12/20/64

Scripture: Luke 2: 1-20.

Text: Luke 2: 14; “Glory to God in the highest ....”

Christmas is almost here! This is Christmas Sunday; and the day which we have come to celebrate as the birthday of Jesus is only some five days away. For nearly four weeks, the holiday decorations have been up along our city streets. Music associated with the holiday season has been heard outside each day, and inside as one tunes in to hear the broadcast programs. The nights have been made beautiful with vari-colored lights on strategically located trees, around the doorways of homes, and along the main lanes of street traffic. Here and there one detects a sour note when some piece of poor taste is advertised to one’s attention. But the atmosphere is, for the most part, one of cheer and holiday joyfulness.

Most organizations have had, or will have, some kind of Christmas party or festivity. It is quite a time for celebration. Friends are greeted by the hundreds. The postal service is strained to a limit. Schools approach holiday time and a vacation recess. Families plan to be together if at all possible. It is exciting and lovely -- this Christmas season that comes each year! Now, is it the “main show?” Or does Advent lead us toward something more significant than our eager celebrations?

Recently, I have read the briefly-told story of a country boy whose father gave him a piece of money so that the lad could go into the town and see a circus. It had been known for some time that the circus was coming, for poster displays announced it any every means of publicity had been utilized to attract people. On the day of the circus, the country boy rode into town on horseback. He hitched the horse’s reins to a post at the outskirts of town and joined the crowds moving to the downtown section. People of all ages lined the walks in festive mood; and the boy took his place among them. Presently, there came down the street a contingent of mounted, uniformed policemen. Buttons and badges were well polished; and mounts were well-groomed and spirited. After the policemen came a big brass band playing and marching in fine rhythm. Then there came a group of elephants and other animals -- some of them being pulled in cages. Then came clowns, whose antics brought laughter to the standing crowds; and acrobats all dressed as if ready for their act to be seen immediately. Other circus performers were in the parade. Now and then someone riding on the high seat of a circus carriage would make some kind of impressive-sounding announcement. Most seemed to be stepping to the music of a drum corps.

It was quite a show, and it lasted for some time. Then the procession ended, and the people who had stood on the sidewalk began to hustle away. The boy found his horse, mounted, and wended his way home. When he arrived, he handed back to his father the coins that had been given to him.

His astonished father demanded of him: “What? Didn’t you see the circus?” To which the still-elated boy replied: “Why, yes, I saw the circus. But I didn’t have to pay for it. It was free. It wasn’t even at the Fair Grounds. It came right down Main Street.”

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It is possible that there are many of us who, like that boy, mistake the parade for the main attraction. It is easy for us to get lost in the trappings, the trivial, and the trite, when we could be enjoying the full three-ring circus.

There is much about Christmas that is spectacular. But Christmas is much more basic than a spectacle. Christmas is a revelation. Christmas is the birth celebration of one through whom God laid bare His inherent character and purpose for mankind. At Christmas, we can sense His matchless mercy, His incomparable love, His limitless grace. For he sent to the earth one in whose life this gift to the earth can be seen.

When we think about it, that is something to sing about! It is little wonder that so much of the meaning of Christmas is conveyed in song; and that part of the birth narrative is the song of angels. Perhaps not everyone hears. But, to those who perceive and understand, there is a song in the air; and in the heart!

Perhaps no verse in Scripture more adequately describes our sentiment on so glorious a morning as this Christmas Sunday, than does the song: “Glory to God in the highest ....” Old as the story is; much as its theology has been debated; we still delight to read, and hear, and review it at Christmastide.

“A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world [of his empire] should be enrolled.” This Caesar was the most powerful person on earth. He was the emperor of Rome. He had been born in the year that our historians would label 44 BC, and was named Gaius Octavius. He was a grand nephew of Julius Caesar, who had won control of more territory and people than anyone before him.

When Julius Caesar was assassinated, this grand nephew stood in great danger. But he steadily won his way to power over Mark Anthony and other rivals. And at last he had been seated on the imperial throne. The Roman Senate gave him the title “Augustus.” As Emperor, this Caesar Augustus was responsible for many notable achievements. It was later said of him that he found the city of Rome brick and left it marble. His roads, all over the empire, were a marvel of efficiency. And the system of roads, marked with adequate milestones, increased the strategic value of key cities. The very rule of Augustus in Rome meant wealth, and power, and authority.

It was during this reign of prodigious might, that there was born, off in a corner of one of the conquered provinces, a baby boy. The birth of that baby occurred in a little town to which the mother and her husband had come because the decree of the great Augustus compelled them to come there. Both of them were poor. When they came to the town, nobody took any notice of their coming. No one helped them to find a place to stay. Since the only shelter they could find was a stable -- and they were fortunate to find that -- it was in a stall of the stable that the babe was born; --- a baby who was named Jesus.

The rest of the town was not concerned. No flicker of awareness or interest stirred in the general world outside. In far-off Rome, Caesar Augustus could have heard nothing of it. Probably he would not have bothered to listen if the matter had been known, and mentioned, to him. Who cared what happened in insignificant Palestine? Of course the local governor must be alert to take care of any circumstance that could conceivably engender an uprising. But he could be depended upon to take care of that.

As between Caesar Augustus and the child who was born in Palestine --- who could have any question as to which was the greatest figure? The emperor has towered above the horizons of history, while the child born in a tiny village of one of his provinces should have been lost among the multitudes that existed beneath his shadow. But it has not been so. Great as he was, Caesar Augustus is now only an echo of ancient times. But the name of the child he had never heard of is spoken with reverence and love by millions. Numberless churches honor him, who proclaimed a kingdom mightier than Rome.

Something mightier than an imperial proclamation had happened. A decree went out from Caesar Augustus. But God sent forth the divine spirit of His own goodness. And the world has been singing ever since over the power of light and love which can reach into people’s hearts to make them different and new.

The event occurred in a village called “Bethlehem.” The meaning of that village name is “the house of bread.” Probably Bethlehem got its name from its location in a region that was relatively fertile. This was rare in a land which is, in large part, so barren.

It is perhaps not irrelevant that the birth of Jesus thus became associated with the town whose name is “the house of bread.” The love of God, which is associated with his birth, is not indifferent to simple and basic human needs. Jesus, when a grown man and being no ascetic, taught his disciples to pray as one of their first petitions, “Give us this day our daily bread.” [Matthew 6: 11].

Notice, as you read the gospels, how often in their brief story, there is mention of Jesus going to this or that house to dine --- to Simon Peter’s house, to the home of Matthew, to Zacchaeus’ house, to Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany, to the house of Simon the Pharisee, to the upper room in Jerusalem where he ate his last meal with his disciples. It was after his crucifixion that his living presence was made known at Emmaus in the breaking of bread. [Luke 24: 13-35].

He was concerned with human need and human happiness. Few of the world’s outstanding religions have approached the balance and roundedness of his life. He brought the quality of eternal life into the concerns of this mortal life, and people have been singing of it ever since.

When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he illustrated from the sowing of grain; the kneading of leaven into bread dough; the man at the end of a day’s journey asking for bread at the house of a friend. He made it clear that the love of God cares for these things. Yet he also made it clear that life is much more than these; for “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” [Matthew 4: 4]. No satisfaction of economic wants -- vital, urgent and primary though they be -- can ultimately feed the best in our life. If we shall be able to create a society in which every family can have a decent home, and in which every child can grow up in contentment and security, with a sufficient taste for the beauty of the earth --- even then we shall not reach fulfillment. For possessions alone do not teach one how to live. Something within still craves the “bread of life.”

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Our minds dwell on the story that there was no room for the couple from Nazareth at the Bethlehem inn. That was a hard fact. But it has been dwelt upon tenderly by the minds of Christians through the ages. Christian poets and singers have celebrated the fact in verse and song, perhaps because it is so strong a parable of living for the human soul.

Why is there no room in the inn for the Christ child who is at its doors? In the first place, simply because of other guests who got there first. If Joseph and Mary had been among the earlier arrivals, they would probably have been received in the inn. If they were turned away, it was simply because the harried inn-keeper had already filled all of his space and there was “no vacancy.” These travelers from Nazareth had come late, the inn was crowded, they couldn’t get in; and that was all there was to it.

Just so casually we may tend to exclude Jesus from our hearts. We do not mean to be irreligious or neglectful. We are just so full, already, of the demanding clamor of common thoughts that we find no room for divine love.

In the second place, it might be said that there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph, and the child who was to be born, simply because nobody knew they were coming; and nobody recognized their significance or importance when they did come. People have astonishing capacity to find room, or make room, when they know someone of importance to their lives is coming.

There is another course of thought along which our minds may be led concerning the suggested theme of Christ and the inn. When the reality of Christ is at our doors, what may be the signs of his presence?

I. For one thing, the sign that Jesus may be near is when we stand in the presence of innocence. There is evil to curse the world. But disillusionment is a worse curse. We can fight evil with hearty will so long as we know it is evil and as long as we believe in the beauty and worthwhileness of what is good. But when we become disillusioned and cynical, we have a more difficult battle.

To cleanse us from cynicism we need to dwell in the presence of innocence, to understand the unpretentious faithfulness of mothers for their little children, the capacity of countless people to suffer for those they love, the integrity of men who will forgo advantages in business which might be gained through crooked paths, to idealism of young people who, even when unconventional, still keep cleanness in their hearts. Then it is seen that there is a divine gift standing outside our own doors, nearer than we imagine, ready to come in and abide with us.

II. Again, it may be a sign that Jesus is drawing near when we are moved with any impulse that is generous. Real generosity is a lot more than that which is expressed in material gifts. Often it involves the quick imagination which sees the need of others before they have told of it. It is understanding as well as sharing.

III. Thirdly, of course the note of Jesus’ coming is joy. When some new opportunity at work one loves to do, when a great friendship has begun, when genuine love comes to a man and a woman, when a wanted child is born to a human home, then joy proclaims the nearness of Christ. And we want to sing.

One reason for the appeal of the story of Bethlehem is that it describes the entry of Christ into our own lives. When we find him near, something in our own being wants to shout “Glory to God in the highest ...” Please note a matter of sequence here. There is first this great proclamation, and then “peace on earth.” Peace among the men and women of the earth is the climax of life’s great hope, not its beginning. The beginning is the adoration of God himself. Our betterment comes not first of all from human schemes, but from God to whom we turn in praise and in trust.

As our perception is lifted from the dull level of common prose to higher realms of poetic expression, we appreciate anew the Christmas carols. We see the setting on a lonely Judean hill and there is nothing to sing about. Who wants to sing about shepherding sheep day after day --- looking for adequate pasture in the daytime; sleeping in the open at night with an ear more than half awake for any danger to the sheep; tiresome toil at shearing time; the never-ending routine of one ordinary day after another.

But what the shepherds saw in the sky and at the manger of the inn’s stable set them to singing. They returned to their duties glorifying God and praising Him for what they had seen. The realities of life include the vision, as well as the ordinary dull duties.

We modern Christians, whether at work in field or factory, kitchen or classroom or study -- need the same awareness that came to the Judean shepherds. We need assurance to go with our ideas. We are aware of some of the things that may be wrong with Christmas; we want to see what is right with Christmas. Only as we find our source for happiness in God do we discover the most genuine and abiding pleasures.

A famous scene in the “Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is near the end of the story when Scrooge at last begins to rejoice. Through much of the story, his face had remained hard and austere. Now it cracks with a smile, and, finally, Scrooge even laughs and makes merry. Joy has broken through his hard, suspicious, grasping world; and he becomes remarkably grateful and happy.

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The shepherds discovered that God entered human experience by coming to the world through the life of a babe. And they related their heavenly vision to their tangible world.

Christmas is not just a spectacle. It is an experience. Last Sunday, we read from the Gospel of John that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” [John 1: 14]. Truly it did dwell among men, and it does dwell among us. God came, and comes, into our human life -- into all our mundane affairs. His goodness belongs in our politics -- that it may serve the ends of good life for all peoples; in our libraries opening good understanding for young and old and discriminating against none; in our peaceful use of atomic power; in education for all who hunger for it. God cares for all upon earth.

So let our songs lead us back to nobler living where we work and plan and strive. Does anyone ever say about us, “the Word became flesh?” If it appeared in our Savior, it can appear in us who would be saved.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” Let Him continue to come to us, and through us to many others.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 20, 1964.