Christmas Eve Homily (12.24.19)

Christmas Eve Homily
Luke 2.1-20
December 24, 2019
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church

It started that night. The humble birth of this little one, obscure and unceremonious as it seems it would have been, the birth did not, could not go unnoticed. The legend tells us that his calling began to radiate from that little back house stable and pulse with the same rhythm of the shining star overhead. The first ones to feel that calling and its draw to the infant were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 

Shepherds were not respected. Shepherds were mistrusted, at best, because they often grazed their sheep on other people’s land. Their sense of property lines were loose, and sheep are stinky. It seems that somehow these shepherds aren’t participating in the big registration that the Emperor requires. They aren’t traveling to hometowns and making their income known to the government. They also aren’t bunking with livestock because it was the warmest place they can find that night. No, this is their life, wandering the fields, hopping the fences, tending the sheep outside of the structures.

And it’s here among these unimpressive men, even less impressive than the back house stable, that the first call comes. An angel of the Lord stands before them, in that place that is beyond the civilized places, and the glory of the Lord shines around them way out there in obscurity. The Emperor may not know where they are or who they are, but the Divine surely does. And this grand welcome scares them to death, these men who are probably not scared of a lot and have seen it all. The angel’s first words are: “Do not be afraid.” 

Everyone who gets news of this baby’s birth is immediately told, “Don’t be afraid. This news wipes away your fear. It’s only and always good.” Then the angel shares the same remarkable news about the baby’s birth that Mary and Joseph heard some months before, and the angel also brings a promise of God’s peace for those whom God favors. That means them; the shepherds; the ones who aren’t favored anywhere by anyone. God’s peace is for them. God is for them.

These men who have no home and live in fields among sheep, these men who are beyond the welcome of civilization and outside the regulations of government, they are the first ones who feel that pulsing call to go to the child. And the shepherds cannot resist the call. They have to go see for themselves. That’s how the shepherds become the first ones outside of this little family to tell the story of what they have experienced—all they have seen and heard. Already, the observers become the storytellers. The good news from the angels is now the good news from the shepherds. And the shepherds echo the angel’s words back to Mary and Joseph again, “Do not be afraid. This is good news. Always and only good.” 

After they see and hear for themselves and share a good word with the holy family, they return to their lives. They take that first calling and that first good word back into their obscurity. And we don’t know what happens after that. We don’t know if the peace of God settles over them or if they keep telling the story to each other in hopes of not forgetting. But we know it started that night, and this calling—this undeniable draw to the Christ— would continue across from their fields to ours.

When we dedicate babies here we say to them, “You will not remember this, but we will remember this for you.” This blessing, this day, this moment of love and affection poured out over the little one we are welcoming into our community. I wonder if the story of the shepherds would be told to Jesus when he asked about the night he was born. Would his parents regale him of these wild, stinky, curious men arriving because an angel appeared to them in a field? Is that too much story to tell a young child? Do Mary and Joseph remember that night for him?

The shepherds stayed with Jesus in some kind of way, the metaphor and symbol becoming part of his teaching and his own understanding of who he was in the world. Jesus would be called the good shepherd and teach from images of sheep in pens and coming and going through gates. He would talk about the loving relationship of shepherd to sheep, searching for a lost one, sheep responding to the familiar voice of the shepherd. 

And then, near the end of his life, Jesus would ask the ones who followed him most closely, the ones who had responded to that undeniable draw to him, “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.” When his followers asked what they were supposed to do with his legacy after he was gone, Jesus made clear that his Way is the way of love. Care for one another like a shepherd cares for his sheep. Love one another as I have loved you. By this everyone will know you are my disciples: that you have love for one another. 

You see? Do not be afraid. This news, this baby, this birth, this story is always and only good. This story is about God’s peace, God’s desire for your flourishing, to rest on you today. This story is about the call that echoes across time and reverberates through this room tonight. The love and hope and joy we might long to know is somehow wrapped up in this swaddled baby in a back house stable. And the same call to the shepherds is calling to us: Do not be afraid. God’s peace is on you—the ones God favors. This is good news tonight.