Is there any night more beautiful than Christmas Eve? Our boys and girls are waiting expectantly on a visit from St. Nick. Each of us as adults love the joy we see in their eyes. We have our own kind of joy. Those who are parents love giving their children nice things. That is when we truly learn that it is more blessed to give than to receive. And most of us remember the joy we felt as children at Christmas. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
Even more important is the knowledge that as the songwriter wrote, “Love came down at Christmas.” This is the true meaning of Christmas. The God whose nature and whose name is Love came into our world to redeem us from the powers of sin and death. Joy to the world the Lord is come!
I would like to begin our meditation for this Christmas Eve with a strange little story of a boy who tried to sabotage a nativity pageant. Can you imagine that? Who would want to spoil a nativity pageant?
It seems that eleven-year-old Erwin was bitterly disappointed at not being cast as Joseph in the school Nativity play. He was given the minor role of the innkeeper instead. This was not what he wanted and throughout the weeks of rehearsal he brooded on how he could avenge himself on the classmate who was chosen for the part that he so desired.
When the day of the big performance came, Erwin was prepared. Joseph and Mary made their entrance and knocked on the door of the inn. Erwin, the innkeeper, opened it a fraction and eyed them coldly. “Can you give us board and lodging for the night?” Joseph pleaded. Joseph, of course, expected the innkeeper to follow the script and answer gruffly that he had no room for them in the inn.
Instead young Erwin grandly flung the door wide open, beamed genially and announced, “Come in, come in. You shall have the best room in the hotel.”
There was a pause. The young man playing Joseph had not expected this and did not know exactly what to do. But then, with great presence of mind, young Joseph turned to Mary and said, “Hold on. I’ll take a look inside first.” He peered past the innkeeper, shook his head firmly and announced sharply, “I’m not taking my wife into a place like this. Come on, Mary, we’ll sleep in the stable.” And that is what they did. The plot was back on course. (1)
Well, as you and I know, that’s not exactly how the story of the first Christmas unfolded. In the original there was no room in the inn. Mary and Joseph had no choice but to sleep in a stable.
It wasn’t by choice but by necessity that Mary and Joseph’s baby was born in such lowly circumstances. For you see, that was the plan of God.
The holy couple was not among the cultural elite of their time. They couldn’t have afforded a room at the Hilton even if it had been available. They were strangers with few resources at their disposal. There’s a lesson here for us. Often it is people who start out in the most difficult of circumstances who have the greatest impact on the world.
Consider the story of one young man. Sick and puny as a baby, he remained frail and delicate all his days. Later, as a pastor, his maladies were so severe that he wasn’t able to serve his growing congregation. Instead he wrote them letters filled with hope and good cheer. Even though his body was frail his spirit was in great shape.
On one occasion he complained about the harsh and uncouth hymn texts of his day. Someone challenged him to write a better one. So he did. In fact, he didn’t stop with one hymn. He wrote over 600 hymns--mostly hymns of praise. When his health finally broke in 1748 and he went to be with God, he left one of the most remarkable collections of hymns that the world has ever known. His name? Isaac Watts. His contribution to the Christmas season? Probably the most sung of all the Christmas hymns, “Joy to the World! the Lord is come.” (2)
Could Isaac Watts have written so, if his life had been privileged? I don’t know. He would probably have had more pleasures in life, but would he have known authentic joy? It is amazing how often persons who have everything materially are spiritual zeroes, whereas those who struggle through life have souls with both depth and height.
In Luke’s story, the primary attendants to Jesus’ birth are shepherds. If there is a more humble occupation in the world than that of a shepherd, I don’t know what it would be. They were mere guardians to a bunch of smelly sheep. I doubt that any special training was required--just some common sense and a degree of courage. Only God would have so glorified such a lowly occupation by having them present for this, the holiest of events.
What a night it must have been for those lowly shepherds. How they marveled at the host of angels spread across the sky . . . and the angels’ message of peace on earth and good will to all people. Can’t you imagine one of them later sitting in a crowd of people who are world travelers?
One man boasts, “I have seen the pyramids of Egypt.”
Another says, “I saw Caesar ride through the streets of Rome in all his splendor.”
I wonder if that humble shepherd would dare speak up and say, “I beheld the King of Kings, the mighty God Incarnate, Savior of the World . . . in the manger of Bethlehem.”
That is the way God works. He takes the lowliest of people and glorifies them. In so doing God teaches us that we should never regard with disdain any other human being. Everyone IS beautiful in his or her own way. Even the humblest of lives can be touched with the divine hand. You never know when the person you shut out might be one person you most would want to know. Learn a lesson from the innkeeper at that first nativity. Be careful whom you turn away from your door. Be careful whom you snub at school, or at work, or in your neighborhood.
Christmas teaches us that God’s love is available to all people. This is the light that shines through all the ages--the light of God’s love. This is the light that shown brightest that first Christmas.
How encouraging this truth is to most of the world’s people. We sometimes forget how privileged we are. The Scriptures teach us that when we reach out to one of the least of these, we are reaching out to Christ. The Christmas story teaches us that even the lowliest of persons has a place in His kingdom.
I would like to tell a story about another nativity pageant that didn't go quite as planned. It was also sabotaged in a way, not out of envy, but because of one young man’s desire simply to make his friends laugh.
The youth group at a certain church was performing a manger scene. Joseph
and Mary and all the other characters were in place and ready. They did their parts with seriousness and commitment, looking as pious as they possibly could.
And then it came time for the shepherds to enter.
Dressed in flannel bathrobes and toweled head gear, the shepherds proceeded to the altar steps where Mary and Joseph looked earnestly at the straw which contained a single naked light bulb that was playing the part of the glowing newborn Jesus.
Then came an unexpected twist to the play: With his back to the congregation, one of the shepherds said to the person playing Joseph, in a very loud whisper for all the cast to hear, “Well, Joe, when you gonna pass out cigars?”
The solemn spell of that occasion was broken by this simple remark: “Well, Joe, when you gonna pass out cigars?” The cast particularly exploded. It became impossible for them to hold back the bursts of laughter.
The chief angel, standing on a chair behind Mary and Joseph was the worst of all. She shook so hard in laughter that she fell off her chair and took the curtained back drop and all the rest of the props down with her. She just kept rolling around on the floor holding her stomach because she was laughing so hard. The whole set was in shambles. The scene turned into utter chaos.
But do you know what? The only thing that didn't go to pieces that night was the light bulb in the manger . . . It never stopped shining. (3) And that, of course, is the ultimate meaning of Christmas. God’s light never stops shining, the light of God’s love for all people, no matter who we may be or what we have done.
It is the essential meaning of this sacred night. Through the babe of Bethlehem God has made Himself available to us all. We no longer have to worship God from afar. He is now available to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
A man from Kentucky named John Jacob Niles spent many years wandering the Appalachian Mountains in search of the origins of folk songs. Niles found one folk song that was particularly significant.
He was in North Carolina on a cold December day. He watched the people who lived in a poor community going about their daily chores. Suddenly his ears picked up the sound of a solitary voice. It was a little girl sitting alone on a bench. She was singing a song Niles had never heard. When she finished, Niles asked her about the song. She told him that her mother had taught it to her. Her mother had learned it from her mother. The song was I Wonder as I Wander.
Niles wrote the words to this haunting tune in a small tablet. In his mind this song contained the joy and wonder of Christmas. When Niles introduced the song just before the beginning of World War II, other people responded as he did to the song’s simple message. Until his death in 1980, Niles continued his search for the source of the carol. He never found its author, and concluded that the little girl was an angel sent to deliver a message of the wonder of Christ’s birth. The words of this song go like this:
“I wonder as I wander out under the sky, How Jesus the Savior did come for to die, For poor on’ry people like you and like I. I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
“When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall, With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all. But high from God’s heaven a star’s light did fall, And the promise of ages it then did recall.
“If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing, A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God’s angels in heav’n for to sing, He surely could have it, ’cause He was the King.”* (4)
He is the King. He is our King. Even the humblest place and the humblest people take on a new significance when touched by the hand of God. He is available to us. But not if we stand at a distance and merely tip our hats. We must welcome His Spirit into our lives. He must become part of our very being.
Have you taken that step in your life? If you would take it this evening--invite the Savior into your life--you will never forget Christmas Eve 2018. It will be the definitive moment in your life. Let the light of Christ shine in your life.
Note: Pastor, add beauty to your service by having someone sing this song a cappella instead of simply reading it.
1. Adapted from John Timpson’s Early Morning Book (HarperCollins (1987). Cited in Rev. Lowell’s Laughter in the House of God: Humorous Anecdotes about Churches, Clergy, and the World of Religion (Kindle Edition).
2. Contributed. Source unknown.
3. Bill Adams, http://www.spirit-net.ca/sermons/b-ch00-adams.php.
4. Ace Collins, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, pp. 86-90. Cited by David Jenkins, https://www.lifeway.com/en/articles/christmas-sermon-wonder-wander-mary-joseph-john-1.