And the true spirit of the season
Christmas Eve  |  Luke 2:(1-7) 8-20

There are essentially four Christmas stories.

The first two are in the Bible: one is found in Matthew and the other is the one we just read from the gospel of Luke. In one we learn of a trip to Bethlehem and later some travelers visit with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In the other, we hear about the manger, shepherds, and an angel. Two beautiful stories of the birth of Jesus.

The Third Story

The third Christmas story is the one we tell each other in Christmas pageants and nativity scenes. In this version, a lot of the details get filled in. We start imagining a stable with farm animals, for instance. There’s no mention of them in the story. But they exist in the story we’ve inherited, don’t they? They’re in the creche you buy from the Christkindlmarkt, the Christmas specials you watched, and definitely in the Christmas pageant. Lots of people got to be sheep in those. I got to be a shark once. I don’t know how that fit in, but I loved chasing other kids down the aisle. Our leader took some creative license I think.

A lot of the stuff we associate with the birth of Jesus is not from either of the birth stories in the Bible, but come from our tradition around it. These are ideas that seem to flesh out the bare text we actually received. And some of these ideas are ooooold; going back centuries. Ideas that aren’t based in knowledge of Bethlehem but of London, perhaps.

And some of these ideas that we’ve inherited from this tradition tell a beautiful story themselves, a kind of truth that is important. One of our favorites, I suspect, is to consider that there was no room in the inn. If you’ve ever been on a trip in the pre-cell phone days and had to stop and see if any of the hotels had vacancies, only to have to keep going a little farther because there wasn’t a room available in town. This idea is really familiar.

It’s worth understanding that hotels weren’t a thing in first century Bethlehem. So that’s not really what’s happening there. In the original story. But within the later tellings, the tradition, in that third story, it is a useful idea. It helps put some color into the moment.

The Fourth Story

Historians, archeologists, anthropologists, and religious scholars have recently offered a fourth story. One that fits the two stories in Matthew and Luke just fine but doesn’t rely nearly as heavily on that traditional third story with the sheep baaing in the background as an apparently silent Jesus is born. And, by the way, as a father who attended the birth of his children, you actually want the baby to make a noise—if “no noise he makes” is happening, it means something is wrong. When we get to that point in that song, I’m always like “breathe, baby Jesus, breathe!” Anyway—

The fourth story considers the architecture and lifestyle of the people of the region during the first century and how such a moment most likely played out. Like this: Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem and stayed with family because they would. People didn’t turn others away. The rule was if someone comes to the door, you let them in. If they are family, you let them stay. That’s how they lived. That was traditional. It is extremely unlikely that they would have been turned away by everyone. And since there are no hotels, where they stayed was not in the main room of the home, but the second room. They wouldn’t make their guests stay with them in the main space, and perhaps there was no room for them there, but that the second room, perhaps the living room, is where Jesus was born.

And the manger? Cribs and feeding troughs are functionally the same anyway.

If the first and second stories give us the base of our tradition and the third story fleshes it out and shapes the tradition, this fourth story offers us a new look at an old, old story. And the best part about it is that it lets us explore different aspects of the incarnation—what it means to have Jesus, the Messiah, come into the world. Hopefully crying so we know he’s alive.

What are some of the themes that these variations offer?

Loneliness and togetherness. Isolation from family and reuniting with family. But either way, celebration and seeing the newborn king.

I’ve always loved telling Luke’s version of the story but fleshing it out in ways that are slightly different from tradition. Remember how the text doesn’t actually say it’s in a stable? Well it doesn’t list any place at all! So I imagine Mary and Joseph alone in their supposed hometown, on the street with no options. Maybe squatting in an alley. That manger could be a feeding trough someone put out to feed horses. A retelling offers a profound juxtaposition between home and absence and that sense of homelessness, unrooted perhaps.

Or when we consider the traditional image, in a stable, which isn’t a lonely place, but a warm place to be. A place where living creatures give birth—where that is a normal and expected thing. It reminds us, not just of our humanness, but our mammalness. It is natural to give birth there. It would feel safe.

And, if we consider the newer, fourth story, we get to speak to family and community. That tradition would bring them in. Shelter them. Where this couple could be protected and loved and cared for. With true grace.

These are all good stories!

And that’s why I think there’s actually a fifth story. The one that connects the incarnate Word with us. And this story gets told a thousand different ways. Including when Linus has the audacity to read the birth story in the shambled pageant or the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes or when people learn from Buddy that “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” Now, I’m not comparing Rudolph to the gospel exactly. It’s that these all expand our repertoire to connect our hearts, our souls to this bigger story.

A story much bigger than the one we carry in our minds . A story written in love and hope in the very fabric of the cosmos. That our place in this world is to provide those very things as they have been provided to us. To love and give hope.

So we come here on the eve of Christmas, the day of the Incarnation, to celebrate that gift, given by God to us in Jesus. A gift of love and hope given in love and hope to share in love and hope to people who need love and hope. We are drawn to that because we need it and because we know those around us need it and we have the opportunity to receive it with gratitude. To leave here singing praises with cheerful voices because this good news of great joy is for us—and for all people.