Journeys to Bethlehem
Christmas sermon given by the Rev. Christine Gowdy-Jaehnig on December 24, 2024
Isaiah 9:2-7 * Psalm 96 * Titus 2:11-14 * Luke 2: 1-20
Our Sacred Story is full of journeys: Abraham and Sarah’s, Joseph and his family’s, the teary trail to Babylon and the hopeful return generations later. This year, for the first time I saw that the Nativity Story is about journeys, too. The little town of Bethlehem is quite the crossroads where these journeys intersect, the travelers touch each other’s lives and God’s purposes are worked out.
As Luke tells the story, in the town of Nazareth in Galilee there lived Joseph with his spouse Mary, pregnant with a baby whose advent was foretold in scripture and announced by an angelic messenger. They must journey southward, to Bethlehem in Judea. This unwelcome trek is prompted by politics; the Romans want to take a census the better to tax the people and pay for those occupying soldiers. It is a long journey that the they undertake, especially for a pregnant woman. It is made longer by the fact that Jews avoid crossing Samaria, which lies between Galilee and Judea. They take an eastern route which crosses the Jordan River twice. Step by weary step, Mary and Joseph travel for about a week. The last leg of this journey is quite arduous, for the Jordan Valley is nearly 1000 feet below sea level and they must climb out of it into the Judean highlands, where Bethlehem sits at 2,500 feet above sea level.
While in Bethlehem, Mary gives birth to her child. They call him Jesus, the Aramaic form of Joshua which means “God saves.” These words, “Mary gives birth,” are so quickly spoken but the actual process is slow and intense for mother and child. The baby undergoes a journey of inches that takes hours, the very same journey that every other person in the whole history of humanity has made (barring those born in recent years by C-section). But at last he takes his first breath and cries out and finds comfort in his parents’ arms. Mary has come prepared and wraps him in swaddling bands to ease the transition. It is time to rest, but there are visitors at the door.
In come shepherds, with wild eagerness in their faces, to kneel before the child and gaze in wonder and hope. Their journey has been short for they come from fields not very far away. It was prompted by an angelic proclamation: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” The shepherds then witnessed a multitude of angels chorusing out their praise at this wondrous event. When all was quiet and dark again, the shepherds set out on a quest to find this baby, the challenge being that swaddling clothes were standard raiment for an infant, even an infant Messiah. Their path takes them from rough pasture with rocks and scrub trees, agitated sheep and cold night air into the town. There they disturb a few people more respectable than they, before they are directed to the temporary housing of a skilled woodworker and his young wife.
Some time later Mary, Joseph and Jesus, still in Bethlehem, are visited by very different guests. Three men arrive, with entourage, having journeyed hundreds of miles, probably from present day Iran. Matthew calls them magi: wise men or magicians. Tradition has also called them kings while we might call them astrologers. They are seekers who look for meaning in cosmic events. They were prompted to undertake this journey by what they saw in the starry heavens: a new Jewish king had been born! They went first to Jerusalem, of course, for isn’t that the appropriate place to find a king of the Jews? But not this king; they must travel six more miles and journey from the urban to the rural, from the splendid to the common, from the comfort of wealth to the struggle of poverty. Then they, too, kneel before the child to honor him, and presented the gifts they had brought.
There are different kinds of journeys. There are the physical ones we undertake, like our travels to see loved ones during this season; our bodies move from one location to another where we find new vistas. There are also interior journeys that we undertake or undergo (the first is chosen, the other not). The scenery doesn’t change much, although our perception of and response to it might. On these inner journeys, be they intellectual, emotional, spiritual or a combination, we are changed. Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and wise men all make outer journeys that prompt inner transformation: expectation changes to hope, fear becomes awe, despair is elbowed out by joy, confusion becomes trust. We can not physically travel to Bethlehem to see and worship Jesus, except in our imaginations. But we can take the other kind of journey. Fred Craddock, said that the longest journey we will ever take is from the head to the heart. We throw around some big words during the seasons of Advent and Christmas: Immanuel, Incarnation, Messiah, Eschatology, Fulfillment. But what really matters is our heart’s encounter with the Mystery of the birth Jesus, the icon of God’s love for us.
There is one more journey to consider. It is the greatest and longest journey of all and is the subject of the good news in which the angels rejoice. God travels from heaven to earth and becomes incarnate in a human body. This journey into earthy flesh was prompted by Love. The nativity story is a rejection of the idea that the world’s Creator sits aloof and transcendent. We have a God who wants to be with us and is willing to undertake the dangers and challenges of human life to be here. It seems appropriate to linger for a moment over the idea of a god who reaches out, is committed to being with us and is ready to walk the paths that we walk, sleep where we sleep, suffer the same colds and blisters, and be buffeted by the same winds that blow sleet in our faces .
Immanuel; God is with us!