Not "Hide and Seek”

The poor, who maybe only had a very few animals, cared for them so closely that they protected them from wolves or thieves by dedicating a section of their small houses to the animals.

Imagine an entry level where the animals stayed overnight, which was then cleaned out and used for family purposes during the day while the animals were in the courtyard or out pasturing.

And then three or four steps from that entry level up to another level of the house where the family slept on pallets at night that were rolled up during the day so that cooking and crafts could be done.

And in the edge of that floor of the upper level, some depressions in the floor where the animal food was placed; depressions licked smooth by generations of animal tongues.

Wood was expensive and in short supply, so it is not likely to have fancy wooden mangers here, just the gentle scooped out depression in the floor, just enough to be borrowed as a temporary home for a baby.

It is right there in the middle of the household, between the people and the animals.

It was the best available place for Mary, Joseph, and the baby, since the only other room in the house, the guest room, was already occupied or unusable.

Right there in the middle of things, Jesus is born.

And that is one of the points of the whole story.

One could hardly come up with a more ordinary setting for such a momentous event.

It is not in one of the dozens of rooms of a king's palace, nor is it in the deep recesses of some secret society.

It is right there in the middle of an ordinary house in an ordinary village of maybe 100 people or so, where everybody knows everything that goes on in every household.

And God chooses some ordinary people to be the first to know the event and its importance.

In fact, shepherds were generally just tolerated and regarded with considerable suspicion because they were outside at night; who knows what goes on in the dark out there.

They are directed where to go and told what to expect to find in the village, and they do, right there in the middle of everything in the crowded household that offered hospitality to the visitors from Nazareth.

And they can be sure that they are in the right place, because they find the baby just where they were told.

N T Wright observes that] it is so easy for us to get lost in the interesting details that we miss the importance of the scene.

When someone yells to call our attention to something down the way, where do we look first?

At the person yelling, instead of at the place to which he is trying to call our attention.

So even though we are intrigued by all these things about the manger, those details are pointing to the ordinariness, the in-the-middle of things which Jesus' birth truly is.

That title that we used each week in Advent...Emmanuel... means “God with us.”

That is the reality to which the manger and all the other details of the story point.

We've all played “Hide and Seek” from time to time.

With infants it is hiding behind a towel and playing “peek.”

Later on it may get more complicated.

One person remembered a friend who was so good at hiding that no one could ever find him, and they would often go home in frustration.

There are those who think that the Lord God toys with us in that kind of way, hiding so well that we cannot find him, and so we give up and turn away.

Not so!

The nativity narrative is telling us that God doesn't hide, but rather has chosen to make himself available to us in the most ordinary, visible of ways, as a baby in Bethlehem.

Later in the Gospel we will hear the Lord say: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Pay attention here!

We don't have to go wandering around imagining what God is like, or whether there is God at all; the Lord God reveals himself in the most profound and yet simple way imaginable, as the babe of Bethlehem.

We keep a sign of God's availability in front of us all the time.

In our House of Grace we keep visible these things: the oil of Baptism, the remaining bread and wine, the body and Blood of Christ, and the pulpit Bible open to the Gospel of the Sunday, together with the candle that burns all the time as symbol of the presence of Christ

There they are, the Means of Grace, the ways in which God comes into our midst and makes himself available to us, visible to us all the time if we pay attention.

There is another aspect of the scene to mention, vulnerability.

Those Means of Grace are vulnerable; they could be misused or abused.

We pray that it will never be the case; but nevertheless, they remain unlocked

Jesus is taking a chance on us, making himself vulnerable and available.

Lord, have mercy on us when we mess up those realities!

These three ideas-- Christ's coming into the midst of things, his becoming available for us, and his allowing himself to be vulnerable to us – are in the background as Martin Luther was writing his family's Christmas hymn.

The angels make the announcement about Jesus coming right in the middle of things, in the middle of the life of ordinary peasants and shepherds: [LBW #51.1-5]

What is their reaction, and ours? We are given the gift of faith to see and to understand a bit. [LBW#51.6-7]

So then let us all sing of the reason for joy. [LBW#51.8]

Thoughtful members of the family then reflect on the vulnerability of Jesus come in the flesh for us. [LBW#51.9]

For me, for us, we marvel, that Jesus makes himself available for us. What a wonder that one so grand would bother with us who are not so grand. LBW#51.10-12

What is our response to all of this news about Jesus in our midst, his availability, and his vulnerability? We can do nothing finer than to join with the chorus of heaven in a common song of praise, so let's do that! [LBW#51.13-14]

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.