LUKE 2:1-20

It’s easy to find God when life is good.  That’s why you can feel God’s presence this evening.  You can almost feel God whispering to us in the merry melodies and the pretty poinsettias.  You can almost feel God reaching out to us in the flickering flames and the glorious glow of the candles.  Tonight it’s all about God and the promise of peace on earth and goodwill to all but what about tomorrow?  Will you be able to find God when the kids fight over the toys that they get?  Will you be able to find God when your pushy sister-in-law makes a snide remark about your Christmas decorations?  Will you be able to find God when you go back to work and your boss pushes you to catch up on all the things that didn’t get done in the days leading up to Christmas?  Will you be able to find God when your mailbox fills up with all those bills for all those Christmas presents?

All the stress and strain of the real world may explain what why one elderly gentleman reacted the way he did one evening when the electricity went out in the middle of the Christmas Eve service. The minister and ushers quickly ran here, there and everywhere to put more candles around the sanctuary.  Then when the minister got back into the pulpit and said, “Now where was I?” the elderly man grumbled “You were about to say ‘Amen.’”

Anyone can find God when life is good.  The real question is can you find God when your life is messy, muddled and all mixed up?   If you’re not sure about that just look at what it was really like on this night long ago.   All those Christmas cards want you to believe that it was a quaint and quiet scene when Jesus was born in that little town of Bethlehem. A reality Christmas card though would paint a very different picture.  A reality card would have to be scented with the smell of donkey dust and human sweat, stale hay and cow droppings.   A reality card would have include the sound of a woman screaming at the top of her lungs.  Now all you mothers out there know what I’m talking about.   If you’re a guy you have to follow the advice that Bill Cosby gave many years ago.  Bill Cosby once said that if a man wants to know what it’s like to give birth all he has to do is take his lower lip and pull it up over his head.

Now I apologize if I’m ruining your image of what it was like on this night long ago but the truth is this: God wasn’t born in a palace where life was good.  God was born in a dirty stable where life was difficult.   The God who was in Christ was born to dirt poor parents who had just walked a couple hundred miles to do what?  To pay their taxes.   And the angel didn’t appear to shepherds who were quietly gazing up at the stars.  The angle appeared to shepherds who were out in the fields shivering.  I checked. The average nighttime temperature in Bethlehem this time of year is 42 degrees and if it was 42 degrees out in those fields it was also 42 degrees in that stable. Now go sit in a field in 42 degree weather for 12 hours and then come back and sing, “O Little Town Of Bethlehem.”

Everywhere you look you see people who were in pain that night.   It’s a story full of physical, emotional and spiritual pain.  Yet into all of that pain came the presence of the living God.  

And the angel said to them, ‘Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Remember now.  The angel said that the good news is for all the people.  All the people meaning the shepherds.  All the people meaning Mary and Joseph.  All the people meaning the wise men from that distant land.  All the people meaning all of you here tonight!

On this night long ago God said to us, “Don’t just look for me when life is good.  Don’t just look for me when you’re walking along a quiet beach or standing at the top of a snow covered mountain or when a baby is born.  Look for me when life isn’t all that great because I’ll also be there.  I’ll be there just as I was there in that dirty little stable.  I’ll be there when someone you love stops loving you.  I’ll be there when you make a bad decision and it makes a mess of your life.  I’ll be there when the Alzheimer’s starts to get the best of your mother and I’ll be there when your teenager bring home that awful report card.”

In the book, Chicken Soup For The Christian Soul,  a woman tells a story of finding God in the middle of her pain.   While reading the newspaper she saw an unusual letter to the editor.  In the letter there was an appeal.  “Is there any place where we can borrow a little boy three or four years old for the Christmas holidays?   We have a nice home and would take wonderful care of him and bring him back safe and sound.  We used to have a little boy, but he couldn’t stay and we miss him so when Christmas comes.”    The letter touched the woman’s heart because it hadn’t been that long since she learned that her husband had been killed while serving overseas.  So, she knew what it was like to loose someone special but she still had her little boy and so she also knew how the sparkle of a child’s eyes can brighten the holidays.  So, she got in touch with the newspaper and they put her in touch with the man who wrote the letter.  It turns out the man was a widower who lived with his mother after loosing his wife and son.  The two “incomplete” families spent Christmas together and the woman wrote, “Together, we found a happiness that we doubted would ever return.  But the best part is that this joy was mine to keep throughout the years and for each of the Christmases since. You see, the man who wrote the letter, months later, became my husband.”

The miracle of Christmas isn’t that God is there when life is good.  The miracle of Christmas is that God will be there when life isn’t all that great.   Amen

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

December 24, 2011 – Christmas Eve