Luke 2:1-20 – This is a story that we know well. So many of the details are committed to memory: shepherds, angels, wise men, the holy family huddled in humble and even crude surroundings, a crowded inn. We have heard the story from the time we were infants being dangled on grandparents’ knees sitting around a Christmas tree. We have seen the story acted out repeatedly by children in pageants. We see it in the figurines of manger scenes people display in their homes. We know this story well and it surrounds this weekend with its beauty.
Over the centuries certain embellishments have been added to the story, and we are very familiar with these as well, having seen countless artistic presentations of the story that has captured the hearts and spirits of so many people. Because of these additions, however, in some fashion the story has taken on an elusive unearthly aura harkening to a reality that we don’t share. There is a holy and sacred glow that is sprinkled upon the ears of my spirit every time I hear it now; an iridescence that radiates like the halos of the Baby Jesus, and the glint of the tinsel on angel wings in a children’s pageant. As I picture the story, I see the unearthly and heaven sent shimmer of a Rembrandt painting. All these add up to a scene that inspires my awe and invites me to be a spectator of the heavenly drama.
The biblical story, however, is different than many of the images it has inspired. Whereas each representation is made with the artist’s faith-filled and pious intent of showing the holiness of the event, in some way heaven-touched, the biblical story is pointing the other direction. Luke’s Christmas story was written to invite us to be participants and not spectators. Yes, the story includes angels but we are not to be distracted by them. They didn’t want the shepherds to be stunned into inactivity, or even to fall upon their knees in praise out there in the field beneath a shimmering sky. The angels aren’t there to get the shepherds or us to focus on the sky at all, they are there to say, “Look down, look over there, look in the little town of Bethlehem, look in a stable, look in a manger, yes, that’s right, a manger, a feed bin for the animals.” The angels had a message to deliver and a purpose for the shepherds to fulfill.
The annunciation to the shepherds like the annunciation to Mary herself points out to us the familiar and cherished detail that God is here. Not up there with the angels, not out there with a star, not in the palace of Herod or the Forum in Rome. I can almost hear the angelic messengers telling the shepherds and all of us, “God is with you, in that feed bin over there. God came down to be with you, you don’t have to get up to God; the Lord is among you.”
The story is about God with us, Emmanuel, and not as a burning bush and a mysterious voice, nor as a dread power no one could look upon, but as a baby. God chose incarnation as a baby like babies everyone has seen, one that is small and charming, one before whom you don’t shield your eyes to behold God, but you naturally crinkle the corners of your eyes as you smile and welcome God. A baby so common and so close, of course God is with us.
Luke crafted this story with so many down-to-earth details to show us that the story of God’s birth on earth was very human. Moreover he shows a story that is very humble. The meaning of Luke’s Christmas story is that God is here and has entered your story. And God is with us just as he said “always even to the end of the age.”
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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