The Christmas visitor
Commentary
If some visitor from another part of the universe came to Earth during the Christmas season, I wonder what he would make of our holiday. I can't speak for other parts of the world, but I daresay that in most North American cities he would receive mixed messages about the exact nature of our celebration.
How would he put together the pieces of our Christmas puzzle? A jigsaw puzzle that includes pieces ranging from a baby in a manger to a red-nosed reindeer; from a stingy Scrooge to a grouchy Grinch; from a bearded, heavyset man bearing gifts down chimneys to an animated snowman.
How would the alien decipher the relationship between the three great sites of Christmas: Bethlehem, the North Pole, and the shopping mall?
What kind of riddle would our Christmas songs present to a stranger? He'd hear us sing the glories of a newborn king, the sentimentality of a white Christmas, the achievements of Frosty, the merits of Rudolph, and the surprise of seeing mama kissing Santa Claus.
How might our visitor from another world reconcile the angels with the elves? The three Wise Men with the three French hens? The poor baby in a barn with the middleclass shoppers in the mall?
As it happens, our celebration is precisely about a Visitor to Earth at Christmas time. But the growing numbers of unchurched in our communities are receiving mixed messages about the exact nature and meaning of this season of the year.
It is expressly our business to tell them all about it.
Micah 5:2-5a
Tucked away in the midst of a book from an Old Testament prophet who doesn't get as much attention as some others, this might easily have been an unfamiliar passage. As soon as the chief priests and scribes highlighted this passage for the visitors from the East in the days of Herod the Great, however, it became a passage of special importance.
We are sentimental about the "little town of Bethlehem," and we recognize the Messianic fulfillment of this prophecy. In Micah's day, however, it may have seemed an odd, even disturbing, prediction.
Judah at this time was ruled by a monarchy. Specifically, Micah's prophetic ministry took place during the reigns of three kings of Judah: Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Micah 1:1). Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz, and Ahaz was the son of Jotham. Likewise, Jotham had succeeded his father on the throne, just as his father had succeeded his father before him. They were all descendants of David -- it was a dynastic line.
Micah's prediction that a ruler would come from Bethlehem, therefore, was a provocative one. Ever since David established Jerusalem as the capital of the Israel (and later Judah), that was where each new ruler was born. Each new ruler was expected to be the son of his father, who was king in Jerusalem. The very promise of a ruler coming out of Bethlehem, therefore, suggests some disruption. Would the royal line be broken? Why wouldn't this new ruler come out of the palace in Jerusalem?
Micah's prophecy must have seemed anachronistic, at best. Israel's greatest ruler had, indeed, come from Bethlehem. That was David's hometown. But ever since David's time, the future kings had been born in Jerusalem.
A great many disruptions did occur in the seven centuries between Micah's prophecy and Christ's birth. The Assyrians had ravaged the land. The Babylonians had taken their booty and their captives. Alexander the Great had come and gone, along with his successors. The Jews had enjoyed a brief period of independence during the days of the Hasmoneans. But now, 700-plus years since the days of Micah, Judah was no longer ruled by a monarch descended from David. Rather, Judah was occupied by Rome and ruled by an Edomite (or Idumean), Herod the Great.
In the light of the events between the time of Micah and the time of Herod, this prophecy suggested another disruption: this time, it suggested a disruption in Judah's favor, and a disruption Herod feared. The advent of this new and eternal ruler from Bethlehem -- the city of David -- spelled the beginning of the fulfillment of God's special plans for his people and for the whole world.
Hebrews 10:5-10
This is the season when we recall Christ coming into the world. Our recollection and celebration tend to be all about the Incarnation (that is, the Christmas event). This passage from Hebrews, however, takes a different tack. "When Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired....' " That won't sound like part of the Christmas story to most of the people in our pews.
In the Old Testament lection for this Sunday, we are reminded that Christ's birth fulfilled Micah's prophecy concerning Bethlehem. And that is a familiar part of the Christmas story and celebration. The writer of Hebrews reminds us, though, that Christ's coming also fulfilled other prophecies (specifically, in this case, Psalm 40:6-8).
Hebrews' hermeneutic may be unfamiliar to the people in our pews. We are perhaps more accustomed to Old Testament prophecies that are plainly and deliberately predictive. When Isaiah, for example, says that a girl will conceive, give birth, and name her child Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14), we easily recognize that as a prophecy. Or when Micah declares that a ruler will come forth from Bethlehem, that too has the traditional sound of a prophecy. But the writer of Hebrews is taking the words of the psalmist from a thousand years B.C. and putting them in the mouth of Jesus. That may be a different use of scripture and a different understanding of prophecy than is familiar to us.
Perhaps the crux of the matter is this: Does a statement have to be a prediction in order for it to be fulfilled? Can a statement that does not consciously anticipate a future event somehow still be fulfilled by a future event? The early church clearly thought so, for they saw Christ all through the Old Testament, even in places, people, and statements that do not overtly look ahead.
In this case, as is the case for so much of the epistle, the writer of Hebrews uses an Old Testament passage to shed light on the cross of Christ.
During this quintessentially New Testament event -- Christmas -- the flesh-and-blood details of the Old Testament law's animal sacrifices seem far away and irrelevant. Yet the writer of Hebrews intrudes into our nativity scene and points back to the old, bloody altar in the tabernacle.
During the innocence, sweetness, and sentimentality of Christmas, Good Friday seems like a long way away. Yet the writer of Hebrews interrupts the happy, harmless scene and points ahead to the old, bloody cross.
It seems almost ghoulish to gaze at a newborn baby and give thought to how that baby will one day die. Of course, that is very much the spirit of Simeon's sober warning to Mary (2:34-35). It may be implicit in the gift of myrrh. And it strikes at the heart of the gospel message. Not every Gospel writer tells about Jesus' birth, but every Gospel writer tells at length about Jesus' death.
In our proclamation of Christ's coming into the world, we mustn't neglect the reason that he came. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15), and that by means of the sacrificial, atoning death described in our Hebrews passage.
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
Luke's Gospel is well-known for its attention to women and children. Luke seems to recognize characters and players in the story that the other Gospel writers miss or ignore. This passage is a lovely example of a scene we only do -- only could -- find in Luke: an episode with no men involved; just a friendly meeting of two women.
At the surface, it seems a very ordinary event: one woman visiting an out-of-town friend and relative, and the two sharing the mutual joy of their pregnancies. In fact, however, the event is quite extraordinary, for the babies they carry together represent the inauguration of the coming kingdom of God.
I have watched with wonder when my wife has been pregnant. From the very early stages, she seems to be mysteriously in touch with the child in her womb, sensitive to all its tiny movements and experiences.
Elizabeth was well along in her pregnancy when Mary came to visit, and so her baby's movements were unmistakable. And when Elizabeth's baby heard Mary's voice, Elizabeth clearly sensed his reaction. The scene becomes marvelously celebrative, as the infant John leaps, Elizabeth gives voice to his joy with her exclamation, and Mary breaks into a song of praise.
How different was this scene from the one Mary left behind in Nazareth? One can only imagine that this happy greeting -- and this recognition of the Child she carried -- was a refreshing change from the understandable skepticism of the folks back home. How much murmuring and finger-pointing had Mary begun to endure back in Nazareth? How much speculation? How much condemnation?
We may get a sense for Mary's experience in Nazareth when Luke writes that "she set out with haste." We might also surmise that she went to Elizabeth as perhaps the only person Mary knew who would naturally understand a miraculous pregnancy. And we may get a sense for what a refreshing change Elizabeth's response was for Mary when we read Mary's ebullient reaction. Note that she had not responded with such enthusiasm a few verses earlier in the event we call the Annunciation (1:26-38). Her response to the angel is brave and obedient, but not enthusiastic.
As I consider Elizabeth's emotional importance to Mary, I am reminded of Paul and Barnabas. Immediately following his conversion, Paul remained an object of scorn and suspicion among the early Christians. How much finger-pointing and speculating did he suffer? And how refreshing to have Barnabas step forward, to recognize and believe what God had done in his life, and to welcome him in.
Elizabeth (and her baby!) believed and confirmed what God was doing in Mary's life, in Mary's body. She was Mary's Barnabas, Mary's "son of encouragement."
Application
There are other new and interesting directions a preacher might go with the selected passages for this Sunday. Still, as our people come to church on this Sunday before Christmas, surely our primary calling must be to declare the person and work of Christ. Who he is and what he did are central to all three of this week's lections.
The three selected passages set side by side might be treated as separate eye-witnesses, each giving a description to a police sketch artist. Would the three resulting sketches look like the same person?
Micah describes a king whose strong reign is marked by peace and security. Hebrews, by contrast, shows a person whose body is offered as a sacrifice. And Elizabeth's testimony in Luke ("the mother of my Lord") confirms the angel's word to Mary that the baby she carries is God himself.
The pictures seem quite different, yet they all do bear witness to the same Person, and therein lies some of the beauty of the gospel.
The classic Epiphany hymn, "We Three Kings," captures the multifaceted truth nicely. After offering a poetic explication of each of the three gifts, the hymn summarizes the person and work of Christ as "King and God and sacrifice." This is the combined testimony of the three scriptural witnesses we have before us this week. And this is the marvelous Visitor to our world whom we celebrate at Christmas time. Our world still needs to hear the whole truth about him proclaimed clearly by you and me.
Alternative Applications
1) Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55). Matthew's Gospel records the arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem (Matthew 2:1-8). They had followed the star for so many miles, all the way from their far-off homes in the East. When they arrived in Jerusalem, however, their pilgrimage hit a snag. Where was the one born to be king of the Jews?
Bethlehem is just a few miles from Jerusalem. The Wise Men were very near their destination, but they weren't quite there yet. Was the star an imprecise guide, and is that why they came up short of the actual place where Christ was? Or was it their own preconceived notions that prompted them to stop in Jerusalem -- after all, the capital and throne of the present king (Herod the Great) were in Jerusalem, and so surely that must be the place where the new king of the Jews would be born.
Whatever the reason, the Wise Men, with their mixture of science and astrology, had gotten most of the way to Christ, but they had not found him yet.
Once in Jerusalem, making their provocative inquiries, the Wise Men were brought before Herod and his court. They asked where the baby was who was born to be king of the Jews. Herod shows a startling understanding of what is going on, asking the chief priests and scribes where the Messiah was to be born. In response, they cite the Micah passage. And that bit of guidance is just enough to complete the quest of the Magi.
It is a significant point for us as preachers that these men, who enjoyed guidance that was either divine or scientific or both, still needed scripture and other people in order to find Christ.
Moreover, the Micah passage (with its Magi usage) and the Luke passage combine to illustrate again the poignant reality of how much we human beings need one another in our relationships with God. Mary had heard God's plans for her directly from an angel, but her response to the angel was rather muted in comparison to the song she burst into at Elizabeth's house. How essential it was for her to have that flesh-and-blood confirmation of God's plan for her. And, likewise, the Magi had come so far on their own, but they could not complete their journey without the aid of those anonymous Bible experts in Jerusalem.
From the Garden of Eden where it was not good for Adam to be alone, to Jesus' promises for two or three gathered in his name, to our own experience of nurture and fellowship, the lovely reality is that we need other human beings. Even in what seems to be the exclusively vertical relationship we have with God, still we need the horizontal relationships with other people. They introduce us to him, they teach us about him, they inform our understanding of his will, and they share our journey with him. The Magi needed the scribes, Mary needed Elizabeth, and we need one another.
2) Luke 1:39-45. A brief reference in Luke's account of Mary's encounter with Elizabeth reminds us of the most forgotten and overlooked character in the Christmas story. He does not appear in our nativity scenes or our Christmas pageants. In preaching the Christmas story year after year, we consider, examine, and imagine every other player in the Christmas event. Songwriters, preachers, and the authors of children's books have even given lengthy consideration to the animals that may have been part of the Christmas story. Meanwhile, one of the most important Persons in the Christmas story remains largely neglected. The Holy Spirit.
Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit (1:41) when Mary came to visit, and that prompted her critically important proclamation about Mary and her child. Later, Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah, is filled with the Holy Spirit (1:67), and he spoke of God's plan and the role of his newborn son. Later still, Simeon is led by the Spirit (2:25, 27) to the Christ child, and he, too, makes a proclamation about God's salvation.
Most important of all, it is the Holy Spirit who makes Christmas happen (see 1:35). The angel explains it to Mary, and we affirm it each time we recite the Apostles' Creed ("conceived by the Holy Spirit").
Luke makes a point of including the Holy Spirit in his telling of the Christmas story, and so should we.
3) Luke 1:39-45. The Christmas event opened to mixed reviews. Matthew reports that Joseph had early misgivings. We see that Mary, too, was at least perplexed, if not worse. The shepherds' initial reaction was fright. And Herod was tragically violent in his response.
On the other hand, of course, there was the adoration of the Magi, the eventual joy of the shepherds, and the delight of Simeon and Anna.
But the first person to recognize Jesus with rejoicing was John the Baptist. While others in the audience looked about nervously, John was the first to applaud. Others took a while to warm up to the Good News, but John recognized it immediately.
The sage observation is that we do not judge truly great art; it judges us. If I say that I am not impressed by a masterpiece, that is not a reflection on the art; it is a reflection on me. So it is that John's in utero reaction to Jesus tells us something not only about Jesus, but it tells us also something about John.
We come to discover later in the Gospel accounts the importance of John. Indeed, his significance may be indicated in part by the fact that all four Gospel writers include him in their story (though not all four tell about Christmas). Still, his strange role in Luke's Christmas story makes him a kind of example for us.
Herod stands for those in every generation who outright oppose Jesus. His scribes represent those religious folks who manage to know about Jesus and yet remain essentially indifferent to him. And Joseph's early reaction reminds us of the people whose first instinct is to calculate the embarrassment and inconvenience Jesus will cause. But John is the exemplary one -- the Christmas hero -- who, upon hearing, "leaped for joy." May his example be our pattern, both at Christmas and throughout our lives.
How would he put together the pieces of our Christmas puzzle? A jigsaw puzzle that includes pieces ranging from a baby in a manger to a red-nosed reindeer; from a stingy Scrooge to a grouchy Grinch; from a bearded, heavyset man bearing gifts down chimneys to an animated snowman.
How would the alien decipher the relationship between the three great sites of Christmas: Bethlehem, the North Pole, and the shopping mall?
What kind of riddle would our Christmas songs present to a stranger? He'd hear us sing the glories of a newborn king, the sentimentality of a white Christmas, the achievements of Frosty, the merits of Rudolph, and the surprise of seeing mama kissing Santa Claus.
How might our visitor from another world reconcile the angels with the elves? The three Wise Men with the three French hens? The poor baby in a barn with the middleclass shoppers in the mall?
As it happens, our celebration is precisely about a Visitor to Earth at Christmas time. But the growing numbers of unchurched in our communities are receiving mixed messages about the exact nature and meaning of this season of the year.
It is expressly our business to tell them all about it.
Micah 5:2-5a
Tucked away in the midst of a book from an Old Testament prophet who doesn't get as much attention as some others, this might easily have been an unfamiliar passage. As soon as the chief priests and scribes highlighted this passage for the visitors from the East in the days of Herod the Great, however, it became a passage of special importance.
We are sentimental about the "little town of Bethlehem," and we recognize the Messianic fulfillment of this prophecy. In Micah's day, however, it may have seemed an odd, even disturbing, prediction.
Judah at this time was ruled by a monarchy. Specifically, Micah's prophetic ministry took place during the reigns of three kings of Judah: Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Micah 1:1). Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz, and Ahaz was the son of Jotham. Likewise, Jotham had succeeded his father on the throne, just as his father had succeeded his father before him. They were all descendants of David -- it was a dynastic line.
Micah's prediction that a ruler would come from Bethlehem, therefore, was a provocative one. Ever since David established Jerusalem as the capital of the Israel (and later Judah), that was where each new ruler was born. Each new ruler was expected to be the son of his father, who was king in Jerusalem. The very promise of a ruler coming out of Bethlehem, therefore, suggests some disruption. Would the royal line be broken? Why wouldn't this new ruler come out of the palace in Jerusalem?
Micah's prophecy must have seemed anachronistic, at best. Israel's greatest ruler had, indeed, come from Bethlehem. That was David's hometown. But ever since David's time, the future kings had been born in Jerusalem.
A great many disruptions did occur in the seven centuries between Micah's prophecy and Christ's birth. The Assyrians had ravaged the land. The Babylonians had taken their booty and their captives. Alexander the Great had come and gone, along with his successors. The Jews had enjoyed a brief period of independence during the days of the Hasmoneans. But now, 700-plus years since the days of Micah, Judah was no longer ruled by a monarch descended from David. Rather, Judah was occupied by Rome and ruled by an Edomite (or Idumean), Herod the Great.
In the light of the events between the time of Micah and the time of Herod, this prophecy suggested another disruption: this time, it suggested a disruption in Judah's favor, and a disruption Herod feared. The advent of this new and eternal ruler from Bethlehem -- the city of David -- spelled the beginning of the fulfillment of God's special plans for his people and for the whole world.
Hebrews 10:5-10
This is the season when we recall Christ coming into the world. Our recollection and celebration tend to be all about the Incarnation (that is, the Christmas event). This passage from Hebrews, however, takes a different tack. "When Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired....' " That won't sound like part of the Christmas story to most of the people in our pews.
In the Old Testament lection for this Sunday, we are reminded that Christ's birth fulfilled Micah's prophecy concerning Bethlehem. And that is a familiar part of the Christmas story and celebration. The writer of Hebrews reminds us, though, that Christ's coming also fulfilled other prophecies (specifically, in this case, Psalm 40:6-8).
Hebrews' hermeneutic may be unfamiliar to the people in our pews. We are perhaps more accustomed to Old Testament prophecies that are plainly and deliberately predictive. When Isaiah, for example, says that a girl will conceive, give birth, and name her child Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14), we easily recognize that as a prophecy. Or when Micah declares that a ruler will come forth from Bethlehem, that too has the traditional sound of a prophecy. But the writer of Hebrews is taking the words of the psalmist from a thousand years B.C. and putting them in the mouth of Jesus. That may be a different use of scripture and a different understanding of prophecy than is familiar to us.
Perhaps the crux of the matter is this: Does a statement have to be a prediction in order for it to be fulfilled? Can a statement that does not consciously anticipate a future event somehow still be fulfilled by a future event? The early church clearly thought so, for they saw Christ all through the Old Testament, even in places, people, and statements that do not overtly look ahead.
In this case, as is the case for so much of the epistle, the writer of Hebrews uses an Old Testament passage to shed light on the cross of Christ.
During this quintessentially New Testament event -- Christmas -- the flesh-and-blood details of the Old Testament law's animal sacrifices seem far away and irrelevant. Yet the writer of Hebrews intrudes into our nativity scene and points back to the old, bloody altar in the tabernacle.
During the innocence, sweetness, and sentimentality of Christmas, Good Friday seems like a long way away. Yet the writer of Hebrews interrupts the happy, harmless scene and points ahead to the old, bloody cross.
It seems almost ghoulish to gaze at a newborn baby and give thought to how that baby will one day die. Of course, that is very much the spirit of Simeon's sober warning to Mary (2:34-35). It may be implicit in the gift of myrrh. And it strikes at the heart of the gospel message. Not every Gospel writer tells about Jesus' birth, but every Gospel writer tells at length about Jesus' death.
In our proclamation of Christ's coming into the world, we mustn't neglect the reason that he came. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15), and that by means of the sacrificial, atoning death described in our Hebrews passage.
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
Luke's Gospel is well-known for its attention to women and children. Luke seems to recognize characters and players in the story that the other Gospel writers miss or ignore. This passage is a lovely example of a scene we only do -- only could -- find in Luke: an episode with no men involved; just a friendly meeting of two women.
At the surface, it seems a very ordinary event: one woman visiting an out-of-town friend and relative, and the two sharing the mutual joy of their pregnancies. In fact, however, the event is quite extraordinary, for the babies they carry together represent the inauguration of the coming kingdom of God.
I have watched with wonder when my wife has been pregnant. From the very early stages, she seems to be mysteriously in touch with the child in her womb, sensitive to all its tiny movements and experiences.
Elizabeth was well along in her pregnancy when Mary came to visit, and so her baby's movements were unmistakable. And when Elizabeth's baby heard Mary's voice, Elizabeth clearly sensed his reaction. The scene becomes marvelously celebrative, as the infant John leaps, Elizabeth gives voice to his joy with her exclamation, and Mary breaks into a song of praise.
How different was this scene from the one Mary left behind in Nazareth? One can only imagine that this happy greeting -- and this recognition of the Child she carried -- was a refreshing change from the understandable skepticism of the folks back home. How much murmuring and finger-pointing had Mary begun to endure back in Nazareth? How much speculation? How much condemnation?
We may get a sense for Mary's experience in Nazareth when Luke writes that "she set out with haste." We might also surmise that she went to Elizabeth as perhaps the only person Mary knew who would naturally understand a miraculous pregnancy. And we may get a sense for what a refreshing change Elizabeth's response was for Mary when we read Mary's ebullient reaction. Note that she had not responded with such enthusiasm a few verses earlier in the event we call the Annunciation (1:26-38). Her response to the angel is brave and obedient, but not enthusiastic.
As I consider Elizabeth's emotional importance to Mary, I am reminded of Paul and Barnabas. Immediately following his conversion, Paul remained an object of scorn and suspicion among the early Christians. How much finger-pointing and speculating did he suffer? And how refreshing to have Barnabas step forward, to recognize and believe what God had done in his life, and to welcome him in.
Elizabeth (and her baby!) believed and confirmed what God was doing in Mary's life, in Mary's body. She was Mary's Barnabas, Mary's "son of encouragement."
Application
There are other new and interesting directions a preacher might go with the selected passages for this Sunday. Still, as our people come to church on this Sunday before Christmas, surely our primary calling must be to declare the person and work of Christ. Who he is and what he did are central to all three of this week's lections.
The three selected passages set side by side might be treated as separate eye-witnesses, each giving a description to a police sketch artist. Would the three resulting sketches look like the same person?
Micah describes a king whose strong reign is marked by peace and security. Hebrews, by contrast, shows a person whose body is offered as a sacrifice. And Elizabeth's testimony in Luke ("the mother of my Lord") confirms the angel's word to Mary that the baby she carries is God himself.
The pictures seem quite different, yet they all do bear witness to the same Person, and therein lies some of the beauty of the gospel.
The classic Epiphany hymn, "We Three Kings," captures the multifaceted truth nicely. After offering a poetic explication of each of the three gifts, the hymn summarizes the person and work of Christ as "King and God and sacrifice." This is the combined testimony of the three scriptural witnesses we have before us this week. And this is the marvelous Visitor to our world whom we celebrate at Christmas time. Our world still needs to hear the whole truth about him proclaimed clearly by you and me.
Alternative Applications
1) Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55). Matthew's Gospel records the arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem (Matthew 2:1-8). They had followed the star for so many miles, all the way from their far-off homes in the East. When they arrived in Jerusalem, however, their pilgrimage hit a snag. Where was the one born to be king of the Jews?
Bethlehem is just a few miles from Jerusalem. The Wise Men were very near their destination, but they weren't quite there yet. Was the star an imprecise guide, and is that why they came up short of the actual place where Christ was? Or was it their own preconceived notions that prompted them to stop in Jerusalem -- after all, the capital and throne of the present king (Herod the Great) were in Jerusalem, and so surely that must be the place where the new king of the Jews would be born.
Whatever the reason, the Wise Men, with their mixture of science and astrology, had gotten most of the way to Christ, but they had not found him yet.
Once in Jerusalem, making their provocative inquiries, the Wise Men were brought before Herod and his court. They asked where the baby was who was born to be king of the Jews. Herod shows a startling understanding of what is going on, asking the chief priests and scribes where the Messiah was to be born. In response, they cite the Micah passage. And that bit of guidance is just enough to complete the quest of the Magi.
It is a significant point for us as preachers that these men, who enjoyed guidance that was either divine or scientific or both, still needed scripture and other people in order to find Christ.
Moreover, the Micah passage (with its Magi usage) and the Luke passage combine to illustrate again the poignant reality of how much we human beings need one another in our relationships with God. Mary had heard God's plans for her directly from an angel, but her response to the angel was rather muted in comparison to the song she burst into at Elizabeth's house. How essential it was for her to have that flesh-and-blood confirmation of God's plan for her. And, likewise, the Magi had come so far on their own, but they could not complete their journey without the aid of those anonymous Bible experts in Jerusalem.
From the Garden of Eden where it was not good for Adam to be alone, to Jesus' promises for two or three gathered in his name, to our own experience of nurture and fellowship, the lovely reality is that we need other human beings. Even in what seems to be the exclusively vertical relationship we have with God, still we need the horizontal relationships with other people. They introduce us to him, they teach us about him, they inform our understanding of his will, and they share our journey with him. The Magi needed the scribes, Mary needed Elizabeth, and we need one another.
2) Luke 1:39-45. A brief reference in Luke's account of Mary's encounter with Elizabeth reminds us of the most forgotten and overlooked character in the Christmas story. He does not appear in our nativity scenes or our Christmas pageants. In preaching the Christmas story year after year, we consider, examine, and imagine every other player in the Christmas event. Songwriters, preachers, and the authors of children's books have even given lengthy consideration to the animals that may have been part of the Christmas story. Meanwhile, one of the most important Persons in the Christmas story remains largely neglected. The Holy Spirit.
Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit (1:41) when Mary came to visit, and that prompted her critically important proclamation about Mary and her child. Later, Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah, is filled with the Holy Spirit (1:67), and he spoke of God's plan and the role of his newborn son. Later still, Simeon is led by the Spirit (2:25, 27) to the Christ child, and he, too, makes a proclamation about God's salvation.
Most important of all, it is the Holy Spirit who makes Christmas happen (see 1:35). The angel explains it to Mary, and we affirm it each time we recite the Apostles' Creed ("conceived by the Holy Spirit").
Luke makes a point of including the Holy Spirit in his telling of the Christmas story, and so should we.
3) Luke 1:39-45. The Christmas event opened to mixed reviews. Matthew reports that Joseph had early misgivings. We see that Mary, too, was at least perplexed, if not worse. The shepherds' initial reaction was fright. And Herod was tragically violent in his response.
On the other hand, of course, there was the adoration of the Magi, the eventual joy of the shepherds, and the delight of Simeon and Anna.
But the first person to recognize Jesus with rejoicing was John the Baptist. While others in the audience looked about nervously, John was the first to applaud. Others took a while to warm up to the Good News, but John recognized it immediately.
The sage observation is that we do not judge truly great art; it judges us. If I say that I am not impressed by a masterpiece, that is not a reflection on the art; it is a reflection on me. So it is that John's in utero reaction to Jesus tells us something not only about Jesus, but it tells us also something about John.
We come to discover later in the Gospel accounts the importance of John. Indeed, his significance may be indicated in part by the fact that all four Gospel writers include him in their story (though not all four tell about Christmas). Still, his strange role in Luke's Christmas story makes him a kind of example for us.
Herod stands for those in every generation who outright oppose Jesus. His scribes represent those religious folks who manage to know about Jesus and yet remain essentially indifferent to him. And Joseph's early reaction reminds us of the people whose first instinct is to calculate the embarrassment and inconvenience Jesus will cause. But John is the exemplary one -- the Christmas hero -- who, upon hearing, "leaped for joy." May his example be our pattern, both at Christmas and throughout our lives.
