Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord – Year C
Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14
As we gather together in the first minutes of the morning to celebrate the church’s liturgy of Christmas, others, thanks to NBC, are concluding a secular liturgy of sorts: watching the 1946 classic film It’s A Wonderful Life .
Some of you here might have done likewise in the past few weeks, or even earlier tonight.
I love the movie, and I’d like to speak for a bit about its best scene.
Warning: some spoilers will follow.
Warning: I don’t feel guilty about mentioning spoilers for a movie that’s going on 70 years old.
Now, the scene I have in mind includes neither Jimmy Stewart nor Donna Reed.
Lionel Barrymore’s rendition of Mr. Potter, that “warped, frustrated old man,” is nowhere to be seen.
Even Zuzu’s petals – Zuzu’s petals – don’t make the cut.
No, if you ask me, the finest scene in the movie is the first one. And for my money, it is the scene that makes It’s A Wonderful Life such a wonderful story tonight.
Do you remember how the film starts? Or better, where it starts?
After a montage of locations around the fictional town of Bedford Falls, NY, the first dialogue of the movie occurs…in heaven.
Prayers are wending their way up to God on behalf of George Bailey, who, as the movie begins, is thinking of ending his life.
A conversation about this ensues between two heavenly figures, and they decide to send for Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class.
When Clarence arrives, one of the figures tells him that he is to help George.
Excited at the prospect of being given a mission that will finally get him his wings, Clarence exclaims, “Splendid! Is he sick?”
And then, one of the heavenly figures delivers the line of the movie:
“No. Worse. He’s discouraged.”
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who lived in a land of gloom a light has shone.”
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This night, this celebration, this re-member-ing of the birth of Jesus Christ is not about any one thing, at the expense of all other possible meanings it could have.
But tonight, I would like to reflect with you on one of those meanings, namely, how
Christ’s birth transforms people, relationships, and situations beset with discouragement.
Discouragement, as we all know, has been alive and well lately.
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Isaiah 9:1.

Not even two months ago, a hurricane ravaged large parts of the east coast, leaving scores dead and thousands of others homeless.
Our nation stands on the brink of another economic setback, one so serious that politicians and news outlets alike are all calling it a fiscal cliff .
And, of course, there is Newtown.
People there have been dressing up for funerals instead of holiday parties;
Others, removed from the immediate grief, are asking what needs to be done to ensure that this never happens again.
Gun control, armed guards in schools, violent video games, press conferences, and protests are all becoming fruits of the same seed: discouragement.
If we look closely, and if we agree not to domesticate the story it tells, today’s gospel, at first, plants the same seed.
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled .”
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Do not imagine that this was an order that produced great joy.
On the contrary, it was a reminder to Mary, Joseph, and everyone else in Nazareth and beyond that they were an occupied people, a people that took orders, orders that could not be disobeyed without paying a price.
“And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” 3
Again, the picture of the stoic Mary, riding atop a noble donkey, with Joseph confidently leading the way, is more the stuff of Hallmark than of the Bible.
Today, in a car, the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem is over 100 miles long.
Two thousand years ago?
Luke’s message is clear: this trip was not a vacation; it was a great hardship.
“And [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
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Whether that “manger” was in a place that looked like this, or, instead, a cave, we are meant to believe that the setting was, at best, a Plan B. After all, there was no room for them in the inn.
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Luke 2:1.
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Luke 2:4-5.
Luke 2:7.
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So Luke does plant the seed of discouragement.
But we call his text a gospel, because, ultimately, it is just that: good news .
Now, the good news is not that Christ’s birth vanquishes all discouragement in one fell swoop.
That is not transformation; that is magic.
Luke does not tell us that the angel of the Lord came and poof, destroyed the Romans; poof, transported Mary, Joseph, and Jesus back to Galilee; poof, freed up a room for them at the inn.
The same is true for our discouraged friend George Bailey.
Remember, when he exclaims on the bridge, “I want to live again,” none of the circumstances that brought him to the bridge in the first place had simply disappeared.
So too with our discouragement today: our celebration of the birth of Christ does not magically restore homes washed away by Sandy; it does not turn a fiscal cliff into a fiscal plain; and, most tragically of all, it does not undo Newtown.
So if that is what today’s good news is not , then what is it?
Christ transforms by immersing, by incarnate-ing .
This is what prompts the angels to sing “Gloria in excelsis Deo!”
They knew that if Christ’s coming were simply about making all discouragement vanish with the snap of a finger, then our lives would be little more than rabbits pulled out of so many hats.
The angels sing their refrain with such joy because they see yet again, but as if for the first time, the sort of God they serve: one who transforms all things, by shying away from nothing.
They see a child whose whole life will be about healing, forgiving, empowering, befriending, loving, restoring, suffering, dying, rising, and living again.
They see a child who will transform everyone he encounters.
And seeing this child born in the midst of discouragement, a discouragement, like ours today, that, at times, can be paralyzing, the angels make a promise: “A savior has been born for you.”
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One who saves us from discouragement, not by pointing a wand at it, but by joining us in it – like old Clarence jumping in the water to save George – and after joining us in it, by transforming it.
This Advent, we have said, “Come, Lord Jesus!”; we have waited in joyful hope; and now, at last, you are here… to save us and to transform us.
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Luke 2:11.
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