Christmas Day, Nativity of the Lord, December 25, 2020 – Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18

At one point in my life, I collected crèche sets. I must have wound up, at some point, with about 10 or 15 of them. All very different, one from another. Over the years I either gave them away or put them out in yard sales until, now, I have only three left. They’re all on display in the rectory. One of them is just three statues of a Native American man, a Native American woman, and a Native American papoose - the Holy Family as envisioned by the First People. Then I have a set that’s only about an inch high. They’re perfect replicas of the very famous Italian set, made in resin which, for a while, was very popular as an alternative to plastic. But, on the buffet in the dining room, I have the set that my family had when I was a child growing up. They were very cheap. We bought them a piece at a time in the five and dime store. But I still have them all. Some of them I repainted when I was a teenager because they were chipped and cracked. When I put them out each year, I get very nostalgic as I place them all in place where they belong, where they always go. But this year, something else happened to me as I put them in place. I want to share that with you.

Here’s Joseph. Joseph was both an immigrant and a refugee, and a victim of a police state. He was traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Nazareth is in the north of Israel, in the province of Galilee. The Galileans were considered to be sort of dismissive Jews. They were a little bit loosey-goosey about what they believed, and they lived right on the border of pagan territory. In order to get from Galilee to the southern province of Judea, where both Bethlehem and Jerusalem are located, they had to travel about 70 to 80 miles - and that was the short route - going through Samaria. But nobody went through Samaria if they could avoid it because the Samaritans were heretics in the eyes of the rest of the Jewish people. Oh, they were part of Abraham’s people, but because they didn’t follow every rule and regulation, they were suspect. So Joseph has to travel about 80 miles, going through enemy territory, through a different province. Why? Because some authority far away, who rules with an iron hand through an occupational force, has said that he has to do it. And that force is something to be reckoned with. All along the way from Galilee to Judea, along the roads that were built by the wonderful roman emperor, there will be crosses with the skeletal remains of Jewish people crucified for their faith.

And he’s traveling with his new bride, Mary. She is at best 16 years old. Their marriage did not begin well, because she was pregnant. And, it was an arranged marriage. Who knows whether they would really fall in love or not. And there was another obstacle. Mary had pledged herself to be ever a virgin. How come? Because some of her relatives belonged to a group called the Essenes, in which it was not uncommon for a woman to pledge lifelong virginity. But she had to have a male protector. And so usually slightly older men or widowers were chosen to marry them.

She is traveling in her ninth month; she is very pregnant. And if she’s carrying low, then walking those 80 miles would’ve been torture. Even if she’s carrying high, if she was lucky enough to ride on a donkey, the jogging, jostling, all the time, all day long, would almost induce labor. Luke says, “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child.” That’s very discreet. She doesn’t have a midwife. Men then, as men now, are no good at the time of a birth. If there ever was a time when a young girl needed her mother, it was then. And there’s nobody there, not even a stranger woman. Nobody there but Joseph. And she places her newborn child in a trough out of which animals eat.

It says, in the gospel, that there were shepherds in that region, guarding their flocks by night. We think of shepherds as nice people. After all, Jesus is frequently called the Good Shepherd. But shepherds, in the first century, were like gypsies; they were mistrusted for good reason. Many of them were dishonest, many of them were thieves. They had a very bad reputation. And here, to this frightened woman, who has just given birth, and to this bewildered man, come these people that are rejected by the rest of society, wanting to see the baby. Imagine that. Here are people who are considered lawless, who are coming to see the baby.

And, according to St. Matthew, there are other people on the way. You see them here, all along the windows, making their way, probably from what is modern day Iran or Iraq, and they are a strange breed. They are Magi. Which means they are no better than pagan philosophers or magicians. And, if shepherds are considered outlaws, these people are considered the enemy. This was the racial stock that, over the centuries, over and over again, attacked and destroyed Israel. These are people who believe in pagan gods - more than one! That’s why they’re going to call on King Herod, because he is a disreputable and unfaithful Jew, perhaps the only one who would grant them an audience. They are on the margins of Jewish society, literally and figuratively. And they are coming to see the Christ Child.

So what do we have? We have immigrants and refugees. Victims of a police state. The unholy, the marginalized. All coming. What ties them all together? Well, it’s this apparition up here. You can hardly see her against the wooden wall. That’s the Christmas Angel. And what does she say (or he say, or it say), according to Luke’s gospel? “I bring you good news. Today a savior has been born to you, who is Christ and Lord.”

The first bibles that were translated into another language instead of Latin, were translated into German, where “good news” was turned into one word, “gut-spiel,” and somehow it became “Gott-spiel.” “Gut-spiel” means “good talking.” “Gott-spiel” means “God talk.” That’s what this was - It was good news; it was “God talk.” The savior is coming. God knows the people in this story - Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, even the Magi – they needed some saving. And this savior is the Messiah, the Long-awaited One, the Anointed One. Those people back then, and we today, are waiting for somebody or something, and He is the Lord, Kurios. In the Greek language that almost always refers not to a king or even to a gentleman, but to God. So this “One who is coming” is also divine.

We live in a world filled with immigrants, refugees, victims of a police state or police brutality. We live in a world where many people, just like Mary, are very sick. She was sick with a good sickness that ended joyfully, but while she was carrying, and when she gave birth, she was very, very sick for a few moments.
We live in a world where many people are very sick. And the Christmas gospel says to us, there is still good news. If you think you need saving, someone comes to save you. If you’re waiting for something or someone, the wait is over. And this One who is coming, the One who will save you, is your God and mine.