"Believing in Christmas" Pajama Christmas Eve 2011

Luke 2:1-20

Grown ups do not "get" Christmas!
When you have seen Christmas 100 times, well okay 30 or 40 or 50 times, you begin to think this is all ordinary, that Christmas is Ordinary, as if Christmas is going to come every year.
If you ask me, the grown ups have seen Dr. Seuss' Grinch too many times, and they actually think that without all the Who-Presents and and Who-Carols and Who-Turkey and Who-Beast, that without Suzie-loo Who, still Christmas would be just the same.

The whole point of Believing in Christmas, is in believing in the Ordinary as Not Ordinary!
And believing that when we are uncomfortable, where we are disappointed, to see that life is not over, God is with us.

The school was having their annual Winter Concert, so called because the public schools could no longer have a Christmas Concert, and the regular program included songs about snowmen, reindeer and Santa. One class at a time, from eldest to youngest, the classes stood up from their cross-legged position and marched to the stage. Finally, it was the Kindergarden class' turn, and daring to risk protocol the teacher had them singing a song “Christmas Love.” Each child held a large placard with a letter which they held up at the appropriate time. “C” is for Children, “H” is for Home, “R” for Ribbon, and so on. But a young girl about halfway down kept turning her card round and round uncertain at age 5 if the letter was supposed to be an M or a W, as it could have gone either way. When she held up the “W” everyone began to snicker, the older kids pointing... until the song was done, and suddenly everyone stopped laughing and each began pointing out for another, because by her flipping the M to a W, instead of spelling Christmas Love, the message spelled “Christ Was Love.”

Christmas is believing that God, the God we pray to at night, the God who made the whole Universe, the God who was with Adam and Eve and Abraham and Moses, the God in Heaven who commands Angels, the God who does miracles, WOULD BECOME human!
That God, with all the divinity and holiness and power of being God could become a baby!
AND, that that event, that Baby, that ONE PERSON in all the world, in all the history of all the Nations, could make a difference!

What would happen, if suddenly one ordinary thing changed? If suddenly there was no gravity? What would happen if a second sun appeared in the sky? What would happen if flowers suddenly appeared in winter? What would happen if your greatest wish came true?
So what do you believe would happen, if God was born as a baby?
All the world would change, stars suddenly stop in the sky, we would be able to hear angels singing, wise-men would cross the world to see what had happened and bow down before what is truly great!

Joseph and Mary had had a comfortable life. He was a talented carpenter who worked hard and had a nice business, she lived with her parents, they were planning to get married, everything was comfortable. Then everything changed. A miracle happened and Mary was going to have a baby. Have you ever seen somebody when things do not go their way? They get kind of red in the face and their ears especially, and sometimes they scream and are angry at other stuff because what they planned and what they thought was going to happen in ordinary times, does not. But Mary does not cry. Mary does not get embarrassed, she says, OKAY, this is what I have to do.

Joseph could have made a terrible scene, he could have ruined Mary and her family. He had every right to walked away, in fact it probably would have been right for him to do so, not to stay with her when she was going to have a Baby and he was not the father. But Joseph loved Mary, for better and worse.

Then the Government, the Government announced new TAXES, and even more, everyone was told you had to move! You had to leave your business, your family and friends, and everything you have ever known to get to a different place, all so you could be counted, COUNTED as if you were sheep.

How many of us tonight, have travelled a long way from our homes and routine, what is ordinary, to be here? And we have to sleep in a strange bed, maybe on a couch, our routines have been changed.
Maybe we lost our job this year. Maybe someone we love died and Christmas is different. When things are not ordinary, we sometimes get afraid.
Mary and Joseph finally got to where they were told to go, and there was no room for them.
Having been treated like sheep, they were offered a place in the Stable and were thankful to have that.

When suddenly, it was time, and the baby was born. Could there be anything more common, more ordinary, a Stable, dark and dank, with the smell of animals and sweat, and diapers and a baby?

There are moments, when it seems time and space are full and ripe.
At the start of the worship, when the room was full of the warm glow of candlelight and all the voices sang “Silent Night,” Christmas morning when you wake up and realize what day it is and the tree glimmers and everyone is happy.
That was the mood of the Stable after the Baby was born.
Ordinary and yet for Mary the mother of Jesus, everything was suddenly different.
For Joseph, as ordinary as this was, as much expected, all of life was now different.
At that moment, you do not need anything, especially not visitors. But suddenly, there are people poking their heads in the door, and sheep, whole flocks of sheep. Do you know how smelly and loud a whole flock of sheep can be. Yet, these uncouth shepherds tell of having witnessed the most amazing thing. The whole sky lit up, and angels appeared, there was singing, and a voice from heaven telling them that the world had changed. Telling them that they needed to go see what seemed to be the most ordinary of things, a poor couple in a stable who had a baby, and the baby wrapped up as you would wrap a baby... but that this would not be ordinary, this would not be common, this would be Christmas!