The hope of vulnerable love
Christmas Eve | Luke 2:1-20
Centuries ago, the feast of the Incarnation, the holy day we know as Christmas, was celebrated on the winter equinox. Later, calendars shifted the date for Christmas a few days, but this practice, of celebrating the birth of Jesus when the night is longest, is by no means an accident.
It is, when it is most obvious.
When days are short and nights are long; when time is scarce and opportunities are most valuable.
This is when the savior of the world shows up.
The one we long for, hope for.
It is so obvious that we might think it’s a trick. Or convenience. As opposed to the most natural. Inevitable.
Now, there is a trick.
It has nothing to do with the date. And it is decidedly inconvenient for the people.
This savior of the world doesn’t arrive as a demigod (like Maui) or inhabit the body of an experienced general like they might expect.
No, the savior, the Messiah, the would-be king, comes into the world the same way all of us show up. As a baby. Soft, vulnerable, and utterly unable to command an army for at least two decades.
This is not convenient. At all.
Which tells us a lot about our expectations of God. Still. Even in 2022.
What’s in a story?
This baby isn’t born at home, like humans have borne babies throughout all of human history. In a place of comfort, familiarity, and surrounded by a loving family.
This expectant mother is delivering in a strange place, far from home. Perhaps with no midwife or family.
That is one possibility.
Historians have given us a lot to chew on about this story that conflicts with some of our assumptions. The Inn it refers to is not a Holiday Inn. There are no hotels. People stayed in people’s homes. And there were no barns in Bethlehem, so there are probably no cows in this scene.
So our vision of this night is a bit—expanded from the text.
But what this story truly highlights is contrast.
This couple, members of the royal family, are coming to their family home and have no place there. Focusing on what constitutes the inn means we lose sight of where they aren’t welcome: Home.
This isn’t just a story of a would-be king born in a stable. Which is a great story, don’t get me wrong. But displaced royals who aren’t allowed home, and are living in shame. They aren’t married. That is the substance here.
The shaming of an unwed mother and her fiancé.
And I think a lot of people can relate to that experience.
So, who else is in this story?
We’ve got this displaced royal family, giving birth away from home and not in an ancestral home.
We also have angels who visit shepherds at night. Which, as an idea, just rolls into our brain without thinking about what that actually means.
When I was in junior high school, we had an Australian exchange student whose parents kept sheep. And they had dogs and fences and boarded them at night like any livestock. That’s what comes to my mind.
But these shepherds are out in the pasture with their flock. Sleeping and watching. Because it’s night. This isn’t a hundred acre ranch. There are no stables or beds. And it isn’t camping or practicing the family business. People and sheep just laying in the dirt. Surviving.
First century Hebrews don’t aspire to herd sheep. They do it because they have to.
And they aren’t welcome in polite company because they smell! Like they’ve been living with sheep. Which also means that they are never ritually clean. So people are supposed to stay away from them.
These are the people the angels are visiting. People of low status. Just like Mary sang about herself in the Magnificat.
The angels visit these people and tell them that tonight an heir to the throne is born. He will save the people. For he is the Messiah: the blessed one. And they decide to go. Check it out.
And when they get there, they behold this moment, and tell everyone there about what they heard and saw.
And Mary treasures this in her heart.
Not like a parent who hears their baby is perfect or their child is so talented. He’ll grow up to be a star!
She’s the one who proclaimed to her cousin a few months earlier that God needed her to give birth to the king who would transform the world. Lifting up the poor and bringing down the mighty. And here come these poor shepherds with the same story.
This little baby is hope. In the longest night.
People who can’t go home. Or be received by the priests because they tend sheep.
God gives them hope when that night feels like it will never end.
God gives hope to the poor and the lowly.
And when those poor and lowly get together in the light of hope during the longest night…When that hope comes in the promise of saving them…We ought to be thinking about what that looks like. What and who do they need saving from?
Big stuff like poverty and inequity. And smaller stuff like being treated like dirt by Roman occupiers and ignored by their neighbors. It is about their material and spiritual conditions.
And God has promised that the baby born this night is the author of that transformation.
Which is the clue, right?
That there won’t be a violent revolution. No god-man to destroy the enemy or king to raise an army.
A baby, swaddled and loved.
Which means the world’s transformation doesn’t come through fiat, by decree, or dictation. It comes in the form of love. Vulnerable love. Giving. Sharing. Sacrificing. Offering ourselves.
We are to be a light in someone else’s longest night.
And our savior is with us. To hold us in our vulnerable moments. Inspiring us when we are scared. And giving us grace when we fail and fail again.
This is hope: the beloved community. Where all are fed. All are sheltered. And all are shown grace, hope, and love.
Which is good news to all. And very good news to those who need it most.