Let Us Go to Bethlehem Luke 2:1-20 Christmas Eve, 2002 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi What is it that draws us here tonight? For some, we are drawn here or some other church each Christmas Eve. For some, it is our first Christmas Eve service in a while or, perhaps, our first ever. Why do we gather like this on Christmas Eve? Because Christmas would seem incomplete without worshiping and celebrating the birth of the Christ Child. Because it is simply our tradition to do so. Because of nostalgia and our desire to hear our favorite Christmas hymns. Because we need a respite from the pre-Christmas shopping, decorating, and entertaining. Because we have accompanied our family. Because we fear being alone on Christmas Eve. Each of us is here for one or more of these reasons or very similar reason. However, the Christmas story, and all that goes with it, continues to draw us; it continues to have a strange, haunting power over us. And that power is not just nostalgic; it is not even mostly nostalgic. As important as Christmases past have been - both that first Christmas in Bethlehem and our own personal histories around this hour - that is not what draws us most compellingly. What draws us most compellingly is hope: hope for this present Christmas, and hope for the future. Whether we worship at this church or another church regularly or only on rare occasions, whether we are a faithful believer, agnostic, doubter, or theologically confused, each of us has a hope that draws us to the story of the shepherds, angels, and that quiet birth. For some it is a hope we can articulate - for the compassion, gentleness, and love of God's good news to come to all people with the hope of peace - peace for our world, that the power of love will triumph over the love of power. For some it is a hope we cannot articulate but which we experience as a hope for peace for our own lives, that at Christmas, even in the commercialized, overblown sentimentality of the television specials and tear-jerker advertisements, for things just to get better. Whether we can articulate it or not, we hope for this birth to happen again, to keep happening - in our lives, and in our world. But what keeps us from fully experiencing the hope that draws us? Have we become so familiar with the story, we no longer hear it? Are we so turned off by literal scripture interpretation that we are afraid to allow the story to draw us into its vision of hope? Do we take scripture so literally that we are afraid to allow this birth story to generate hope beyond something that happened one particular night and involved only Mary, Joseph, and a group of specific shepherds? Are we afraid this hope may cause us to become emotional, and we'll embarrass ourselves? Are we afraid to allow hope to distract us from our Christmas plans: the Christmas feast, how we will get along with that obnoxious son or daughter-in-law, that cousin so-and-so once again will have too much to drink, that it's just a matter of time before father and son, once again, will come into conflict over some insignificant issue. Just as hope has drawn each of us, so hope breaking into normal routine often generates a common fear: the fear of being vulnerable. We fear coming into the presence of the numinous, we fear what ancient Celtic Christians called "thin places," those times in which we become acutely aware of the nearness of God. Tonight, I invite you to a thin place. I invite you to really hear the story. I invite you on a journey by entering the story. Our journey begins as we join a group of shepherds sitting on a dark hill. We join them because, like them, we too need to be surprised by the divine and to hear about hope. Bringing with us the fears that keep us from hearing the story in the first place and the fear elicited by profound hope, the night has been displaced and we, along with the shepherds, stand vulnerable before the awesomeness of God. All of that light, all of that glory and the presence of an angel. And, the first thing out of the angel's mouth is, "Do not be afraid." It is spoken to the shepherds. It is spoken to us. It is not an announcement of the plan of Salvation History. The Ten Commandments are not read. There is no learned exposition of the Trinity. There is no brilliant recitation of Apostolic Succession. There is no requirement of accepting or rejecting literal scripture interpretation. There's not even a budget presented. The message is, "do not be afraid." The message is be open to joy, be open to God doing something new, be open to hope. Some of us, after Advent's four weeks of preparation for God's coming, of learning again what it means to live lives predicated on hope in God, like shepherds looking expectantly for the Messiah, we look expectantly for the arrival of God in human form. Others of us, probably like the majority of the shepherds, simply are drawn to something, not sure what it is. As always, God takes us by surprise. Luke's narrative understands this surprise as majesty and magnificence not in royal palaces but in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths, born in the midst of those without place before God. Luke describes what can happen when we allow God to break through the barriers of our fears and to experience hope. The shepherds, those religious outcasts from the hillside, never anticipated the depths of the joy they suddenly found released in their hearts. Yet, when they heard the news they went in haste to Bethlehem. The shepherds' rightful fear when God blows their cover is replaced by hope. Tonight, we, too, are invited to let go of our fears, our anger, our struggles, and to go to Bethlehem, to make our approach in prayer with the shepherds to the Christ child and what he represents, to bring our gifts. Luke and his century audience celebrated the birth story because it was a promise of the future of Jesus Christ. Tonight is the night we measure all time against. Everything that happened yesterday is before Christ and everything that happens tomorrow is after him. Tonight we are living in the eternal now of God's coming among us. This is our home tonight, and we have all come to Bethlehem, where we have hauled the hopes and fears of all our years to lay them in front of a manger. And for us, too, the proper stance toward Christmas is not to look back toward Bethlehem but, with the shepherds, to look through the stable into the Kingdom of God. What we want most from Christmas is hope; and that hope is real. At the same time, now that we are here, now that the church is here, we are a part of the hope of Christmas. Some of the wonderful parts of this great story are ours to live, ours to give, ours to have. We are a part of the hope of Christmas. And the good news of Christmas is that it can keep happening, and it does keep happening. Things haven't really changed all that much. Life is more comfortable for some, less so for others, maybe more complicated for most, but God has not deserted us; God has not left us alone. The Christmas story goes on. For, as in Bethlehem of Judea, so tonight we celebrate God-With-Us. Not the God-Up-There somewhere who answers our prayers by lifting us out of our lives, but the God who comes to us in the midst of them. The great miracle continues as God reaches out to the world in love: God with us, God for us, God coming to us. The light that Isaiah foretold, the light first seen fully in Bethlehem, that light is still coming into the world. But remember, these days the manger is closed and the angels have been transferred. We are not just spectators, we are not just consumers - we are also players. The hope of Christmas is real; and we are part of that hope. Any of us who have prayed to be transported into God's presence this Christmas will find that hope met - though probably not in the way we had thought. Heaven's elevators can only be entered at the top tonight. Everybody up there is coming down tonight, right here, right into our own Bethlehem, bringing us the God who has decided to make his home in the messiness of our lives. Tonight, let us, you and I, go to Bethlehem. Let all our hopes and fears be met tonight. Then, let us, too, go and tell and let all who hear it, once again, be amazed.