Luke 2:1-14
It is roughly 100 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
- According to Google Maps…
- It would take about 34 hours to travel the distance on foot…
- Not counting stops for rest…
- And this does not consider marauding bandits…
- Flash floods washing away roads…
- And full-term pregnancy.
- But this is the journey that Joseph and Mary make.
The journey is not a choice.
- Caesar Augustus has spoken.
- And like it or not.
- Impending birth notwithstanding.
- They make the exhausting 100-mile trek to fill out some government forms.
Joseph and Mary are like poor and defenseless people of every place and time.
- At the whim of whatever Caesar or compassionless bureaucrats direct.
Well…there is irony here…is there not?
- That is…while Joseph…Mary and their unborn child are headed to Bethlehem to be counted…
- The fact is…
- They really don’t count!
- Not to Rome anyway.
- They are faceless nobodies.
- They are numbers in the files of an uncaring empire.
But their hope is not in Caesar Augustus.
- There hope is in God.
They are embraced not by the imposed pax Romana.
- “The peace” of Rome.
- But in the peace of the God of mercy.
- They count!
- To God!
Tonight…little Bethlehem is the center of light for humankind.
- God has become one of us.
- And because he has become human…
- We realize the sacredness of our own humanity.
We…who travel between the Nazareth’s and Bethlehem’s of our lives…
- Count!
We…who are often overwhelmed by feelings of nothingness…
We…who find ourselves so beaten down that we do not want to get up again…
- Have reason to hope.
Because of Emmanuel:
- God is with us.
This “silent…holy” night…
- A savior is born in our midst.
- In Christ…
- We count…
- We matter…
- We belong…
- We are holy…
We realize…in him…the holiness within us.
- His light illuminates every morning of our lives.
- His presence brings hope and joy to our messy…
- Grimy stables.
We behold his face in the faces of our spouses and children and friends.
- We make room for him in our welcoming of every visitor to our own Bethlehem stables.
- Where all of us count.
- Where all of us matter.
- Where all of us are holy in the eyes and heart of our God.
Once we have seen God in a stable…
- We never know where we might see him again.
- If God is present in this least favorable place…
- There is no place or time so lowly or earthbound…but that holiness can be present…too.
- For just when God seems the most helpless…
- God is the most strong.
- And just where we least expect him…
- He comes most fully.
On this Christmas Day…
- Look and see God in your stable in all those you love.
- Know in every season of the New Year the joy of “preparing him room” in your hearts and homes.