Christmas Eve 2005
Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
It was just an ordinary night in an ordinary town. It is a peaceful night, thanks to strong arm
of the Romans who are ruling the country.
It is a quiet night. Visitors to
town all settled into guest rooms. It
is a regular night; the shepherds are doing their ordinary job out in the
countryside, settling the sheep in for the evening.
Mary and Joseph have found a place to stay. We don’t know the details, just that the
guests rooms were occupied due to the census.
So they share a room with the animals.
Not that unusual when animals often lived on the bottom floor of your
house.
People stayed where they could. We like to picture the nice stable scene when
it was probably more like a cave our back or that ground floor room.
No fanfare, no trumpets, no royal announcement or ringing of
church bells. Just a
baby born in the regular way to ordinary people. Just folks, Mary and Joseph, doing the best
they could with what they had. Probably a little scared like all new parents are, tired and
overwhelmed.
And amazed at this miracle of birth. Awed at the fragile
delicate life in front of them. Ready to just rest and recover and learn to live as a family.
When the shepherd show up. Ordinary as they come. Shepherds who had been
innocently tending the sheep.
Working stiffs out in the fields.
Interrupted by
out of the ordinary angels! Shaken out of their ordinary lives and into the course of history. Look!
Heaven cannot contain God.
God has come to earth in the cries of a tiny babe. Born in an obscure town
to unheard of parents. Announced
by angels to, of
all things, simple unnamed shepherds.
And into the ordinary God comes, breaking in. The poet U.A. Fanthorpe
writes:
This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeeper’s presented
arms.
This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.
This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the
(Fanthorthe: BD:AD)
This ordinary moment, in which God comes to earth, making
all ordinary moments holy. Blessing ordinary lives and ordinary people and ordinary events. Filling all time and place with meaning.
So that it is not just this night that is holy, but all
nights. It is not just this day that is
holy, but all days. It is not just this
time that is holy, but all times.
For heaven cannot contain God. It in not just in
starlight, or candlelight but also in daylight that we see God. Present among us, still here. Still intervening in our
daily lives in extraordinary ways.
The shepherds have to go back to their flocks. They can’t afford to quit their jobs. But it is different now, for they have heard
the angels and seen the baby. And have
a story to tell! Picture them, years
later, still watching the flocks by night, gathered around the fire and telling
the story all over again. How they had
been the first to see the savior. And how they now see themselves as God’s own shepherds.
For it is into the ordinary that Christ comes. Again and again until we all walk “haphazard
by starlight, straight into the kingdom of heaven.”