Isn't it Obvious?

It is the rare person who has had their life publicly chronicled since birth.

I’m thinking of people like Caroline Kennedy or Prince William, which means that future biographers have a plethora of print and video to scour. Their problem is the reverse of ancient biographers—today’s writers have too much information to sift and glean.

Luke had no such documentation when he wrote the story of Jesus’ birth from the perspective of cross to crib. He knew how Jesus’ life ended, and although a generation had already passed since the crucifixion, the end of life experiences of Jesus were well planted, some could argue flourishing. Somewhere along the line, someone had to ask, “Where did this guy come?”

It happens all the time – someone does something noteworthy and sooner or later, the media quickly pastes together a retrospective on their life – perhaps visiting hometowns, interviewing teachers and classmates, digging up yearbook photos and write-ups, etc. By now, the routine is almost predictable. Many times that’s done with the slant of digging up factors that might point to the current events or circumstances.

Luke did the same thing; yet in a somewhat unpredictable way.

Luke probably couldn’t come up with many details about Jesus’ birth – and that’s in large part – the point. Given the details and sequence that he does employ, scholars surmise that he was trying to ground the birth narrative on three distinct levels: religious, secular, and symbolic.

The religious, prophetic history of the Hebrew people, as fulfilled in Jesus, is not a thesis for Luke to establish but is rather a way of telling the story, of weaving old and new together as one fabric. No characteristic of this gospel is more pronounced that the insistence on the continuity of Judaism and Christianity. The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures tell one story, not two. God is not starting over with Christians, having failed with the Jews. For Luke, every believer – Gentile and Jew alike, can properly say, “Abraham and Sarah are my father and mother.”

The second level is secular history. Luke pins the birth of Christ to the backdrop of a census. Much ink has been spilled in the debate over the accuracy or existence of such a wide-scale event – yet regardless of that outcome – Luke’s intention in clear: to tie the secular and sacred worlds together. Religion is not a realm unto itself; it is a factor of all of life. The world is God’s, and the gospel is for God’s world. Mary’s baby is God’s “yes” to the whole world.

And the third level is symbolism. Why wouldn’t Luke just do what his predecessor Mark did – have Jesus the adult man, a follower of John the Baptist, begin his ministry after John was shut down? Why would Luke take pains to present a picture of a baby? One possible answer is that perhaps it was to convey that God’s child was vulnerable as every infant is vulnerable, was subject to all the conditions under which we all live, and fully identified with every human being’s need for love. That same baby birthed in a non-descript way basically went unnoticed.

Unnoticed, that is, except for the attention of some who they themselves were an inconsequential bunch.

Shepherds in a field outside of Bethlehem, the poor and overlooked of that and every society.

Shepherds were not just materially poor – they also suffered poor reputations. They were the “Squeegee Guys” of the 1^st century. You remember the squeegee guys in New York City – up until former Mayor Giuliani put them out of business, they’d rush up to the car while stopped at an intersection, smear dirty water on the windshield and then harass the driver for payment? Shepherds, for multiple reasons, were treated both religiously and socially as “non-persons.” They qualify easily as the least likely to have found God’s favor.

Yet that’s kind of a theme of the Bible – folks who are least likely finding favor with God.

Yet, here’s where God made a mistake.

Any C- marketing student knows that in the public’s perception – the messenger is as important as the message. If one wants to announce an event – an earth changing event at that – then one doesn’t use Squeegee Guys to tell it!

Why would anyone listen to a bunch of smelly shepherds? Surely the Creator of the Universe could have figured out a more dramatic way of getting the message out!

But that’s re-writing history and the story we have is the story we have.

The shepherds, minding their sheep and their own business, in the foothills outside of Bethlehem are told that the Messiah has been born and they’ll find the baby wrapped like every other newborn and they’ll find him in an animal’s feed trough. What would be more common, more ordinary, more non-descript to a bunch of people who tend animals for a living than a manger? They were looking for something common to them and non-descript to the rest of the world.

This was not a case of earth looking to heaven – this was heaven looking to earth. This was a case of the extraordinary pointing to the ordinary. When the shepherds finally did make it to that manger – it was a time that heaven and earth met – each witnessing each other.

And that’s exactly where we find ourselves this morning – heaven and earth staring right at each other each wondering what to make of the other – wondering who would believe it if we told ‘em.

Why would anyone today believe a message of “peace” any more than they believed the arrival of a savior as told by the shepherds?

Peace? In today’s world? Shalom in the Middle East, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Nigeria, in Indonesia, in America, in Camden, in Wilmington, in our families, in our own lives, deep within our soul? Shalom – a wholeness of life that’s somehow made possible when all the forces of our lives mystically and precariously find balance?

Yet that’s the unlikely message told folks nobody would believe: “and on earth, peace.”

It’s still the message – and today – we’re the folks nobody would believe.

It is a hope of the Gospel that somehow this non-descript birth of a vulnerable baby, who grew into a most extraordinary person, might somehow change the people we are.

It is a hope of the Gospel that the realization of God’s love for humanity as made known to us in the teachings, actions, and resurrection spirit of Christ might fill us with some degree of gratitude.

It is a hope of the Gospel that the embodiment and expression of that gratitude might be visible; that we would love one another in a way inconsistent with our greed-based DNA, and that people would equate “Christian” with “Shalom.”

It is a hope of the Gospel that as we proclaim the message of Christmas, that God came among us as an ordinary child, that when someone should ask, “why would anyone believe them?” that the answer would be, “isn’t it obvious?”

Amen!