Christmas Eve 2008                            Luke 2:1-20

             Did you ever wonder what we would have heard and seen if we had been there that night on the very first Christmas?  Would we have heard and seen the choirs of angels singing or only the sight and sounds of barnyard animals shifting around?  Would we have seen the stars dancing in the sky that night or simply two poor, tired, and very frightened people about to become parents in a stable?  Would we have understood the hushed silence of the earth standing still in the divine presence of God come down to earth as and in a little child.  Would we have missed completely the meaning of this cosmic earth changing soul saving, life giving event?

            It is probable that very few people in Bethlehem and all of Palestine for that matter saw and heard and understood what took place that night.  The choirs of angels singing were drowned out by the haggling and trading going on in the Bethlehem town square.  There was a bright star in the sky but no one in Palestine paid it any attention. If anyone did see Mary and Joseph shivering in that stable and needing help as the Christ child was born, they didn’t offer any assistance.

            In one of his All in the Family episodes Edith and Archie Bunker are at Edith's high school class reunion.  Edith runs into an old classmate named Buck who, once thin, was now really fat.  Edith and Buck have a wonderful conversation about the old days and the things they did together.  Edith doesn't seem to notice how extremely heavy Buck is now. Later, when Edith and Archie are talking, she says, "Archie, ain't Buck a beautiful person." Archie looks at her -- disgusted expression -- and says: "You’re a pip, Edith. You know that.  You and I look at the same guy and you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp.”   Edith looks puzzled and then says, "Yeah, ain't it too bad."

            What we see and what we hear depends not upon the events but rather who we are as people. It’s not what is in front of our eyes but what is inside of us.

            In Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol,” the Ghost of Christmas Past has just paid a very discomforting visit to Ebenezer Scrooge.  The old miser is shaken at the time by the entire ordeal. But when he wakes up , he simply dismisses the lesson of the visitation, saying: “Bah, humbug! It wasn’t real. Just a bit of last night’s undigested beef.”

What if we had actually been there in the stable when he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manger.  What would we have felt if we had reached out with our finger and his tiny hand had wrapped around our finger.  Would we have felt the tug of God’s hand reaching out to us, reaching deeply into our hearts and minds and souls and leaving us changed, marked as his own, forever. 

            If we had been there at Bethlehem that night what would we have seen?   What would we have understood? This is one way to find out about yourself:   Ask yourself if when you last turned on the news did you see chaos and strife, or did you see the joy and peace of Christmas? When you went out to do your shopping did you see only passing glimpses of the people in the stores or did you notice the worried expressions on some of their faces? Worried because they are facing this Christmas because they don't know how they are going to make ends meet.  Worried because their life’s savings are gone.  Frightened because winter is upon them and the future is uncertain for even their basic survival needs.  What did you see?  What did you understand?