The Birth Preached at the Wollaston Congregational Church On December 24th, 2017 Scripture: Luke 2 In my family, each generation of children heard the Christmas story from the time they were old enough to listen. The Grandparents made sure that there were children’s bibles and other stories of Jesus’ birth for every different age and stage. And so there was always an age-appropriate version ready to go for the holy season. Our niece, Christina, grew up in the countryside of Germany, familiar with the local farms. Once she began pony riding lessons she became a frequent visitor to the barn. It was around that time, when she was about 7, that her aunt offered to read her the Christmas story. “No thank you,” Christina replied, “I don’t like that story, it’s too dirty.” Christina knew the smell of the ban, she knew mucking out and feeding. She knew the humid air of animal breath, the crunch of the straw beneath her boots. Her answer to the story of a baby born in such a place was “no thank you.” I wonder how many of us today, if we were honest, would answer the same way. The inns in Bethlehem, the little known suburb of Jerusalem, were full at the time of Mary and Joseph’s visit. The Roman empire’s call for each man to return with his family to his ancestral home had packed the area with visitors. Imagine how many Jewish men were descended from the great King David, whose own humble beginning was also in Bethlehem. Mary’s labor pains began at this inconvenient time. And so, she and Joseph had been afforded a little privacy in the indoor/outdoor room of a local family, used to house their animals at night. Perhaps there was a donkey and a cow, if the family was fortunate, maybe few chickens. Mary and Joseph would have felt the humid animal warmth coming to greet them. There would be soft grunts and snuffles from their animal companions, hopefully bedded down for the night. We can hope that the host had refreshed the straw bedding, and that there were some blankets and a pallet for them to lie on. But, no, this is not the scrubbed-clean labor and delivery room of a modern hospital. But, the “uncleanliness” of the story isn’t only about the barn. There is another factor in this story that hardly ever receives a mention: the actual birthing of the child into this world. Photographer Natalie Lennard travels the world. She creates art that depicts birth from ancient to modern times, from the squalid conditions of the poor to the elaborate circumstances of famous. And so, she was curious about depictions of the birth of Jesus Christ. She had looked through centuries of art of the nativity, but could not find the moment of Mary actually giving birth to Jesus anywhere. The closest she came was a painting from 1891 by Julius Garibaldi, showing Mary and Joseph slumped in exhaustion following the birth. And so she decided to take on a project to show Mary actually bringing Jesus into the world. [1] Lennard wanted to get close to the true moment of birth and so she brought a cow, a donkey and a rooster, into a rustic stable in Tuscany, Italy. She chose Marta Razza, an Italian fashion model, to play Mary. In the photograph that Lennard captured, Marta’s mouth is open widein a shout of triumph as the man playing Joseph “catches” baby Jesus emerging into the world. Lennard wanted to do enough to make the scene believable without unnecessarily offending her religious friends. In my opinion the result is raw and yet beautiful, it is both real and holy. The stable is not sterile. Luke’s telling of Jesus’ being birthed in it is not sanitized. The moans and groans of labor, the pushing and the panting are a given. Perhaps there was anxiety, on Joseph’s face … a first time dad, unfamiliar with the birthing process. Mary had not done this for herself before, but perhaps was calmer. She had her instinct to guide her and surely she had been present as other women in her family gave birth. This past year, perhaps you have seen the video footage of tiny baby twins born to a Rohingya Muslim mother in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. They were born while their family was fleeing persecution Myanmar. Even in 2017, birth can happen in scary places, for women on the move. And in a few months, Kate Middleton, Prince William’s wife, will give birth to their third child in a private maternity wing of a London hospital that boasts the highest quality of care for patients experiencing both ‘straightforward’ and complex pregnancies.[2] All human beings, past and present, came into the world the same way the only variation being a surgical birth. Whether our mothers had access to the finest medical care, or they birthed on the road, desperately seeking a place to stay, delivery is much the same. To date, there is no other way for a human being to begin life than within a human womb. And so, my question for us, tonight, is: how close to the manger will we approach this year? How near are we willing to come to witness our savior going through the universal process of birth? Perhaps some of us are ready to come near, to connect intimately with Holy One crying out, wet and slippery, rapidly wrapped in the swaddles. Perhaps you can bear his vulnerability. But I think that some who may prefer to stay back today. I understand. The pain, the blood, the cries of struggle and of joy… the infant searching and latching on to nurse for the first time. This isn’t for everyone. For some, this story is too earthy, too real. Perhaps you’ve spent too many hours, these past months, weeks or days, in the hospital or the nursing home. Perhaps you’ve spent too many nights in a crowded, noisy homeless shelter. Perhaps the pains you’ve experienced this past year have not led to life, but to loss. I understand, and of course God understands. But … here is the thing. How close we are willing to come to the manger is not what really counts. It is how close God is willing to come to us. That is what this story, this earthy, dirty story, is about. It’s about the creator of the universe unable to resist coming into the world by means of a humble mother’s womb. It is about our God in Christ, so longing for closeness to the beloved creation, that Christ comes to us as a vulnerable newborn. It’s about our God taking the same route as a refugee mother, to give birth in a stable. And, whether or not we dare approach, God in Christ has come to meet tonight in our real, and raw reality. May all of God’s people say, Amen. [1] http://www.birthundisturbed.com/the-creation-of-man [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2360171/Kate-Middleton-birth-Royal-baby-private-maternity-wing-Prince-William-born.html#ixzz51efb9O97
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