Peace on Earth
The bright, flashy lights of the season have been pulling at us for weeks; for over a month. We have had family obligations, work commitments, and gatherings with friends to balance while at the same time managing to shop, wrap, and decorate. The hectic pace we find ourselves consumed by has left many feeling exhausted.
Tonight, many of us walked through those doors in need of a break.
Tonight, gathering for worship, many of us seek peace from the hectic life we left in the car or on the front porch of our home.
The well-placed and curated Nativity scenes in our homes and here in church along with Charles Schultz’s beloved Charlie Brown Christmas can lead us to believe that the first Christmas St. Luke wrote of was a sentimental, soon to be Christmas card moment. While having a blanket carrying kid read scripture under a well-placed spotlight makes us smile with sentimental glee, the story read by Linus and read for us tonight was anything but peaceful.
The Holy Family, Mary, and Joseph were on the move. A census had been called for by the Roman Emperor, and the Holy Family, living under Roman occupation, were traveling to Joseph’s hometown to be counted. The Roman census determined just how much the Holy Family and their Jewish neighbors would be taxed for the luxury of living under the mighty thumb of the Roman Emperor.
The gospel writer tells us that when Mary was ready to deliver her child there was no room for the Holy Family in the local Motel 6, let alone a hospital or clinic where her child could be delivered. Linus can read these verses - “ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.” - reading with the peace of a child and we miss the lack of peace that was present in the moment.
Speaking not as someone who has delivered a child, only as a witness to two births, I am confident in asserting that childbirth is not a peaceful moment and if I were to write a soundtrack for the moment, Silent Night would more than likely not make the final cut. The physical act of childbirth aside, the moments after the birth of Christ may not have been as peaceful as the songwriters would like us to believe.
Shepherds while tending their flocks by night were told the Good News and traveled to visit the Holy Family. Leaving their flocks in the field, not stopping to bathe before traveling to the manger, the shepherds arrived in Bethlehem, not in the Christmas best we think of today.
While Mary needed to rest and the Christ child needed to sleep, heavenly hosts and angels worshipping and giving praise to G-d - making a ruckus. The daily routine of the animals around the manger continued.
The busyness of life continued.
While we may work carefully to create a perfect, hitting the right notes, Norman Rockwell Christmas the busyness we create for ourselves mirrors the first Christmas more than a perfectly arrange Nativity scene or adequately decked halls.
In the midst of the busyness of Christmas, then and now, the Peace of G-d entered the world and took up residence in an unlikely place. While travel schedules dictated by occupying emperors tried to force a schedule, G-d’s redeeming Peace, on G-d’s time, was revealed to the world.
This is the peace the prophets spoke of, “For a child has been born for us, a son is given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Peace continued and peace continues.
Tonight we proclaim the Good News - In Christ, born in Bethlehem and placed in a manger, the redemption of all creation began. The work of G-d in the manger was not the final act performed by G-d.
The story continues.
One of my pet peeves about this reading from Luke is that we miss the rest of the story. G-d, in Christ in the manger, entered our world and the redemption of all creation began. All of creation, everything, and everyone will be made new because of this child - because this child will eventually make His way to the cross and then walking out of a borrowed grave.
The hectic and busy scene in Bethlehem brought together a diverse and unlikely group of people. The Holy Family, shepherds, an innkeeper, angels, and heavenly hosts all arrived in the same place, having completed different journeys and reasons to be there. Those present at the manger, while being different and then returning to different lives, shared a common experience - they shared, even if for a brief moment, the Peace of G-d.
One of the reasons songs like Silent Night make more sense on nights like tonight than I would like to admit it because when else can you find a group of strangers, people who most likely disagree on a wide range of issues, come together, lifting candles high and proclaiming that in the manger redemption began.
We gathered tonight to worship with candles lit and hymns are not unlike the group that found themselves gathered around the manger in Bethlehem. The tension, chaos, disunity, and conflict of this world has taken a pause, even if for a brief moment tonight as we gather to worship Emmanuel and share a meal around his table of grace.
Tonight the peace of G-d, the “great joy for all people” overcomes the darkness that tells us that we cannot gather with a group as unlikely as us gathered tonight here to worship to experience Peace.
The birth of Christ was and continues to be Good News for all people.
Good News to the faithful and the skeptic.
Good News to those in need of healing.
Good News to those who long for the status quo to change.
Good News to all who are searching for hope.
So, alongside angelic voices and heavenly hosts, bathing ourselves in the peace of G-d, let us worship and praise Christ together, as an unlikely group of people, on this holy night and in the time to come.
A great joy, the Great Peace, has come for all people, including you.
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