Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

by Gregory S. Kaurin, associate pastor

7PM Christmas Eve Service, 12/24/02

 

Text: Luke 2:1-20

Sermon:

Making Room in Bethlehem’s Manger Square

 

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There are lots of open rooms available for travelers in Bethlehem this year.   Almost half of Bethlehem’s 27,000 people are Arab Christians, but as a result of recent suicide bombings and Israeli occupation and soldiers and a strict curfew that was lifted only today, Christmas was almost going to go completely uncelebrated this year in Bethlehem.

Manger Square is undecorated this year, none of its usual glistening lights, no bells, no holly…very few pilgrims, and almost no tourists.  Merchants are devastated and going broke.  It is as if Dr. Seuss’ Grinch has driven his sleigh into Bethlehem, into the very heart, the starting place, of Christmas, and has taken everything, leaving it bare.

One young man by the name of Raed Zarrouk says that this year, “The people of Bethlehem do not have the spirit of celebrating Christmas.  There is no joy in people’s hearts.”  The Mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Nasser, has labeled this Christmas of 2002 as a “Sad Christmas.”

So, there are plenty of rooms available tonight in Bethlehem.  Innkeepers would have been fighting to house Mary and Joseph this Christmas Eve.  And yet, there would still be no room for the Christ-child, all because of that statement by young Raed, that tonight in Bethlehem “there is no joy in the people’s hearts.”  Their hearts have become three sizes too small for joy.  When your heart becomes too small for joy, it is too small for Jesus Christ.  This year is completely different, and at the same time, it is almost exactly the same as that first Christmas, 2000 years ago.  Without hope, without expectation, without joy, there will be no room.

However, right now, it is about 5:30 AM Christmas morning in Bethlehem, and people are waking up to learn the same lesson that we first learned over 2000 years ago, and have been learning every year, ever since.  That lesson is simple:  nobody—no Grinches, no Scrooges, no soldiers, no lack of decorations, nor pretty wrapped packages, no crowded inns, nor power hungry King Herods—nothing and no one can stop Christmas from happening.

Christmas, no matter how prepared or unprepared you are, Christmas happens every year.  You cannot stop Christmas, because Christmas in its most basic form is the will of God in the flesh.  And you cannot stop what God wills.

God said, “Let there be light!”  And then there were suns and stars, reflections and rainbows.  It may have happened in an instant, or over billions of years; it’s all the same to God.  He wills it, and it happens.

God said, “Let there be salvation!”  And there was Jesus Christ.  God’s will, God’s love, came in the flesh. 

So you cannot stop Christmas.  But you can let Christmas get crowded out of your own heart.  That can happen when you ignore all that God has given you, and when you refuse to rejoice, when you let your heart get too small.

God has given you life.  He said, “Let there be Mary, and Frank, and Elfriede, and Billy Bob, and Running Bear, and Raed Zarrouk, …and you.”  And then, you were conceived, not just in your mom’s belly.  You were conceived in the will and heart of God.  And what God wills, happens in creation and in the flesh.

And God said, “I want a relationship with you!  I want you to love me, and I want you to love my people and my creation!”  What God wills, happens in the flesh.  God became our brother so that we could see the love of God our Father. 

God made you; God forgave you; God gave you salvation; God freed you to love and act and speak, and he sealed it all with the promise of eternal life and salvation.  In the face of all that God has done for you and promised to you, despair is presumptuous; it is arrogant and ignorant. 

 

One of my favorite writers is John Ortberg.  Your church council here at Messiah is studying his book titled, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.  We’ve just finished discussing the fourth chapter at our last meeting where he wrote,

 

The Bible puts joy in the nonoptional category.  Joy is a command.  Joylessness is a serious sin, one that religious people are particularly prone to indulge in.  It may be the sin most readily tolerated by the church… How much damage have joyless Christians done to the cause of Christ? …How often have people misunderstood God because they attributed to him the grim, judgmental, defensive, soul-wearying spirit of many who claim to be his followers?

There is a being in this universe who wants you to live in sorrow, but it is not God.  Francis de Sales wrote, “The evil one is pleased with sadness and melancholy because he himself is sad and melancholy and will be so for all eternity.  Hence he desires that everyone should be like him.”

 

The joy that you and I are called to have is not empty-headed.  We are not called to walk around with ding-a-ling smiles when we are faced with all the horrible stuff that happens around us, but there really should be an over-riding peace and an underlying joy in us that realizes that no one has the last word…except God.  God has and will always have the last word; and his Word from the beginning of creation has always been “Life.”  “Rise up!”  “Live again!”  “Live forever!”  “Life.”

Because of that Word of Life, made flesh in Jesus Christ, our biggest responsibility as a church and our biggest responsibility as individual Christians can be summed up in that Biblical commandment to: “Rejoice!”  You will feel Jesus in your life when your trust in his forgiveness and his love finally convinces you to rejoice.  And our greatest Christian responsibility is simply this: to help others rejoice with us, to help them discover and rejoice in the God who loves them to death and back again.

 

That is how we make room for Christmas.  That’s how Christmas is reborn every year.  Christmas comes because God will get what he wants: his people.  Trust God and all his promises to you.  Let his love fill you with hope for those around you.  Let it fill you with expectation for your eternal life with him.  Most of all, let it fill you with joy. 

With, or without, packages and ribbons: Christmas has come.  Christmas is here.  Right here.  His name is Jesus Christ.  Open your heart.  Make room.  Amen.

 

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