"Christmas by the Numbers" - A Sermon for Christmas Eve (Luke 2:1-20)

Numbers might not be the first thing that come to mind when you think about Christmas, but numbers are absolutely essential to this holiday. For example, ask any kid how many wrapped gifts are under the tree with their name on them, and they’ll give you the exact number. They can also give you a solid estimate of how many hours there are to go before Santa arrives.

Speaking of time, since it is now after sundown on Christmas Eve, we have officially begun the twelve days of Christmas — so we have one partridge in a pear tree to sing about. Then there’s the financial side of things. You might already have a certain dollar amount in your head for how far over budget you are this season. Of course, there are food numbers too: the number of Christmas cookie calories consumed, which don’t count right now, obviously. Or the number of family recipes in the works to meet everyone’s hopes and expectations, including your younger self. Christmas, it turns out, is very good at translating feelings into numbers.

These days, even decorations come with numbers. My Christmas tree this year came with a store tag that said, for this height, we recommend 130–140 ornaments and 700–1,000 lights. I had never before thought to quantify our family ornaments or count individual string light bulbs, but here we are, apparently doing Christmas according to best numerical practices. And of course—most of all—there are the number of memories this night carries: some sweet, some heavy. Tonight is a highly quantified night.

Have you noticed that the Christmas story is also full of numbers? First of all, there’s the whole world ordered to register for taxes—which is a lot of people. There is one emperor and one governor. Two people traveling, with one baby on the way. There is zero room in the inn. There is one angel of the Lord at first, and then a whole host of them. I looked up how many angels that is, and a “host” is basically countless—possibly in the millions. Which feels like a lot for a single birth announcement, but God clearly wants to make a point. There are shepherds—though we’re not told how many—and one clear message for them: there is one miracle tonight, one Lord, one Savior, and one promise of peace and goodwill for all people. And there is precisely one sign that all of this is true: a newborn baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

But there are a few numbers in Luke’s telling of the story that don’t quite add up. Notice that he gives us specific time stamps—beginning with the reign of Emperor Augustus and Quirinius as governor of Syria. Historically speaking, there was actually about a ten-year gap between their times in power. There is also no record of an empire-wide census that required everyone to return to their ancestral homes (Bibleworm Podcast, episode 718, “Christmas Eve Special Episode”). Over the years, scholars have wondered whether Luke is simply a sloppy historian. But what if the way he begins the Christmas story is intentional? What if he is not careless, but actually doing something quite masterful?

Luke’s slightly odd timeline of the birth of Christ is the theological key to its meaning. The setting itself works like a parable, true then and true always, to show us that God’s unfolding story collides with the ways of the world. The parable of registration for the tax list reveals a world that quite literally runs on numbers (Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, HarperOne, 2014). Like Mary and Joseph, we live in a world in which empires and institutions determine our value in order to extract that value for their own purposes. Our worth is calculated and recalculated through numbers: like salaries and retirement accounts, debts and assets, credits and liabilities, GPAs and test scores.

And there are so many other numbers, too: years married or years divorced, family size, body size, blood pressure readings, cholesterol counts. The number of things going right in our lives, and the number that are not. How many followers we have, and how often we click on ads tailored just for us. Whether we like it or not, our value is being measured by numbers all the time.

Christmas is God’s way of turning that entire system of valuation on its head. The Gospel stands in sharp contrast to empire; it is a reversal of what the world values. God comes to us tonight not as an emperor or a warrior, but as a baby—small, vulnerable, and dependent. An angel makes a royal proclamation of this birth fit for a king, not in a palace or a throne room, but to shepherds keeping the night watch in a field. A heavenly army shows up in force, not with weapons drawn, but with a message of peace. In reversal after reversal, the good news of God in Christ comes to us tonight not to prop up the world as it is, but to turn the world upside down, beginning with the way we count what matters.

Of course, it might still feel like the Christmas story is happening out there—in the world, in history, in Luke’s story. But the good news of Christmas is not just that God once overturned the world’s values. It’s that God continues to do so, here and now, with us. Martin Luther once wrote, “What good would it do me, if Christ were born a thousand times and if this were sung to me every day with the loveliest airs, if I should not hear that there was something in it for me and that it should be my own?” (Martin Luther, Luther's Works, vol. 52, Sermons, II, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974, 21). In other words, Christmas is not just an event to be remembered. It is the gift of grace meant to be received, and each one of our names is on it.

It is clear everywhere we look that empires run on numbers. They tally populations, measure productivity, and calculate worth. God, on the other hand, is not interested in numbers, but in names. Luke tells us that the whole world is registered, but the story lingers on just a few names. Mary and Joseph. Caesar Augustus is named only to be diminished. Quirinius appears briefly and then disappears. The shepherds are not named or numbered, but they are seen, and they are the surprising recipients of world changing news. And the child at the center of the story is not counted, but named: Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.

This is how our Savior works. God does not ask for your metrics. God does not require a spreadsheet of your successes and failures. God calls you by name. Tonight, God comes not to evaluate you, but to be with you. Not to total up your losses and gains, but to meet you in the midst of them. Not to demand proof of your worth, but to declare it. You are not a number in God’s unfolding story. You are known by name. You are loved. You are God’s own tonight and always. And that is something worth counting.