Sermon for Christmas Eve (Luke 2:1-20)

Driving through the road construction on I-630 these days can lead a person to ask some of life’s bigger questions. Say you’re at a standstill, because several lanes of traffic and an onramp have to merge into a single lane on a busy Saturday right before Christmas. Under such circumstances, you start to wonder whether human nature is fundamentally good or bad. The answer will be clear depending on whether that one car lets you in or not. Or, let’s say the traffic is moving along at a fast clip in extremely narrow, temporary lanes with concrete barriers mere inches away from your car. You ponder the fact that you seem to be more risk adverse than the person who measured out the lanes. You worry that this revelation might have broader implications about how you’re living your life. Or, take those bright orange, temporary exit signs. They are not where you think they should be. And neither are the exits in some cases. You have to decide whether to make a break for it between the orange pylons and hope that you have found an actual exit. This leads you to think about how signs are a tricky business. There are good ones and bad ones, some that are well placed, and others that cause you to drive right into a construction zone by accident. Hypothetically, of course. Then you start to wonder, what other bright orange signs have I missed or misinterpreted in my life? Such is philosophy on the freeway. 

If you ever worry about missing signs, you’re not alone. People have been missing them and misreading them forever. Maybe it all started when God gave those specific instructions not to eat the fruit of tree in the center of the Garden of Eden, a clear sign if ever there was one. Maybe Adam and Eve didn’t like such a narrow lane, so they ate the fruit and stumbled onto an exit ramp that took them right out of the garden and far away from God. Ever since that day, God has been sending sign after sign to guide us back. Some of the signs have been spectacular. A burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, oil lamps that never seem to run out of oil, and several miraculous escapes and healings. Some of the signs with which God has tried to get our attention have been, of course, less pleasant, like plagues of frogs, boils, and locusts. In God’s defense, God had to get creative. We can be more than a little hard headed, and we have a bit of trouble with sign reading. 

God must have wondered what it would take to get through to us. God sent prophets to get our attention, and gave them words to use, like prepare and repent. But we couldn’t hear them very well. So God came up with a new strategy, the very best one yet: a baby. It was arguably the greatest sign of all time. It was genius, really. A baby is hard to miss and easy to love, and it sure makes a statement. Babies come into the world without any preconceived ideas about whether human nature is good or bad. They simply need love and sustenance, like we all do. It’s remarkable that God was willing to come to this earth in such a vulnerable package, completely dependent on other humans for survival. If ever there was a statement of trust in the fundamental goodness of human nature, this was it. It was a bold move; God’s best effort yet to guide us back to God. 

A baby is clearly hard to miss, but God didn’t want to leave anything up to chance. So God sent an angel and the whole host of heaven to some shepherds, just to be sure that we wouldn’t miss this amazing sign. “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Angels speak in King James English, obviously. And they made it impossible for the shepherds to miss this marvelous thing that God had done. 

The strange thing about the Christmas story is that despite the foolproof nature of this sign from God, plus the impressive angelophany to the shepherds, to anyone else around that night, this scene would have looked completely ordinary. On the surface, it was a night of fairly normal events. Some travelers arrived in their hometown and had a baby. They probably needed more privacy for labor and delivery than the crowded guest room could offer, which is how we get to the humble manger. Babies are born all the time, and sometimes under less than ideal circumstances. This, of course, was part of God’s point. The messiah came not just to save the powerful or the wealthy or the perfect and comfortable, but to save us all. And we are a messy lot. The incarnation of God happened humbly so that we would know that it was meant for us, too.

For a sign to be a really good one, it has to point you to where you need to go and help you find your way. We live in a world of traffic jams and confusing orange pylons. God knows that we all make wrong turns that we end up regretting. And sometimes the world seems like nothing but noisy congestion and grim headlines, where angels are scarce and divine signs are hard to make out. The world can feel quite far from the shepherds’ wonder and Mary and Joseph’s joy. Which is precisely when we need the Christmas sign. Christmas isn’t just the news of a baby. It’s the good news that even in the midst of ordinary life, glorious things are unfolding. Even in a world of war and strife, there may well be an enormous transformation happening behind the scenes, where heaven’s peace is being brought to the earth (Robert Williamson).  

So, if you need a sign of that heavenly peace, you have come to the right place. If you are joyful tonight, praise God for a sign of grace so well done. If you are are anxious or sorrowful tonight, you especially are invited to join the heavenly host in their song of hope, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward all people.” The peace of heaven is close at hand, according to the angels. 

And if, by chance, you have taken any wrong turns in life, or failed to let other drivers into your lane, or ended up in construction zones far away from your intended destination, hear the angels’ message to fear not. Remember that God is in the business of sending signs to reassure us of God’s favor. Such grace never waivers, no matter how many signs we miss along the way. God will continue to post them, and some of them we’ll notice. And a baby, well, that sign of grace is especially hard to miss. Merry Christmas.