Year B

Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Telling of Swaddling Clothes

For the census, Mary and Joseph had to travel eighty-five miles. Joseph walks, while Mary, nine months pregnant, rides sidesaddle on a donkey, most likely feeling every jolt, every rut, every rock in the road. By the time they reach the small hamlet of Bethlehem it is filled with the influx of travelers and they are tired and dirt-covered from the travel. The inns are packed, with many people feeling fortunate if they were able to negotiate even a small space on the floor. It is late and there is no room. But fortunately, the innkeeper suggests the crowded stable filled with his guest’s animals. If they could squeeze out a little privacy there, they were welcome to it. We’ll take it, Joseph tells the innkeeper as he looks at Mary whose labor has begun.

The night is still when Joseph opens the stable door and as he does he is greeted with a chorus of barn animals. It is humid and the stench would have overwhelmed most anyone, as there have not been enough hours in the day to tend to the guests, let alone the livestock. A small lamp lent them by the innkeeper flickers on the walls. They are far from home; far from family; far from what she had expected for her firstborn. You see, Mary’s pregnancy was conceived before their marriage and this made her and Joseph the social outcasts of society for in their day they had committed one of the gravest sins. So it is a relief for Mary to finally get off the donkey but there is no time to spare as the baby is coming. Joseph looks around the stable…a feeding trough would have to do for a crib. Hay would serve as a mattress, his robe for a blanket.

Finally, after a difficult birth, the baby Jesus arrives. His cries fill the stable as Joseph sits exhausted, silent, and full of wonder. Tears pool in Mary’s eyes as she touches the tiny fingers and hands that once sculpted mountain ranges clinging to her finger. Together they stare in awe at the baby Jesus wrapped in bands of cloth, whose eyelids begin to close. It has been a long journey. The King is tired. And so, with barely a ripple of notice, God stepped into the world without protocol. Where you would have expected myriads of angels, heads of state, there were only flies, donkeys, cows, sheep, and mice. Yes, there were angels announcing the Savior’s arrival but only to a few shepherds. And yes, a magnificent star shone in the sky to mark his birthplace but only three foreigners noticed and followed it.

Thus, in the little town of Bethlehem, while the town slept the fulfillment of a long wait is realized, as “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” gives way to “Joy to the World.” What a story. God breaking into the world and Christmas is not merely a celebration remembering Christ’s birth but an active remembering of what God has already accomplished in Jesus Christ for you and me because God in Jesus is with us every day in the ordinary and extraordinary of our lives. The birth of Jesus cleared the way and bridged the gap between God and humanity. “God is with us” and the Spirit of God lives in those who believe in the God who comes to be with us as the small babe in a manger.

How can we not be filled with much wonder and amazement, like the shepherds out that night who hear the angel say, “To you is born this day, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord and you will find this child in a feeding trough wrapped in bands of swaddling clothes”

Swaddling clothes? As if a stable wasn’t humble enough a beginning. God’s sign to the shepherds that they would know the Christ child, the Messiah, the Savior of the world would be swaddling clothes. But there was no mistake about it. The sign was part of God’s deliberate plan. God’s gift to the world, the Redeemer and Prince of Peace, wrapped in the clothes of humanity. The Holy Child wrapped in the ordinary so that nothing might confuse us as to where the real gift lay. His presence from the beginning and to this very day is directed clearly to the places of pain and hurt, brokenness and sinfulness.  Jesus experienced all that swaddling clothes imply, including our human vulnerabilities, our needs for warmth, love and affection. Jesus knew our pain, the difficulty of learning obedience, the misery of being rejected, unloved and unwanted on that path from the manger to the cross.

And on that path, those swaddling clothes took on even greater meaning because Jesus took on our human condition and conquered it, and redeemed it. His swaddling clothes on the cross are traded in for the glorious resurrection clothes of salvation. The resurrection of Christ assures us that the one whose birthday we are celebrating tonight is the God who is with us, Emmanuel, the living creator of heaven and earth, the one who owns all things, the one who has given us life, this life, and one day life with God forever. In Christmas, God offers salvation to all creation through Christ as a gift. The Word of God is made flesh to show us the way of God, the awesome love of God for God’s creation. But most important in Christmas, God tells us in the small babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a feeding trough that God is not above or beyond our need and reach.

Our God, who is revealed by the humbleness of a stable and swaddling clothes, not because there was no means of affluence but because poverty is near God’s heart, dwelt among us to draw us into abundant life with Him. This is the Good News and it changes the world forever. Matt Rawle in his book “The Redemption of Scrooge says, “Christ is born so that God might have ears to hear our wants, eyes to see our need, hands to outstretch on the cross in order to clothe us in his resurrection, and lips to speak the story of good news, that we might share with the world.” This kind of news has to be shared. We should tell what we know about this child and the difference this savior makes in our lives. It only takes one person to share the good news to change the world forever.

With those who hear on that wondrous night, like the angels and shepherds, who witness and share the news with others who are amazed, we stand amazed. With Mary and Joseph, we treasure the extraordinary, ordinary things of Christmas, pondering them in our hearts because in Christ we know God loves us and is with us, wherever we are and in what ever condition we find ourselves all because our Lord and Savior enters the world in flesh and blood among animals and filth. This is Good News for you and for me this Christmas…Emmanuel, God is with us and this news changes the world forever.  Merry Christmas.