Luke 2:8-14

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see -- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

I always try to have a little fun on Christmas Eve so when I came across these pictures last week, I couldn’t resist. They’re pictures people have taken of their babies – presented something like those Pinterest “before and after” pics of things people have tried to make, bake or craft that didn’t quite turn out as much like the original as they had planned. You’ve seen those, right? Something like this:

where the reality doesn’t quite live up to the expectations of the very well-intentioned, wannabe chef who made it.

Anyway, someone did the same with baby pictures … put together a compilation of photos that parents tried to recreate with their kids, but that didn’t turn out quite like they hoped. The reality of it all didn’t quite match the expectation.

Of course, it was the baby factor that made me think of Christmas when I saw these the first time around. But the more I thought about the difference between the “expectation” and the “reality” that the coming of Jesus is supposed to mean for us, the more relevant and meaningful these pictures seem to be for where we find ourselves tonight – at least with regard to the coming of this savior we’ve gathered to sing about, to celebrate, and to hope in.

Now, I don’t want to rain on this Christmas parade (or snow and slush and freeze all over this celebration, as the case may be), but I do think when we neglect or forget too much about the hard and holy reality of Jesus’ coming among us … and when we cling too tightly to the warm and fuzzy expectations the world has convinced us this should all be about, we miss something about the depth and meaning and greater purpose of it all.

In other words, it’s worth acknowledging that the reality of what shows up in Jesus may look different from what we’ve been trained and tricked to expect a lot of the time.

I mean, we’ve created a fairy tale out of Jesus’ birthday that probably wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, if we’re honest.

We sing “Away in a Manger” and pretend that the cattle are “lowing” but that the “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” I don’t buy that for a minute. Did you see those pictures? Have you met a newborn? The notion of a peaceful, peepless Baby Jesus comes from a song, not from Scripture.

And we pretend that first Christmas wasn’t a logistical nightmare without a safe place for Mary to rest, sleep and give birth … so that she had to make it all happen in a food trough for animals. It’s hard to imagine God couldn’t do better by Mary and Joseph – lined up a bed and midwife or something – after all they had agreed to, don’t you think?

And poor, terrified, traumatized Mary. Our nativity sets and our Christmas cards turn her into a grown woman who was merely inconvenienced by all of this, rather than acknowledging the young, peasant girl that she was, whose body was likely broken and bloodied – in all the ways – by all she endured to meet this moment.

I don’t know and can’t imagine what Mary and Joseph were expecting when they got the news and started planning for this baby, this Jesus who was going to save his people from their sins, this Emmanuel – “God with Us” – who had been promised. But the reality of it all surely wasn’t something you’d include in the brochure, post on social media, or take pictures of for your annual Christmas greeting.

And all of that was just par for the course where Jesus was concerned and a foretaste of the feast to come, really. Because, the expectations of those who were waiting for a Messiah were nothing like what showed up in Jesus.

They longed for a powerful king and got a helpless baby. They hoped for a weapon-wielding warrior and got a pacifist’s prince of peace. They were looking for fine robes and got a bundle of swaddling cloths. They expected riches and got poverty. They thought he would come for a nation, and he showed up for the sake of the whole wide world. They were convinced his judgment would look like fear, not forgiveness; might, not mercy; hubris, not humility. You get the point.

So I’m here to suggest that our invitation tonight … our hope, this Christmas … might just be found, not in lowering our expectations, but in changing them altogether.

How might your life and our world be transformed if we expected to find God in the broken places more often? In the hospital room, at the nursing home, at the funeral home. Maybe we wouldn’t despair so easily, give up hope so quickly, lose faith so fast.

How might your life and our world be transformed if we expected to find God in the poor places from whence he came in the first place? I think less would become more for us all. Our generosity would come more naturally. We would find better, different, more faithful ways to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless and all the rest.

How might things change if we listened to the “other” … the marginalized, the outsider, like Mary … more often? And what if we expected to hear there something about God’s hopes, dreams, and deepest desires? If Mary was right, then the lowly would be lifted up. The mighty would be cast down. Humility and grace and justice would rule the day. And we might be more inclined to help that happen.

And all of this is good news for you and me, too – this change in perspective when it comes to what God is up to at Christmas – because it means that when our own reality doesn’t measure up to our best intentions… when our own experience doesn’t live up to our greatest expectations… when things don’t go the way we hoped, planned for, dreamed of at every turn… we’re called to trust and to see that that’s precisely where, when, how and why God shows up at all.

… to restore relationships, to bring peace where there’s only been chaos, to find what seems so lost.

… to surprise us with love, to shower us with grace, to empower us with purpose.

… to shine light into the shadows, to turn sin into forgiveness, to bring life from death, even.

So, this Christmas and in the days to come, let’s stop looking for God only in what seems picture perfect, pretty, prosperous or powerful and then being disappointed when we don’t find what we expect there. That was never God’s promise.

Instead, let’s look for God where God has always been, in the lost, lonely and broken places – of our lives and in this world – and let’s remember that that’s where God does God’s best work.

It’s into those places that Christ comes. It’s those imperfect people – like you and me – for whom God’s light shines. It’s in those hard, holy moments of our hard, holy, harried lives where faith, hope and love abide, in spite of ourselves … but always by God’s grace … made known, in the flesh, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. Merry Christmas.

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

When Mark and I talked about this Advent sermon series and he asked me to preach, he said, by the way, you get Mary.

You see, all sorts of theological conundrum surround Mary: the virgin birth; the catholic doctrines of her perpetual sinlessness and her bodily assumption into heaven. Myths have sprung up about her which Martin Luther said cannot be validated by scripture. But so, it is and has been.

We will focus on what she said and what she did in the high calling that God, through the angel Gabriel, laid on her. There are but a very few references to Mary and what she said in each of the Gospels.

Who in the Christian church and beyond, has not heard of Mary? I discovered that she is also mentioned in the Quran. Mary is central to the life of Jesus and to our remembrance of her in the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Lent. She even has a place in our Lutheran worship book on page 57 -- a commemoration prayer for Mary, mother of our Lord.

What did this young Mary say about being chosen to be the mother of the Messiah and what did she say during his life that can shed light on her faithfulness, courage, and discipleship—and how can that inform our own faithfulness, courage, and discipleship?

To put it into the vernacular of today, I am guessing that after Gabriel told her she was favored, would conceive, and have a son and that she would name him Jesus, I think Mary said, “WAIT, WHAT?!!”

After all, she was a teenager living in the small, no count village of Nazareth. What and why was an angel of the almighty God appearing to her there with such startling news? According to St. Luke she did ask, how can this be since I am a virgin? Gabriel simply begged off saying that the Holy Spirit will take care of it and that the power of the Most High God will handle it. Could you, as a woman, have lived with that? Looking at Joseph’s response to stay with Mary, could I have lived with that?

Amazingly Mary simply said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Wow.

And the angel departed leaving Mary and Joseph with their shock, their questions, their amazement…and their decision to follow God’s plan going forward.

We learned last week that Mary traveled to have a conversation with Aunt Elizabeth about all of this and received good counsel and comfort. And then unexpectedly comes Mary’s beautiful song that we know as the Magnificat. It is such a soaring poetic proclamation recognizing the greatness of God who is strong in love and justice. This great song comes from the voice and heart of a teenager! We marvel at it still to this day.

We are told that Mary pondered all these things and kept them in her heart. That is a good place to keep the things we ponder regarding the mysteries of God.

So finally, the time came for Jesus to be born, and to fulfill the ancient prophecy of the birth to happen in the city of David, Joseph and Mary made the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem – ninety-three miles so that Jesus could be born in the city of David. A long ride on a donkey. Mary was tough and Joseph was faithful and loyal.

In Bethlehem they found only a stable for the birth. (There is a Facebook meme showing up that has Mary saying, “Joe, I told you to make a reservation!”) I am not sure if that’s what Mary said or not.

But the birth took place with animals looking on…shepherds showing up and eventually Wise Men bringing gifts. I assume Mary greeted them with awe and maybe with suspicion, but her words are lost to antiquity.

But another dream came to the couple and told them that they had to make another difficult trip—this time to Egypt to protect the young Jesus from the wrath of Herod. Surely Mary was worried, but we don’t know what she said about it. Maybe only saying, “Joe, we must do it, we have to go.”

The trip to Egypt was again around ninety miles—walking and carrying a young boy...and perhaps sharing time on a donkey. Feeding him, changing him, protecting him—Mary did it all, again exhibiting great trust and faithfulness. We don’t know what Mary and Joseph talked about, but I’m sure she was pondering and keeping all these things in her heart. It seems that she had made up her mind to protect Jesus to witness to the tumultuous future of her son.

We that Jesus grew up in a family with siblings and parents who, even knowing that he was different, treated him like the others with care and love.

We do have some words that Mary spoke within the context of raising Jesus. When he was twelve years old and he took off on his own while in Jerusalem, Mary expressed her care and displeasure saying, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look your father and I have been looking for you in great anxiety.” What parent today has not parroted that rebuke while raising our children? But Jesus simply said he was about God’s business and so Mary went home and again treasured all those things in her heart. She trusted God’s plan. Perhaps a lesson for us?

We hear what Mary said again at a wedding in Cana. The wine ran out, and exhibiting motherly sternness, she asked him to do something about it, but he pushed back just a bit asking her what that had to do with him, and she said with a flip of her head (my imagination) to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” We know the rest of the story and it was Jesus’ first miracle.

Later in the narrative, we get this scene from John’s Gospel: Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is our son.” I imagine that Mary’s heart was too broken for her to blubber a word. She would only have been about 43 years old. Can we imagine?

So, we are left with only a few things that Mary said, and yet we get a vivid example of a simple, profoundly faithful, strongly courageous young woman who trusted God and who therefore is worthy of our emulation and remembrance as the mother of our Lord who is on the way. Amen, Come Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Christmas Expectations vs. Reality

That's What She Said: Mary