We’ve known for two millennia the kind of rule God intends to establish on this earth: a rule won heart by heart, in the most powerless places, until life is full and abundant for all.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Eve
Texts: Luke 2:1-20
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
It was always Bethlehem, not Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, in the seat of power, the great Herod fretted over news that another king was born. No divine announcement came to him. In Rome, not even the Emperor knew anything was happening.
But on a hillside outside a tiny little town in the Judean wilderness, bright messengers of the One True God announced to outsiders that a child was born who was the Anointed One, who would rule the world in peace for all, not just a few.
It was never going to be Jerusalem where God would come. Always Bethlehem.
We just seem to forget this.
Maybe because the Jerusalems, the Romes, the Washingtons, run our world.
People with power oppress and dominate others to get what they want. The world has worked this way for so long, it’s not surprising this way of the true God gets missed or ignored, even by those of us who claim to follow this Child.
People like the trains to run on time. We like to be comfortable, not messy. We like order, not chaos. We want to feel safe, and that means people in every generation are willing to let whoever’s running the show run the show. As long as we think we’re OK, don’t ask too many questions.
And so systems get built over centuries that keep the majority of the world’s people in poverty and suffering while a small number prosper. Colonialism and capitalism, terrible bedfellows, still control others at will, and those in power remain the same, some ruling in subtler ways than Herod, and some ruling with just as much open wickedness as his. Bethlehem today can witness to this. So can so many of our neighbors.
So if this Child is the way God is coming to rule this world, it can be hard to see how.
But if we’d been paying attention, we could have known.
From the beginning, it was Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, where God would come.
Micah’s truth of Bethlehem says it: Bethlehem is one of the little clans of Judah, but from that smallness will come God’s ruler. Matthew changes it to say Bethlehem is “by no means” the least. He’s wrong. Bethlehem actually was small and insignificant. That’s the point.
The world’s seats of power, where people run the show, are ignored when God comes to rule. God comes to a small town, overlooked by the world, and is born among us. The people who come and see are the small people, the ordinary.
That’s where we will be, too, if we want to follow.
From the beginning, it was in poverty, not wealth, in weakness, not power, that God would rule.
Like the majority of the world’s peoples, this family from Nazareth lived day to day, as best they could, always on the edge.
The wealthy have built a world that protects their wealth. They think they’re in charge, and since many of us are also people of wealth, sometimes we think the same. We might consider letting go of a little for others. But we never quite do the overthrow it would take to make all people be able to live.
God wants nothing to do with people of wealth who want to control, who won’t let go of what they have while others starve. The true God-with-us is born into a family with no influence or control, no wealth or power.
That’s where we will be, too, if we want to follow.
From the beginning, it was in a refugee family relying on the kindness of strangers that God would save.
This little family is pushed around by foreign powers just before the birth, and treks to Bethlehem. Just after the birth, their own ruler wants the child dead, so they become refugees, fleeing to another country. They are homeless, like so many of our neighbors today. Refugees, like so many who are being rounded up as animals today, without benefit of law or due process.
While those in charge rail against such people as a threat, because Herod is still ruling today, this is the way God chooses to come to us. To identify with the outsider, the alien, the refugee, and become an outsider, an alien, a refugee. Setting aside heavenly power, fleeing as a family from earthly power, dying at the hands of earthly power, God shows the truth about power: it’s a lie, and destructive, and leads to death. We could have known this all along, too; because our God rules from a cross.
This is Christ’s path. It will be ours, too, if we want to follow.
We have known this from the beginning, if sometimes we’ve forgotten.
God’s whole plan of rule is to win over our hearts, one by one, by coming among us as the least, and showing us that identifying with the least and the last is the way of life for the universe, and for us. When we give our hearts to such a God, we follow the same path of vulnerability and weakness for the sake of the world. The path that Herod today mocks as one for losers.
But when we follow such a God with all our hearts, the reign of God actually comes to be in this world. One at a time, as people give their hearts to this upside-down God, this ruler of stables and refugees, the world is changed, and we find hope.
It’s always at Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, where we find Christ, God-with-us. In small, not great. And slowly, surely, God’s healing life spreads from there to all people. From you to all. Because to you, to all, is born this day a Savior who is the Christ, the Lord.
And this will be a sign for you: you will find God as a little baby, lying in a manger.
Go, look for Bethlehem. You’ll see.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
