“Do Not Be Afraid”

Luke 2:1-20

December 24, 2005

We have come tonight to join together as the community of faith to worship God, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and to once again hear the story of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Regardless of how many times we hear it, the story of Christ’s birth continues to speak to us in profound ways.

It is an old, familiar story, a story we have known since our childhood, a story that whether we are young or old continues to give us comfort and assurance. We never tire of hearing about Mary and Joseph, Shepherds and Angels, and the baby Jesus. These characters have become the familiar faces of old friends, companions through whom we share the Christmas story, a story that allows us to experience, if even for a short while, the hope, peace, joy, and love of God in Jesus Christ.

And yet, whenever I hear this story, I cannot help but think about how much I have domesticated it over the years of hearing it. I cannot help but think about how my tendency is to turn this story into a sentimental story with no real theological significance that allows me to step out from the reality of life in the present back into my childhood memories of the past.

And yet, this story, this Christmas story of the annunciation and birth of Jesus Christ, is much more significant than I have at times permitted it to be, or at times even wanted it to be. This story is not meant to be just another Christmas decoration to be pulled out and dusted off for this night only, this story is meant to be heard and read at all times, for it points us toward that which is eternal.

We may think of the Christmas story in a “Bible picture book” kind of way, with everything nice and neat and perfect, with larger than life characters who are impervious to life’s ups and downs, but the Christmas story is much more realistic than that, much more human than that. There is a painting in the Tate Gallery in London painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Annunciation. His painting of the moment when Mary was visited by the angel is not an image of a prayerful, pious, calm girl, who is eager to carry out her extraordinary call. Rosetti’s Mary is portrayed as frightened and vulnerable, sitting on a bed pressed against the wall as though she is trying to escape the angel who has entered her room – this angel from heaven with his strange message that would change her life, and her world, forever.

In many ways, Rossetti’s painting captures for us the true reality of this amazing story, the true reality of real people having to live in the tension between life as it was with a God who sat upon the throne in heaven distant and separate, and life as it now will be with a God who has chosen to be present with them in the midst of life. It is living in this tension which can leave us fearful and vulnerable, fearful of what the future may hold, fearful about the new things God is doing, fearful of the new reality of God’s presence in our lives of faith.

This Christmas story is a story about a moment in the life of an unwed, pregnant young women and her fiancée having to travel in the most vulnerable time in a women’s life, near the time of giving birth, across rough terrain in a desperate search for suitable lodgings, a story about the birth of a baby, not in the warm and comfortable birthing suite of a hospital, but in an animal barn with a feeding trough for a bed, a story of ordinary people in an occupied country living under the heavy hand of Roman rule having to cope with a difficult and uncertain situation. And yet, this story is about more than that, it is the story about the one who came to be with us in the midst of life, with all of its inconsistencies, with all of its difficult and uncertain situations, even with all of its fear and doubts.

It is the story about the one who came not just to the ones who were perfect or who had everything together, but also to the ones who did not have all the answers, who were not the privileged and powerful of society, who were the least, the lost, the left out. The Creator and Sustainer of the world, the Almighty and Sovereign God came not in the pomp and circumstance, not in power and royal splendor, but as a helpless baby, in a humble setting, as one of us, as a human being.

God came as one of us to be one with us and for us in the midst of human life, so that everyone: the high and the low, the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner, would never have to be afraid again, would never have to be afraid life’s uncertainties and inconsistencies, never have to be afraid of the unknown, never have to be afraid of the future, never have to be afraid of being apart from God’s presence.

“Do not be afraid!” These words spoken by the angel to Mary and again by the angels to the shepherds are the words of assurance and comfort spoken whenever God has come to save God’s people. They are the words that echo throughout the Bible that point us to the good news of God’s presence in the midst of life, of God’s grace and favor toward the world, of God’s reconciling and saving power at work. These words are the divine words of invitation that invite us to go and see for ourselves the one born for us, to take hold of the new reality of God’s personal and communal presence in our lives through him, to go and proclaim the good news we have seen and heard about the one who is Emmanuel – God with us, the one who is the Savior, Messiah, Christ the Lord. Amen.