Christmas Eve, 2014
Luke 2:1-20
Rev. Amy McCullough
Sometime in the second quarter of next year – months after you’ve been saturated
by tomorrow’s gifts – Apple will release its newest product: the Apple watch. And
since it comes from a company exceedingly skilled at inventing products we’ve
never thought of and then convincing us we can’t live without them, the Apple watch
may sell many of us on wearable technology – a tiny computer strapped around our
wrists that not only handles texts, emails, phone calls, and road conditions but also
tracks the body’s food intake, footsteps and heartbeat.
Time magazine reviewed the watch several weeks ago.1 While marveling at its
design, it raised concern about the ultimate impact of collapsing the line between
flesh and computer. A watch that can tell you how many calories you’ve consumed
can also share that information with marketers selling nutrition plans. A watch that
files your daily habits might prod you relentlessly towards self-improvement. No
sets of measurements or analytical insights make up a life; or fully describe the
beauty of human being. The gravitational pull to endlessly check our smart phones –
witnessed at any restaurant, movie house or sports event – already divides our
attention away from the people around us. I worry that another sleek, shiny, skilled
tool might pull us farther away from the mystery of our flesh.
The way Luke tells the story; the night of Jesus’ birth was everything but sleek, shiny
and perfect. A not yet married couple, clearly poor. The wife-to-be is already
pregnant. By imperial order, they have traveled a long way from home. A “No
Vacancy” sign hangs over the inn, which means their choice for lodging is among the
animals. Here Mary gives birth. It is called labor for a reason; this messy, painful
effort of bringing forth a child. And the mystery of this birth is that in Jesus God
comes in human flesh, enters our messy, broken, pain-filled world.
“She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped in bands of cloth, and laid him in a
manger.” Luke mentions the manger three times, telling us this is where Jesus is to
be found, saying look here - the manger is full of meaning. Where are the shepherds
to look for this newborn Savior, this child who is for them a great joy? You will find
him lying in a manger.
Now a manger strikes me as the polar opposite of an Apple watch. A manger would
not be a newly crafted, highly polished product, stamped with a hefty price tag. A
manger would be the end result of wood planks hastily nailed together to serve a
simple but necessary function: a feed box. Within a week of its use, a manger is
dusty, dirty, and lined with leftovers.
So God in the flesh was laid in a manger, born into a family with limited resources,
existing, at least on that night, on the outskirts of society. How does God come?
Through the same flesh of which we are made. Where does God come? In the place
1
Lev Grosman and Matt Vella, “Never Offline” in Time. September 11, 2014.
we’d least expect to find God. So Mary laid him in the manger, because there was no
room for them in the inn.
One trait of our modern lifestyle is that there appears to be no room: no room for
rest, no space apart from lights, traffic and being wirelessly connected. There are no
moments of unproductive time or offering someone our undivided attention. But
God’s coming makes room where there had previously not been room. Angels sing
in the heavens and shepherds decide to leave their work on the hillside to find the
Lord of the universe. On a night that begins dark and frightening, light shines and
suddenly there is room for joy, there is welcome for those who live on the outside,
there is a moment of mystery and a wide-open space of love.
God comes to us in human flesh; a gift of love, a gift of presence that says I am here,
with you. There is no greater gift. When we make room for God’s gift, we watch this
mysterious force of love play out its patterns across our lives. I was reading about
the smart watch while sitting in the waiting room of Mount Washington Pediatric
Hospital. I glanced up to see a young boy, with braces on his legs, learning to walk by
pushing a ball down the hallway. Beside him were two nurses, keeping him
balanced and cheering him on. At the end of the hallway was a father, saying, “You
can do this. I know you can. I’m right here waiting for you.” It is in the vulnerability
of our fleshly, human life, with our imperfectly formed bodies and scarred by a
rough and tumble world, that we can watch the depths of divine love be revealed.
Each time we access such love we touch God’s mysterious way of working through
human flesh.
While not a proper baby’s bed, a manger was, for animals, the place from which they
were fed. It was daily nourishment, the feeding space for life. Placed in the manger,
Jesus, the God with us, is here to feed us, to give us what we need to live, which is
deep assurance of God’s favor towards us. This baby born is good news for
everyone. It is God’s favor for all.
And when does food taste its best? When you are the most hungry. I bring you good
news of a great joy. God has come to feed the parts of you most in need of
nourishment. In the manger, God meets whatever is desperate, starving or alienated
in you. This is the place where God most wants to enter in.
Here is one last thing. By coming to us in the flesh, God reminds us that we
ourselves, no matter how weary, bruised or unbelieving, are capable of bearing the
life of God. God bears our life; we make room to bear God’s. We are, as one preacher
says, to be “carriers of divine love.”2 So come to the manger. Feed upon the
mysterious food of life, and remember that God is with you, making your fleshly life
holy.
Rowan Williams, “Fear Not!” in Choose Life: Christmas and Easter Sermons in Canterbury Cathedral
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 18.
2