Responding Now

Luke 2:1-21

Dear Friends,

Savoring the Christmas story and allowing time to pass alongside it isn’t something we do as humans. We tend to rush through the words, sliding past the details because we already know them. We know Mary was an impoverished teenage girl who probably felt ill-equipped for the task to raise a future king and God-child. Maybe she wondered if her son would come out looking like Apollo or some other Greek god and had a bit of anxiety giving birth. I wonder if Joseph worried if he could love the son he was committed to but wasn’t biologically related to. I wonder if Mary and Joseph felt bitterness well up in them as they traveled 90 miles during her last month of pregnancy, away from Mary’s mother and trusted midwives to find Joseph’s people and family couldn’t make appropriate space for them to stay. I wonder if Bethlehem had more Roman soldiers policing the town with watchful eyes ready to stop mischief. I wonder if the smells from this crowded town made Mary’s stomach turn while her back ached from the long journey, desperate to find some rest.

I wonder a lot in this story because that’s what happens when we savor the words, setting a simple pace, and slowly imagine ourselves alongside them. 

These were real people from a real time that, incredibly, still impacts us in real ways today.

The Church and religious people have long distilled this story and all stories of Jesus Christ into a formula to follow, like just say this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart and then you’ll go to heaven when you die. Friends, Jesus isn’t a formula to follow but invites you into a way of being, not a way of memorizing.

There is no formula to follow and Jesus is no equation to master. When the angels declared good news of great joy for all the people, it was because God was inviting all people into an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ, marked by loving people that are easy to love and those that are hard to love. 

But another thing I love about this story we just read is that there’s no formula in how someone should respond. There’s no right way or wrong way to encounter God’s presence. The angels sing loudly, lighting up the night sky with shouts of praise announcing the good news that God had slid into the vulnerability of skin as an infant, still slippery from amniotic fluid. God has drawn near, so they shout and sing and chant, “Glory to God in the highest!”

Is that how we’re meant to respond to God? Like the angels? 

And then we see the shepherds meeting Mary and Joseph and the infant and they’re all filled with such ridiculous joy they cannot contain that they run through the streets, skipping through Bethlehem, whooping and hollering and waking the dead with their ruckus.

Is that how we’re meant to respond to God? Like the shepherds?

And then we see Mary, sore from every pressure filled contraction and aching from giving birth, exhausted from pushing, sleepy and satisfied and so proud of her body and what her body was able to do. The text says that Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. She savored each moment, absolutely present to the wonder of it all.

Is that how we’re meant to respond to God? Like Mary? 

And what about Joseph? He doesn’t seem to take up space in this story, but I don’t think he’s some footnote we’re meant to ignore just because he’s not mentioned much. I wonder about Joseph’s response. Did he take it all in from the sidelines, never bringing attention to himself? Never the charismatic, it seems like Joseph responded to God through his loyalty, bringing steady groundedness into the room.

Is that how we’re meant to respond to God? Like Joseph?

The Christmas story beckons us to answer, how will we respond? 

But friends, this is the wrong question because it’s not about how we will respond towards God. It’s about how God has responded to us. God knew there was nothing we could do to make our way to God, so God made God’s way to us. There is a fundamental need in human beings to seek after God and God made that seeking simplified in Christ. Everything in this story is one where God came near to us in the most vulnerable way. God could have arrived in a palace with royal, wealthy, and powerful parents. God could have began from a place of influence. But instead, God showed up in hard places and difficult situations and impossible circumstances because God wants to be with you in those things too. God first responded to you and your need and then invites you to respond to God’s love. 

And friends, there is no perfect or right way to respond. It’s simply an invitation. 

Merry Christmas.

With (love),
Bethany