Rev Ann Franklin - Christmas Eve   2006

We come once again to hear the familiar story of a long ago night in Bethlehem.  It is a story of Mary, and Joseph, and the birth of their baby, Jesus.

But it also is the story of a time and a place.  It is a story of angels and shepherds too. These shepherds were unlikely characters in the story. They were nomads who lacked the facilities to observe the social and religious niceties of their time.  Mistrusted and despised, they lacked the standing even to be able to testify in courts of law or enter the synagogue.

Yet, in this story it was to the shepherds that the angels first came to tell of the birth of this special child, the savior.  It is an intriguing story, really.  The prophets for centuries had proclaimed that salvation would come.  The people of first century Palestine were waiting for, expecting, longing, praying for this salvation.  They were praying to be saved from cruel governors and mean soldiers that were part of their daily life under Roman occupation.  The hymn "Oh little town of Bethlehem" that we will sing says it so simply and well:  "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

The people expected God to send them a mighty ruler who would overthrow the brutal military force of the Roman Empire.  A powerful king who would secure for them of a peaceful and prosperous life.  A royal emperor who would have a royal court.  They believed God would send them someone who would overcome the powerful of their day.

But here, the story goes, are God's angels telling the unsuspecting, lowly shepherds to come come quick and see the savior, who was, by the way, a baby, whose royal court would be their sheep and this baby's adoring parents, of course.  How on earth, I wonder, did the shepherds decide to accept the angels' summons, go to Bethlehem?  How did they suspend shame and self-doubt?  What temerity it took!  You can almost hear the shepherds say to one another -- Us?  Do you think that angel is talking to us?  Us?  No one talks to us.  Do you want to go to Bethlehem?  Do you?  Let's go!  Why not?  What do we have to lose?

And in that one moment of half-belief their lives were transformed.  They became not just outcasts, but the first to know the good news of Jesus' birth.  The first to hear the angels, the first to see for themselves what God what God had done, what was doing!  To see and to believe that they were part of God's incarnation.  They would become the first to praise God for all they had seen at Christmastime.  They would be the first to go and tell.  They would go and tell because in those peasant parents, Mary and Joseph, they recognized that God was transforming our notions of strength and might.  In that rag-tag gathering of unlikely people and animals, they recognized that God was reconciling all of creation.  In that nearly homeless family they recognized the enormous love of God for them, and for all people.   Something new came alive in them.  Hope was born again.  They saw themselves, just as they were, as heralds of a new dawn!
 
In the dim light of the stable they really did recognize the long awaited savior.   In that tiny, impoverished, helpless baby, they recognized one who could transform the power structures of the world, and they believed. 

And tonight we tell again the story -- also about peoples and a time and place.  Especially those of us who just returned from Bethlehem.  People still pray for peace in Bethlehem.  We tell of the Jewish people, fearful, longing for security.  And we tell of the Palestinian citizens of Bethlehem living behind a 30 foot wall, the separation barrier, in a virtual concrete prison.  Tonight Christian pilgrims from Europe and the United States must go through metal detectors and turnstiles to get to Manger Square to worship, while Palestinian Christians who live just outside the wall whose ancestors have gone to Bethlehem at Christmas for generations are categorically denied entry.   The Christmas carol is still sadly true:  the hopes and fears of all the years still meet still in Bethlehem tonight. 

In Bethlehem and Boston, in so many homes and many places, people hope and pray for peace.    What temerity it takes to believe -- even in the sweetness of this night that we are part of God's proclamation of peace and good will to all.  The good news tonight is a story about Mary and Joseph and shepherds and all with the power to even half-believe that something new can be born in us.

We say that Christmas is for kids.  We say that Christmas is for shoppers and party-goers.  But the prophet Isaiah proclaims it differently.  "The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light" -- the sad, the lonely, the oppressed, the scared, and the uncertain.  That is who Christmas is for.  The soldier and the citizen living under military occupation.  That is who Christmas is for.  Those who will sing songs of hope with the angels.  That is who Christmas is for.  Those who will run and kneel with the shepherds.  That is who Christmas is for.   Come on, the shepherds say to us, come on!  If we don't go, what do we have to lose?