Christmas Eve Story 2011 at Greenbelt Community Church

The First Christmas

Everything I know about the First Christmas, I learned from one of two sources: Christmas cards or Christmas carols.

That’s not so bad – I could have learned it from Claymation television specials. But by the time they were aired, my head was already stuffed with the images of star-spangled nights in the snow-dusted Judean hills and a little drummer boy laying his drum at the side of the manger, where bright yellow hay edged the brown wood, escaping into the cloud exhaled by the cattle crouched nearby.

I’m not saying that Christmas should be stripped down to only those things mentioned in the gospels, but it does seem to me that a good deal of what we know about baby Jesus and the First Christmas might be if not misleading, at least a little obfuscatory of a lesson or two that it may profit us to contemplate tonight.

So what do we know about Jesus’s birth?

Well... It was in Bethlehem, in Judea, in the winter, at night

In a barn – or maybe a cave – And Joseph was there, and Mary, of course and the baby and animals and shepherds and angels with glory shining all around.

And there was a star in the East and three wise men – maybe even kings, who had talked to Herod first and then they left town without a forwarding address.

And cows and sheep and just one donkey – the one Mary rode on as she and Joseph came to town to be counted for the census. And maybe a camel or two with the wise men; And Gold and frankincense and myrrh, let’s not forget that.

For almost two thousand years, we’ve had people explaining to us what all these things mean. Even before Hallmark and Hummel and Charles Shultz, men took it upon themselves to tell us bluntly that shepherds and the manger demonstrate how humble and truly human Jesus was and that gold, frankincense and myrrh symbolize earthly riches and kingship and foreshadow Christ’s death and resurrection.

Or maybe those are the example of gift-giving that we follow when we put presents under the tree. You choose.

In the bleak Midwinter, while shepherds watched their flocks by night all seated on the ground, the little town of Bethlehem in solemn stillness lay for the whole Silent Night.

While Mary birthed Jesus in a cow’s stall with wise men and shepherds and all and Jeanette Isabella brought her torch to light up the field and fountain, moor and mountain the little lord Jesus lay asleep in the hay. Maybe.

The images on the glitter-sprinkled cards are lovely. I’ve sung Christmas carols as long as I can remember, too; and they evoke images of beauty and delight for me, but maybe, just maybe there are more insights to be gleaned from the Nativity than these old familiar phrases encompass.

As I’ve accumulated life experience, including the experience of having and raising my own children, and assisting and observing many other women and families doing the same tasks, I sometimes contemplate Mary’s story. What was it like to have, not just any child – but The Child?

Incidentally, I am very much indebted to the author of Luke. If he was not a physician, he was most certainly a man with a wide experience of people, and more respect than usual for women. His is the only account of Jesus’s life than goes right back to his birth. Two women figure largely in its first two chapters and we know what they did, said and even what they thought. While Mary is mentioned in Matthew, it is only in the passive voice. Matthew is reporting the acts of men, but Luke is reporting the stories of families, including women. And he includes plenty of details, so we’ll know how it really was.

Maybe like this.

Mary, perhaps fifteen years of age, knows she is promised to Joseph the Carpenter. No date has been set for the wedding when she gets a visitor. Congratulations, Mary, you’re going to have a son. Not just any son, but God’s son. When? Oh, right away. No, really. My name’s Gabriel and I brought the good news to your cousin, Elizabeth. Yes, that news.

No email, no telephone, no mail service even. And neither Mary nor Elizabeth can read or write anyway. Nothing to do but see with her own eyes. Mary goes, as quickly as possible to Elizabeth and indeed sees. Elizabeth, as old as she is, is pregnant and, in a scene neither will ever forget, her baby kicks for the first time at the exact moment that they set eyes on one another.

If one prediction is true, the other must be also; and by the time Mary goes home, she is beyond all doubt carrying the child she knows is God’s.

Life is busy for our expectant fifteen-year-old. Joseph decides to go to Bethlehem before the time of the census. While he sells many of his possessions and gives up his house, Mary is busy making cheeses, pounding dates, figs and nuts and forming them into small cakes and drying them and making the hard, flat bread of her ancestors. Their trip of more than 60 miles will take them across Samaria. It is a place so foreign, so unfamiliar that they might not even be able to find acceptable food, so Mary is preparing the rations they will need to take with them.

Luke doesn’t tell us anything about that fateful trip. The Christmas cards usually show Joseph leading a gray donkey with Mary perched on the back and draped in blue. Actually, if Mary wore anything blue when leaving Nazareth, it was dusty gray before long; and no laundry to be done until Bethlehem.

The cards never show their fellow travelers, the traders moving from place to place with goods and other people going south to comply with the census, or joining their family. There are few women along, but there are some, and Mary receives plenty of advice. Walk, walk as long as you can, don’t walk, make you husband put you up on the ass, or horse, or camel. Eat this, avoid that, drink lots of wine, no, never drink wine, only beer. Well, everyone agreed that the water in Samaria was not safe to drink.

Eventually, whether it took two weeks or six, the couple arrived in Bethlehem, where Joseph has relatives. Not close relatives; because he and Mary were not taken into anyone’s home, they went to an inn, a square building of mud-brick, each side a separate rectangular room opening onto the central courtyard, where the cooking took place.

Every room is full with cash-paying customers so the young couple has to camp out.

Now, when you walk all those miles, you have a lot of time to think. And when you are pregnant, you think about the future, about your child and about the labor that looms ahead.

In this, Mary had a head start. You see, she knew, beyond all doubt, that she was having a baby boy. Gabriel had told her so. God’s son. The Messiah. She even knew that, in a world where so many babies did not survive, hers would. But what about her?

Gabriel hadn’t said anything about her raising God’s son, anything about how much time they would have together. If the mothers of ordinary children died in childbirth, how much more dangerous would her lying-in be? If the mere presence of God made a bush burst into flame, would bearing God’s son not burn her out, too?

In a world where the commonest cause of death for women was the hazards of childbearing, we can be sure of one thing. Mary wanted her Mom, who was not there.

At any rate, whether they had been in Bethlehem 12 hours or 12 weeks, time came, as time does, and Mary was in labor. So, what was Joseph to do? No ambulance, no hospital or doctor – No Lamaze class or birth center. Joseph did what husbands did – he turned to the nearest married woman and said “My wife is in labor. Please help her.” and retired from the scene.

Now let’s say the nearest married woman was the female innkeeper, the wife or daughter or mother of the inn’s owner; and let’s call her Sarah. What does Sarah do?

She calls her daughter Hannah and bids her fetch Miriam from next door, tells her what’s afoot and continue on to her aunt Martha and tell her to bring along her milk goat, just in case.

Camping out not being the best possible location for a lying-in, our ladies hustle Mary into the kitchen; that courtyard in the middle of the inn, where there is a fire and clay jars filled with water. Hannah had filled the jars from Bethlehem’s well and gathered the sticks for the fire that day, so a ten-year-old was responsible for all the modern conveniences enjoyed at the Nativity.

Most labors last somewhere between an hour and a day – and so did Mary’s. Things happened. Someone caught the baby. Mary survived.

It doesn’t matter if Sarah caught the baby, if Miriam taught Mary how to swaddle the child and if Martha bathed the little boy. Together, they were the midwives to the most important birth EVER.

Mary nursed her son well, and the milk goat could be sent back to Martha’s.

Now, the little family could stay in the courtyard for a day or two, close to the fire and the water supply, but with all the hustle and bustle, perhaps someone might trip over the tiny bundle. They needed a safe place for the child to rest, when not in his Mother’s arms. Hannah found just the thing – an unused feed box. Lined with cloth, it was just the thing to keep a newborn safe but handy, when no bed was available for a lying-in.

There we have it, swaddling clothes; just the ordinary way every baby was dressed. A manger bed? Just a handy box in a place where there wasn’t much stuff.

These were the details included by the messenger, so the locals could find the family they had been invited to see; details preserved by Luke so that we would know that THIS is the story.

In the French language, midwives are called ‘sage-femmes’; literally, wise women. So those Magi, magicians, astrologers or kings were really humble women of experience and generosity; and the gold, frankincense and myrrh were old cloths, a milk goat and their strong hands and mild voices, their time and experience.

So what happened in Bethlehem? The most basic of earthly human experiences was acted out in an uncomfortable place, tempered by strangers carrying out God’s will. Carrying out God’s will in a way so familiar, so common to them that did not even remark it. God had to send messengers – a multitude – a host – to wake up the neighbors and send them as witnesses. Come and look, something special has happened here!

So with or without the gold leaf, the glitter and the pop-ups, the glories streaming from heaven above, the herald angels singing, God comes into the world in a new guise. And it happened with the help of humble, handy women, a girl and an unused feed box.

Whatever the year, the season and the weather (it rarely snows in Judea), whether Mary rode an ass or a camel, whether the wise persons were women, men or even a girl; this very human thing happened.

So carry water and gather sticks; bring your old baby clothes and an extra gallon of milk; if you get an invitation to come and see something special, leave the computer and follow your GPS to the campground. You can never tell when God may be calling. And if a reporter named Luke is there be sure she gets your name. You might be mentioned in THE story.