, are you kidding me? It boggles the mind. And again, what’s in it for God?

Someone, maybe it was Mark Twain, called humanity “God’s failed experiment”. And it’s even more dire than what Mark Twain said: all the way back In the beginning, Genesis 6:1-8, God despairs of us, is so disappointed in us that he regrets ever having created us. And yet, God sticks with us, God starts over with us, a new creation in the story of Noah and the Flood. And now, God save us, we are worse than ever. The promise is no more global flooding, but maybe, as James Baldwin wrote, “The Fire Next Time”, and not unlikely of our own doing, in our own time and space.

Anyway, why? Yes, it’s incomprehensible, incredible, but God himself gives the answer. John 3:16, remember? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. God so loved the world, that’s “why”. If you look, the answers are in the stories.

Heilsgeschichte, Holy History, a religion of stories, wonderful stories about us and our God. As I say, some NOT so wonderful, horrifying, terrifying, telling God’s frustrated fury. Others recalling God’s faith in us, “Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace”. God, again - - again and again giving us another chance. 

In our religion of stories, there is, at Easter, the story of God the Lamb, God himself slain on the Day of the Slaughter of the Lambs for Passover, symbolizing God’s love for us: even to death on a cross. Yet even then, the stories go on to say, at early dawn on Easter morning, the First Day of the Week, Resurrection: God comes right back to us, for ultimate love of us. Someone said, “Poor Jahweh, he’s such a Lamb: he never gives up”.

Christianity is stories. And we go way back: Israelites in the wilderness with Moses, stopping by night around tribal campfires, telling campfire stories of God and God’s people. Eponymous descendants of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, we are still and forever people of stories - - stories that we love, and that we love to tell and hear, over and over, again and again. 

And so in our story this morning, an angel comes in a dream to comfort and assure a devastated boy. If Mary was fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, Joseph was sixteen or seventeen or eighteen (teenagers in love?). The smitten young man Joseph has just found out that his fiance, the love of his life, the girl of his dreams, is pregnant, and he knows he hasn’t touched her. It’s not “just a story”, he’s brokenhearted, but still so in love with her. Today’s story rings true for everyone who has ever been in love, and we can imagine how Joseph felt. But Hallelujah, the angel comes! 

It’s our story of the season. And here’s another chapter, listen:

And it came to pass in those days, that a decree went out from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Kyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch o’er their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph - - and the babe lying in a manger. 

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

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Sermon or homily in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, the Rev Tom Weller on 22 December 2019, Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A. Basis: Matthew 1:18-25. Luke 2:1-20.

* BCP p.864 Quicunque Vult, The Creed of Saint Athanasius

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Luke 2:7 καὶ ἔτεκεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον, καὶ ἐσπαργάνωσεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἀνέκλινεν αὐτὸν ἐν φάτνῃ, διότι οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι.

No space for them in the kataluma, the guest room in the upstairs living area, apart from the animals that were sheltered on the ground level. So, if we may look closer at the story, instead of the stable we usually visualize, Luke may mean us to see that M&J were not at an inn, but at a private home, in the enclosed and protected ground level with the animals, and the story says Jesus was born there.

Luke 10:34 inn πανδοχεῖον in Luke's telling of Jesus' parable of The Good Samaritan.