A Gift For You

Isaiah 9:2-7, Luke 2:1-20

Christmas Eve 2004, 7:00pm

Barbara D. Rowe

“Joseph went to Bethlehem with Mary, who was great with child, to be registered, to be counted.” This week as I read the Christmas story, I pondered in my heart what it feels like to be counted, to have people know who we are, to have our presence, our existence, registered in the minds of others. In the year 2000, most of us were counted through the use of a form delivered to our homes in the mail, filled out at home, and dropped in the nearest mailbox. If we didn’t send in the form, we were telephoned or visited, until it was confirmed that we were registered. We knew that we counted at least to the U.S. Census Bureau. Mary and Joseph didn’t have the luxury of that system and no one came calling for their forms. To be counted, they had to travel to Bethlehem.

Have you ever had an experience when you felt as if you didn’t count; that people were looking through you or around you but not at you, that they were listening to everyone else but not listening to you, that they didn’t care if your name was registered with them or not? There are times when we feel like we really matter, when our public self is noticed and respected, acknowledged by others. However, there are other times when we wonder if we are invisible, when it seems as if we are in the dark shadows and can’t be seen. We don’t always know if it is because of the way we look or something we say or because we are too short or too tall, too old or too young, or as a response to our political party, our religion or family background. It can happen when we disappoint others, when we feel as if we just don’t measure up to those we work with or live with, when we can’t remember things or can’t accomplish what we would like, times when we feel as if we are just not good enough, that we really don’t count for anything and we wonder even if God cares about us. It can feel as if we are wondering around in the dark, hoping that the light will shine upon us again sometime soon but not really sure if or when it will.

Imagine that young couple, simple country people who had promised themselves to each other expecting to marry soon, taking the seventy-mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the last days of her pregnancy. What a chore, just to be counted! Angels had told each of them that this pregnancy was special but it had been several months since the angel’s visits. I wonder how special they felt as they trudged slowly along the dusty road, Mary riding on the donkey and with every bump experiencing the frequent uncomfortable feeling that all pregnant women know so well. Of course, by Roman decree they had to go. They really had no choice but did anyone really notice them, was anyone aware that this really was not a good time for travel or for young Mary in her ninth month to be away from her family and female cousins? Though they were going to be registered, they surely felt as if their situation didn’t really count, that no one noticed what they were going through. As they arrived and searched for a place to stay no one offered a bed or a room, not even the local relatives of Joseph. Just in time for the birth, they found a place where the animals kept warm, probably in an area under the living quarters of a home or an inn, with straw for a bed and a feeding trough for a cradle. They may have registered as the Roman government required but did this family count to anyone else? They certainly didn’t get any special treatment regardless of what the angels and cousin Elizabeth might have told them months before.

As Mary and Joseph were trying to make the barn-like area comfortable for their first night as a family, the shepherds were out in the fields. They kept an eye on their sheep throughout the dark of the night as they tried to rest near the grazing areas, certainly not any more comfortable than the lodgings of the family. I wonder how important they felt they were to the rest of the world. Did the shepherds count to the Roman government? The Scripture doesn’t mention their needing to register. Since they moved around with their sheep and had little in the way of worldly goods, there may have been no attempt to record the shepherds. They might not have counted at all.

Then suddenly an angel of the Lord stood before them. The glory of the Lord, a brilliant light in the midst of a dark night, shone around them. God’s angel, God’s messenger first appeared to some no name, no count shepherds in a dark field in the middle of the night. Why wouldn’t they be afraid? How could they know that in that bright light God’s presence was with them? Then the reassuring words came through an angel messenger. “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people, ALL PEOPLE; 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.” The shepherds were told nothing about an immaculate conception or a virgin birth but these “no counts” were the first to see God’s light and hear the news from the angel that a baby had been born. Those shepherds were the first to receive the information and hear the many angels calling out the message of a Savior who would live God’s hope for all, for peace and goodwill among all people.

Without the knowledge of a miracle but only with the bright light of the message that appeared to them, not in a temple but in the ordinary place where they worked and lived, the shepherds suddenly became fully awake and alive. They dropped all they were doing and rushed into Bethlehem searching for the couple that hadn’t been noticed by others, a couple with a baby sleeping in an animal’s food dish. The shepherds were bursting with the news. Those first evangelists told Mary and Joseph and anyone else who would listen all the details of the light and the angels and the words of hope that they heard, an experience that changed their lives. Mary accepted these words as a treasured gift and mulled them over and over in her heart. The shepherds, meanwhile, couldn’t stop talking about it. Glorifying and praising, hollering and singing, talking and talking and talking to anyone they met, they worked their way back to their daily life, the fields and their sheep.

To these people who weren’t anything special, who didn’t really count in society, to these poor and lowly shepherds and a carpenter and a young girl, the light of the Good News came first. That light led them to a baby whose life would embody for all of us God’s hope for peace and goodwill among all people – not war, not alienation, not hunger, not hatred, not fear, not lies, not greed – but peace and goodwill for all.

Do we notice God’s light as we go about our daily routines in our fragile world? It is there for us especially in the darkest of times, trying to break through. Do we let that divine light get our attention and lead us to the manger or are we too busy striving to count, to be noticed in our own worlds? God’s light and Good News are for all people: short and tall, old and young, Republicans and Democrats, presidents and illegal immigrants, soldiers and insurgents, homeowners in Tiburon and homeless sleeping in Old Mill Park, those who are grieving and those who are celebrating, those imprisoned and those who walk free. The people who share the light, the Good News of God’s gift, God’s love for all people, can be as simple as shepherds or children or PTA volunteers or soccer coaches or doctors or store clerks or family members, or marines, or Hospice patients, or peace marchers. They all count to God, every one of them, and you and me. I invite you to turn and look at the person sitting next to you tonight. God’s light lives within that person in ways you may not have seen before. Look closely. Can you see the glow?

In a few moments we will share God’s light with each other in the traditional candle lighting. As the flame is passed to you, do not be afraid to receive it. Dip your candle into the light of your neighbor’s until your own light shines. Then, in response to receiving God’s light, pass it on to the next person. When our candles are lit, as the flame registers with each of us, slowly, one by one, the glow will fill this sanctuary. May that light lead us to the manger to worship the one who calls us to make our lives count for justice and peace in our families, in our communities, and for all people throughout the earth. God’s gracious gift comes to each of us tonight in the message of the angels and in the life of a gentle baby. Let us prayerfully receive that gift and respond by reflecting God’s light into the world. The world is desperately in need of God’s light and in the unique way it shines through you. In your own special way, this Christmas and throughout the year let it shine – so that those you meet will know the justice and peace of the one who was born in a manger.