Christmas Eve Sermon: December 24, 2011

Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This year, there are no fewer than eight nativity scenes in my home.

There’s the large, delicate, painted set we received as a wedding gift from Robert’s grandmother, which we’re always afraid to touch, and there’s the simple wooden one we bought for our kids several years later. We have a Guatemalan nativity, purchased by my mother from a Ten Thousand Villages shop. There’s a really unusual one Robert brought home from Senegal a few years ago—it actually casts a shadow of the nativity on the wall when you light its three candles. And this year, we were excited to put out the olive wood set purchased on my first trip to the Holy Land in August.

And then, there’s the nativity scene we bought at Walgreens.

That one is made of molded plastic, and with the push of a button, the star on top lights up, and while a variety of Christmas carols play in the background, a deep, Paul Harvey-like voice tells the story: “While shepherds watched their flocks that night, an angel came to say…in the city of David a Savior is born this day.”

This Walgreen’s nativity isn’t particularly meaningful to anyone in the family. And yet, as tacky as it is, it finds its way out of the Christmas decorations box and under our tree every year, without fail. One day, if we aren’t careful, it may also find itself on one of my favorite Christmas websites: The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities.

The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities is just what it sounds like: a collection of the most unfortunate representations of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus ever found. Here you can find the holy family made out of marshmallows or fashioned out of chocolate. You can see the stable and manger backlit with neon lights. Mary and Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds, and even the wise men can be found depicted as geese, chickens, bears or yellow rubber ducks.

Why do we do this? What is our fascination with turning the holy story of the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world, into a Precious Moment or a lawn ornament?

And why do you suppose we decorate our homes with tiny mangers—whether tacky or tasteful? The manger, after all, was no holy object. It was a feeding trough. And when you think of it that way, it seems even funnier to fashion it out of marshmallows, or chocolate, or Lenox china.

The manger was nothing more than an animal feeding trough and a slop bowl. It was literally the last place one would think to look for a baby, much less a king. But Mary and Joseph had to make do with what they had—and what they had was a warm, dry place to stay, some animals to keep them company, and exactly one place to put a newborn baby. And so it was that a manger became a baby’s bed, and thereby a cradle for the Savior of the world.

Simply because there was no room in the inn, this utterly functional, decidedly common object suddenly became a receptacle that held the divine. And perhaps this explains why we love nativity scenes so much!

There’s something about this detail of the story—the fact that God came near to us in the form of a baby, and that baby slept his first night not in a palace, or even a boarding house, but in an animal’s feed dish—that fascinates us. It draws us in! We love to sing “Away in a Manger” and to decorate our homes with tiny nativity scenes because the manger is central to our understanding of the meaning of Christmas.

At Christmas, we gather around the manger to celebrate how common places are made holy by the appearance of God in Christ Jesus. It happened on that first Christmas night in Bethlehem, and it happens every day where and when we least expect it.

Martin Luther once said “the Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.” Perhaps the Bible is not such an unexpected place to find God! In fact, we’re so accustomed to thinking of the Bible as a “holy book”, that some of us think it’s too holy to pick up and read! But the fact is that the Bible, in itself, is just a book. Whether we read it in print or on our iPhones, Holy Scripture is holy for only one reason: because when we read it, we meet Christ there. The Bible, like the manger, is an object made holy by the presence of Emmanuel, God with us.

“Emmanuel” is one of those words that seems “Christmas-y”, for it is on this night especially that we celebrate “God with us” in the baby Jesus, and in the manger. But it’s also true that each time we gather for communion, we encounter Emmanuel, God with us. Each time we come to the table and receive the bread and wine, we are part of the Christmas miracle, for we meet Jesus there. Here at the table, in these everyday foods, we are fed and forgiven, through the presence of God in Christ Jesus.

But there are other, even less obvious places which are made holy by the presence of God in Jesus Christ.

If the manger was an unlikely place for God to show up in Bethlehem, I would say the layaway counter at Kmart would be on the list of unlikely places to find Jesus today. And yet the story that has captivated my attention all week is the news that anonymous donors have been paying off layaway accounts at Kmart stores.

Kmart is one of the few places that still offer layaway, and it can be a great help to families with small budgets who don’t have the privilege of using credit cards. As I understand it, anonymous donors have been asking especially for accounts that include toys or clothes for children, and are paying off the entire balance.

This is the sort of story news stations love to report at this time of year! But this time, the story goes beyond charity and sentimentality for me. As I see it, the layaway counter is the manger: a common place made holy through an unexpected gift, undeserved grace, and divine love—not
to mention an account that was paid in full! This year, Jesus was also born in Kmart.

On that first Christmas night, God showed up in the commonest of places—a manger—and made it holy through the presence of Jesus, the Savior of the world. And so we gather again on this Christmas night, around the manger wherein Jesus was laid. We light candles. We sing “Silent night, holy night.” And for this one night, even if we haven’t been to church all year, we feel the presence of Emmanuel, God-with-us, deep in our bones. This is the miracle of Christmas. This is what Christmas is all about!

But when we leave this holy place, and when the manger and the shepherds and the wise men are packed away for another year, we can expect that God will continue to show up in unexpected places. For who would have thought to look for a baby in a feeding trough?

A simple manger became a cradle for the Messiah, and in the same way Jesus makes the commonest parts of our lives into holy places. He is with us on the Metra, and in your cubicle. He is at the dentist’s office and at the Jewel-Osco check-out. Jesus is present during that conversation in the car with your teenager. And he is born again today at the Kmart layaway counter.

And so, with the angel and the multitude of the heavenly host, we sing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven!” For unto us is born this day—and every day—a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Jesus, our Savior is born. God is with us. Merry Christmas!