Luke 2:1-14
1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (TNIV)
It’s an old wheezer of a joke, but it’s still a good one—a man, completely devout in his faith in God, is living peaceably in his house, minding his own business, when suddenly, on his radio comes a weather warning that his area is at risk for sudden flash floods. But the man says to himself, “God loves me, God will save me if He must.” And he stays where he is, even as the floods begin. Sometime after the floods begin, when the waters are now several feet high, a woman comes by in a canoe and she says to the man, “You, over there, your house is flooding. Come, join me in the canoe and I’ll row you to safety.” And the man says to her, “No, God loves me, and God will save me if He must.” The floodwaters continue to rise, and a helicopter flies overhead, and a voice in a megaphone shouts out, “You down there, your house is flooding. Come, join me in the helicopter and I’ll fly you to safety.” And the man shouts up, “No, God loves me, and God will save me if he must.” The man drowns, and at the gates of heaven, he demands an audience with God. And he says to God, “God, I thought you loved me. Why didn’t you save me?” And God replies, “Dude! (If God indeed used the term “dude.”) I sent you a radio report. I sent you a canoe. I sent you a helicopter. What more to you want from me?”
This is the time of year when we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ in human form, with a heart that beats, hands that hold, and a voice that proclaims God’s love for all people. And really, it is what we needed most to be sent from God. Because if what we needed was simply the lesson, the lesson that God loved us, God could have sent us a teacher. If all we needed was to be made well of our illnesses and our aches and pains, God could have sent us a doctor. If our greatest need was equality, God could have sent us an prophet, and if our greatest need was forgiveness, God could have sent us a priest. But because each and every one of those was such a great need for us, the only thing God could do was to send His Son to us instead. And so in moments when we are tempted to be as the man in the flooded house was, asking God why God did not do more for us, remember—God has already given us the greatest gift of all, His child, a living embodiment of divine love who was born this night in Bethlehem.
The man in the flood story is waiting for God to hit him over the head, to dazzle him with divine presence enough that he would be saved from the disasters that were awaiting him, and it didn’t quite turn out that way. Imagine now, the circumstances of the very first Christmas, way, way, back in that little stable in Bethlehem. The prophets of the Old Testament have long since come and gone, telling us to prepare for the coming of the Lord who will rescue Israel from the mighty empires of the time—Assyria and Babylon. The prophets who foretold the coming of a suffering servant, born to a virgin mother, can no longer guide or comfort Israel under Roman occupation. And so Israelites like Mary and Joseph set out, ready to obey imperial rule, ready to go and be registered for the taxation census. And the baby boy is born, and the heavens rejoice so much that the seams between heaven and earth are broken and the angels pour out, shouting out to the shepherds in the fields, “Be not afraid!”
What a ludicrous thing to say! It is the middle of the night, darkness is all around them, and when they see the curtain between heaven and earth split, the shepherds, Luke says, are rightly terrified—to say nothing of any previous fears they may have had—for their herds, or their families, their own livelihoods—all of the exact same fears that plague us today! Put a different way—the floodwaters are at the gates of their homes, and the angels are saying to them, “Be not afraid!” And any sane person would have to laugh, or keep going about their sane person way. They certainly would not stop and listen! They would go home, sleep it off, maybe call their psychologists in the morning. They wouldn’t actually take the angels’ words to heart!
But…if I were not a cynic, then after such a display of divinity, I would not want to be afraid either—after that sort of reassurance, I would expect God’s return to earth to come in all manner of power and splendor that is deserving of an almighty God. And if that is what the shepherds are expecting, God save them when they arrive at the manger and see a baby instead. Those shepherds could well have reacted as the man in the flood did—“God, I thought you loved me. Why didn’t you save me from my lot in life?” To which God simply says, “Shepherds, I sent you my only Son, whom I love beyond all measure. What more do you want from me?”
Of course, we all know that is not how the story turns out. The shepherds instead return home rejoicing, not feeling for a lack of God’s presence at all. Which is, of course, as it should be. It is not, however, as it always will be…especially for us today, when we will return to the world of work, of obligations, of pressing deadlines and uncompromising financial insecurities, and probably before too long, we too will come close to asking God the same question—“God, I thought you loved me. Why haven’t you saved me?” And if you get to that moment in time, I only ask that reach back to this moment, to this night, 2,000 years ago, when God’s only Son came to earth not in the dazzling cloak of divine wonder, but in the gurgling, crying, and laughing form of a vulnerable baby boy, and while the rest of the world continued turning, for these shepherds, they knew, that God had arrived in the world and that one day, all would be well for them once more…all because the wall between heaven and earth had vanished, and an angel had actually taken the time to preach to them what I have to think the moral of the Christmas story truly, truly is—“Be not afraid!” Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
December 24, 2011
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