The glory in humility; Luke 2:1-14; December 24, 2025

Scripture Reading                                                                                                     Luke 2:1-14

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.

8 Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 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: 11 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,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, 19 and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

Sermon                                              The Glory in Humility

For many of us, the words of the Christmas story bring comfort simply through their familiarity - they are a touch point to return to in the still, slow days that mark the year’s turning. Over centuries, the warm wonder of these nativity scenes continues to echo with the love and joy of the night of Jesus’s birth. 

Warmth and wonder, but also — for a long time it is was assumed that Mary and Joseph’s lodgings in a stable were a sign of their abandonment and isolation. We told a story about them wandering far from home, courageous but alone among uncaring strangers. We understood this as the first sign of the world’s rejection of Christ, the first sign of the way the world really is - a place hostile to God.

However, recent scholarship paints a different picture of life in Bethlehem all those years ago. Far from being alone, and cold, and surrounded by filth, Mary and Joseph returned home to be with family. Coming home to be with family for the birth of Mary’s first born was not a burden, it was a source of immense comfort. The fact that there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the guest room means that they were welcomed into the inner circle of the home — a building split into two rooms or spaces, one for animals, one for humans, who shared the building in order to keep each other warm.

Mary and Joseph did not travel alone, for everyone had been called to register in their own hometown. They traveled as part of a growing caravan of people returning to Bethlehem. And when they arrived, family was there, surrounding Mary and tending to her during labor and delivery and recovery. 

The circumstances of Jesus’s birth are normal. Familiar. Human. The warmth of his circumstances tell us something about who Jesus was and who God is. Care and excitement, not hostility, surrounded Jesus’s family when he was born. This tells us something about God’s love and God’s will.

Sometimes I have heard the stories of Jesus’s life described as a rescue mission. I’ve heard preachers preach about a dangerous journey into enemy territory, a heroic God who dashes through a treacherous land to rescue the lucky few or the overachievers.

But the incarnation, the presence of God with us in a human body, does not read like a rescue mission into a cold or hostile place. Christ is the source of our redemption because the incarnation is yet one more love letter in a thick stack, communicating God’s faithfulness to the world, and all the people God loves.God did not make you, or me, or your neighbor, in order to turn toward us with hatred, resignation, or disappointment.

The Incarnation reveals God’s love for the world. God created, and then experienced, infancy and childhood, adolescent and adulthood, saw the people around him gain the wisdom of age, enter their golden years. God, the same one who sang a hymn of exuberant praise during the unfolding of creation, God who named each new life form with delight, loved the world so much that he came to experience it. Before Christ performed miracles, taught us how to love one another, or endured the cross, he simply existed. He simply grew up, in the fullness of time, in the fullness of a family. God loves this physical, material, created world. God loves the specific, singular lives that humans actually live.

Think about the events surrounding the arrival of a child - the pain and noise, the chaos and exhaustion. Think about Mary and Joseph, tired and elated, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins. Think about your family members at any event. Mingled affection, the same old familiar annoyances, the dearness and long knowing, the griefs you’ve born together. That’s where God was born. That’s where God still dwells.

It’s not only in the midst of family life.The joy of Christ immediately ripples out and engulfs the shepherds. It’s on its way to the journeying wise men. As Jesus made himself at home here on earth, his included a wild hodgepodge of men and women, religious Jews and Roman citizens, those working to make ends meet as well as the mighty and powerful. He ate at many tables. He brought relief to the miserable, liberation to the oppressed and marginalized. He renewed the sick and stricken. He did not only come to dwell in what is joyful. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with suffering. He wept. He wept with his loved ones in the face of death even when he knew that he was bringing life. 

We’ve spent Advent hoping, and now the light of the world has entered in, fulfilling our longings for hope, peace, joy, and love. We receive from God among us, from God made flesh. And humbly, like Jesus, we open our own lives in welcome.

God’s love of the material world in all its glory, mess, and heartbreak, is a divine alternative, indeed a divine antidote, to whatever draws us toward perfectionism or isolation, towards greed or apathy.

When we as human beings look to make ourselves feel better or more secure by excluding or persecuting others because of their race or ethnicity, sexuality or gender, religion or ability, God breaks down those hierarchies and insists upon the fact that all children are born in the image of God. We take God’s example of peace-making seriously, get to know our neighbors, care for them and protect them.

When we as human beings are tempted to use the created world merely as resources to be bought and sold on the market, commodified and plundered, Christ reminds us that God remembers the sparrows, rejoices with shepherds, clothes the lilies, brings the wilderness to bloom — thus he renews our attention to the wholeness of all of creation, not just to the wholeness of humankind.

When we as human beings are tempted to ignore the suffering around us, or to buckle under the suffering in our own lives, the designs of God are that we, like he, would bear with each other, daring to mourn with those who are mourning. Thus we hold out hope, participating in a world in which suffering is soothed so that it loses its death-dealing power, its tendency toward despair.

When joy comes knocking on our doors, we lay aside our burdens for the time being, thankful for reprieve, thankful for endurance, buoyed up by laughter. Let joy bind us in community, loosening the tight confines of resentment, softening the harsh edges of irritation, growing our gratitude at the privilege it is to witness one another’s stories and bear one another’s burdens. 

Part of the meaning of this birth story, and of Jesus’s life on earth, is that life is messy, our own lives are imperfect, our attempts at purity and achievement fall far short, and its OK — the mess is where God comes and makes herself at home. In the presence of God, take courage. Renew your hope, renew your love and joy, be at peace. Welcome God into the actual life that you are actually living and you will find the signs of God’s presence are all around you. Welcome God into the life that you are actually living and dare to pray that those signs of presence become clearer, and brighter, more encouraging.

Christ has come. Christ who is the source and the completion of our faith and its efforts. The reason for them, the grace to sustain them. God who nurtures tiny flames into lamps that shine in the darkness. Let our own hearts be kindled anew this evening.