From the Pulpit: Christ’s birth was God’s promise kept

It is a simple yet surprisingly powerful story of a young girl giving birth to her first child, attended only by her betrothed, a few shepherds and a stable of animals. It is a story that is not only read in the stunning silence of our gathering each Christmas eve, but I’m reminded every year that it is read in churches in every country in the world and it has been done through the millennia since the story of Christ’s birth was put in print. 

What is interesting about this story is that, by all rights, it’s a story that should not even have been noticed, much less revered. After all, countless young girls gave birth that night and we remember none of them. But this is no mere story.

Luke’s telling of it is interesting because he makes sure that we notice that the quiet intimacy of this story is set off by an enormous setting. He writes, “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” (Luke 2:1-2) Emperors and governors are apt subjects for dramatic, historical narratives. Unwed teenage mothers and their vulnerable babies are not. And yet Luke locates this simple story amid the powers and principalities of the age to make a claim, that the child born to this young mother will change the course of history. His claim it seems is that the fates of leaders and common folk alike hang in the balance of his destiny.

We are so accustomed to the reading of the passage in the beautiful settings of our churches that we may miss the irony of putting a newborn beside an emperor, as if the two could possibly have anything to do with one another. What I think that we do not miss however, is that in that powerful empire there is a young, vulnerable mother and child. The fear and hope bundled together in the heart of Mary and the helplessness of a newborn baby is something that we don’t miss. It moves us. We know what it is like to be vulnerable.  

What has you feeling vulnerable in this season? The state of politics, the divide in the nation? Closer to home, a broken relationship or an empty bank account? Maybe you are overshadowed by illness or filled with foreboding about the safety of a loved one serving abroad? How many are weighed down by caring for an elderly parent or a child whose needs are taking you to your limits?

The simple truth of the matter is that each and all of us have been indelibly marked by the everyday hardships of this life and that makes us well aware of the sheer frailty of the unlikely lead characters in our Christmas story. We instinctively feel for them, and each Christmas we are simultaneously surprised, humbled, and encouraged to hear the promise that God is at work through them … for us.