Oh Lord, we’re finally here. Merry Christmas!
We know this story, right? We just heard the opening notes a few seconds ago, but it's a long opera.
From that baby’s birth to the Holy Family’s flight from persecution to a life of conflict and miracle and inspirational sermons and terrifying brushes with demons and death and political intrigue, and ultimately, to the cross, this life that only just arrived holds quite a lot in store. That baby is going to have one heckuva ride. And it already did.
But like I said, we know the whole story, right? Or do we?
We know the highlights, sure, and we get glimpses of some peaceful, perhaps mundane, moments. But we don’t see a lot of the in-betweens. We don’t see what carpentry lessons with Joseph looked like. We don’t see Jesus as a teenager doing dishes. We don’t see Christ in College. We don’t know anything of his relationships, outside of family ties and close disciples. We don’t know what happened those three days he lay in the tomb, though we like to guess.
We know the tomb came up empty and death lost its sting, but we don’t know how, not really. And we know the Spirit stayed with us as Jesus rose on up, but since then, well, we still only know parts of the story. The main thing we do know about the story is that, somehow, after a couple thousand years, we still have a story. The Word became flesh and implanted in our minds and fired our hearts.
One of those gaps in the story hit me this year. Tonight we see Mary and Joseph do the thing we always see on Christmas Eve: they go knocking on the door, the Inn is full, and they take up residence in the barn just in time for Jesus to be born with cows and donkeys watching. We know this is so, because it's here in this manger scene!
But we don’t hear much else about that inn or the people inside it. I know, Jesus is the focus of the story, but God became human in that birth because God loves us humans, so I wonder about the humans nearby.
When I was in college, I remember my next-door wall-mate. He was a funny dude, a little mischievous, but also loved music. Loud music. Really, really loud music. Anyway, I remember those walls being paper thin, and he would play his record player at all hours, which mostly was never a problem because it was college and all hours were fair game.
But once in a while, all you’d have to do to get him to turn it down was just knock on the wall. Ok, sometimes you had to holler a little, but he heard just fine. A bird’s eye view of those dorms would’ve shown us maybe three feet apart with a thin wall separating us, but from inside our rooms, we were clearly in different places.
It’s that image, actually, that bird’s eye view (or maybe an angel’s eye view since it's Christmas Eve) that comes to mind with the manger and the inn. Like, imagine a site plan, blueprints of the layout with all of Bethlehem laid out and homes over here with the business district over there. Or homes stacked on top of market store fronts. All those people packed in tight in a big city, and then zoom in to the street with the inn, and there it is, its sign flashing right by the road, inn with no vacancy in spite of its considerable footprint, barn out back.
From that view, the difference between the barn and its manger isn’t all that great from a room just feet away on the other side of a couple of walls. Sure, it’s physically close by, but we all know those rooms in the inn were a far cry cozier than anything a feed trough could offer.
I wonder about all those people in that inn? Who were the proverbial wall-mates to little baby Jesus? How many of ‘em knocked on paper thin walls or shouted out their windows to get the wailing mother to hush so they could grab some sleep? Did anyone see the family ride up, pregnant wife clearly in distress, and watch them get turned away? Did anyone breathe a sigh of relief when they saw the family make their way to the barn, shelter over their heads, at least?
Better yet, did anyone think, “hey, maybe I could trade spots with them? It’s just one night. I’m a single guy with a Herod-sized bed. I’ve slept in barns before, what’s one more night?” Looking out the window of their room in the inn, did anyone see, and if they did, did anyone wonder if maybe something was different in how this was all shaking out?
From the word go, no one seems to understand who Jesus is and what’s going on around him. No one with any sense offers up their room at the inn. No one with any learnin' listens to what he has to say about scripture. No one with any status listens to his preaching, or eats with him, believes he is who he says he is.
No one, that is except for one or two here and there. One or two that tell someone else and ask them to come and see. No one but a few shepherds that night, a few wise men in a year or so, a handful of fishermen later on, a couple of women, a steward fresh out of wine. No one knows for quite a while, and even when the secret starts to get out, mostly no one knows.
There’s this stirring of the sacred in Galilee, but the rest of the world comprehended it not, the Word who was there from the beginning, unseen, unknown, and unrecognized all the way to that Inn in Judea and maybe even to here and now.
I wonder tonight where we land, as we celebrate here together. Given the years we’ve had lately and how cold it is right now, I’m not proud to admit that I’m feeling a little more like someone in the inn staring out and watching the drama unfold but unsure I’m ready to give up my warm bed to make space for that sacred event to happen in a more fitting place. I hope I can do it, but I don’t know if I can.
And I suppose, ultimately, that's what this night is about. Fresh starts. The story of the baby told again. The reality of God incarnate, the God that is before time who actually, truly loves ME. Tonight is that fresh start. Again and again.
Again and again, I am offered the chance to choose. Maybe I didn't choose then. Maybe I shut my window and crawled back in bed for a little more shut-eye. But tonight. Oh, tonight...I get another chance.
I suppose this is all part of the story, filling in the blanks when we’re not even sure we can recognize what’s really going on around us. Wherever we land, though, turning him away at the entrance to the inn, watching from the warmth of our room, crouching beside the manger, watching from the hillside, trekking in from afar, or completely unaware of what’s going on, Christ comes for us all. Christ loves us all.
And the Word became flesh, and lived among us, full of grace and truth.
Amen.